Olaya Tower

This project involves the fit-out, engineering and architectural reconfiguration of approximately 50,000.00 sq. m of office space on 36 storeys.
The new headquarters of the HRDF Human Resource Development Fund will be home to a staff of approximately 1,500 people. The design includes a host of supporting facilities including an auditorium, a floor for “reflection areas” and a mosque.
Office Concept
The levels for the offices (from the 18th to 36th floors) are arranged to subvert the classical concept of offices served by a central corridor in favour of a new interpretation of work: from the central nucleus the space flows toward the exterior façade, privileging spaces of relationship and shared work, rethinking the rigid “canonical” organization.
Service areas are located close to the core in a “thick wall” (a recurring theme in the work of Giovanni Vaccarini) that becomes a screen and container, gradually assuming the dimensions of a room (toilets, small areas for preparing meals).
The fluidity of space, the true theme of the project, is read in the wall finishes (in some cases moveable but always transparent) and in the sculpted ceiling (lacquered white): the tectonics of the desert are explicitly recalled through the use of shaped strips that recreate a kind of “inverted surface of desert dunes”. This complex system conceals the space reserved for the electrical system and assumes a twofold value: a simultaneously sculptural and purely functional element, a permeable interface.
At the uppermost floors, 35 and 36, the common themes of the design are present, though enhanced and enriched to suit a more privileged user, based on a division of tasks and roles typical of Eastern culture.
A series of “special” floors host public functions and services (fitness centre, open spaces for special events); an important role is given to the ground floor which features auditoriums, a kindergarten, a counter for job seekers and a banquet hall.
This space is also shaped by plastic sculptural/functional elements (used to conceal mechanical and electrical systems, storage and structural elements). Level changes are used to define and distinguish between various environments. Also in this case the treatment of surfaces, especially the ceiling, plays a fundamental role: in some cases in blanched oak veneer (auditorium), in others “clouds” of white lacquered fins (at the entrance), other times it is an open space, completely glazed and characterized by sculptural lights (banquet hall).

CREDITS

• Architectural Design: Giovanni Vaccarini Architetti

• Engineering and Project Management: Proger S.p.A.

• Client: HRDF Riyadh

• Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia