ALAMEIN DOWNTOWN TOWERS PROJECT

Lead Designers Qu Longsheng, Liu Huimin, Jiang Linyao, Yu You, Wang Hu, Zhang Wei

Entry Description

With a total floor area of 1.09 million sqm, the project consists of a 300-meter-high iconic tower, four ultra-high-rise residential buildings, supporting business facilities, and public landscape. Upon completion, the residential buildings will be listed among the top 10 tallest residential buildings in the world and will become the tallest ultra-high-rise residential developments with reinforced concrete structures in Africa.
The design team hopes to conceive the night view lighting for the landmark buildings of Alamein based on the city’s cultural context. The design is meant to showcase the city’s local features through lighting and the interaction between light and color. The intention of the lighting design is to create iconic night views that will bring an upbeat spirit to Alamein, where the wounds left by war are blossoming into life and hope.
At the initial stage of the lighting design, the designers focus on analyzing the architectural concept that places a 300-meter-tall main building in the heart of the complex while arranging four apartment buildings across a lake. The lighting design respects the architectural expression in detail. It carefully incorporates the outline of the “Flower Of Life”, a natural symbol for the buildings, and underlines the architectural features through a delicate yet simplistic lighting approach to convey hopes for a beautiful future.

Sustainability Approach

In the project, the design team adopts different levels of luminance for different facades. The design improves the luminance of the lakefront facades with media screens, allowing people on the islets on the lake or across the lake to experience the lighting effect, and creating a skyline that highlights the project as a landmark. Meanwhile, the lighting is controlled with DMX 512 to present different scenarios in different time while accommodating to the regular local schedule. Based on a principle that gives priority to nature and human beings, the design shows full respect to nature and sustainability in night view creation. With considerations to the needs of public activities in the evening and the positioning of the area in terms of night views, the design team takes a holistic approach to create the overall lighting environment for the project.