Prime Gate office building - Beirut central district - 2018 - Architecture

The mixed use building has a clearly distinguishable internal skeleton and external skin. The ground floor works as an entrance hall and restaurant space. Underground floors are designed for parking and technical equipment. Eight floors are used as offices, and the roof top floor is used as a restaurant. The large office space is ideal for both open-space and divided offices. Instead of a traditional central core providing structural stability, the building employs a full perimeter braced structure which defines the edge of the office floor plates. The circulation core is located in a detached block, containing stairs and lifts separated from the office block by a central atrium that become gradually bigger as the building gets higher. Generous, transparent stairwells and open connecting bridges enable rapid orientation within the building and create a variety of visual relationships for views in and out of the building. On the top floor, the atrium opens to a larger communication zone, through which the roof terrace of the building can be accessed. In addition to far reaching views over Beirut and the adjacent development area, the rooftop also serves as advanced workstation area during the warm season. One of the key elements of design was the strategy of flexible, adaptable and efficient office leasing space for the demanding and ever-evolving needs. Our objective was to eliminate imposing elements such as interior structural columns in order to free up net leasable space and offer total flexibility to adapt to changing needs of an enterprise. In response, the unique feature of the mixed use building lies in its visual and functional skin, which forms the shape of the building. The efficiency of the diagrid becomes the visual identity of the building. Façades to the office areas require the highest comfort criteria in relation to heat loss, daylight, glare control and solar gain. The façades are supplemented with an internal layer of double-glazing, forming a cavity which incorporates the structural frame. Controlled blinds in the cavity automatically adjust to limit unwanted solar gain and glare.