CASE STUDY - Azerbaijan Flame Towers

摘要

Inspired by Azerbaijan's ancient history of fire worshipping, the Flame Towers were designed to act as an eternal flame for modern Baku. The concept for the buildings, on a hill overlooking the Caspian Sea, represented a leap of faith in the development of the Baku region. With the construction phase of the three separate towers reaching 650ft tall taking from 2007 to 2012, the project aimed to create a low-resolution media facade to display video content, while integrating inconspicuous lighting fixtures into existing architecture. Costed at around $350 million US, only now has the full scale and investment of the towers been fully realised. As an iconic project breaking new ground in tall buildings, the Flame Towers presented numerous safety challenges, not least of which was the fire protection of the steel structure itself. Each tower was to have a different function, with the south tower offering a residential area, a hotel in the north tower providing 318 rooms over 36 floors, and the west tower setting out 33,000m~2 of class A commercial office space.