For "Duas Towers," two towers, one square and the other circular, OODA proposes three blocks that define the buildings, all with an identical composition: a horizontal slab at the base, a vertical slab rising above it, and a second horizontal slab that returns at the top to complete the composition.
The rodhe, a traditional motif in Albanian carpets, appears as a stepped figure that determines the descent of the silhouette, the layout of the tapestry, and the rhythm of the reliefs. Sharp elements protrude from the tesserae, guiding the eye, creating shadows, and adding depth to the reliefs.
"Duas Towers" by OODA. Rendering by OKDRAW.
Project description by OODA
What does a place give back when it begins with attention? Here, a stone. The concept asked for a material that would give way to the landscape rather than set itself against it, and rather than import one, we went through the country's own geology: metamorphic rock in the inland ranges, igneous rock nearer the coast, limestone and sandstone across the lowlands. Eight stones were examined. The one that answered was sixty kilometres away. Tomorri marble is almost unveined, so it takes the colour of the hills across the bay. The building is made of the landscape it stands in.
Three blocks, two functions
Three blocks state the building: a horizontal slab at the base, a vertical slab standing on it, and a second horizontal slab returning at the top to close the composition. The towers take their name from the pairing, duas being the Portuguese word for two.
The concept starts with a prismatic stone block in two positions. Laid on its bed, it is asked to work in bending, which stone does least willingly. Stood on end, it works in compression, which is what stone has always done best. Lintel and pier, the two conditions of every masonry wall ever built, obtained here by turning a single element through ninety degrees. From this pair follow the plan, the elevation and the section.
The element is not a design. It is the shape in which the stone leaves the quarry: a rectangular block, sawn from the bench, stacked with others like it. The project does no more than set it down in two positions.
The composition is identical in both towers. What differs is the plan: one is quadrangular, thirty metres by twenty-five, the other a circle twenty-six metres across. The same stone element, the same three positions, resolved once against a corner and once against a curve. The pairing is what the name records.
Repeated across a field, one figure turning against the next, the elevations give the geometry the project draws from the weaving of southern Albania. The rrodhe, a traditional rug motif, enters as a stepped figure rather than as ornament, and that figure governs the descent of the silhouette, the sorting of the cladding and the rhythm of the elevations.
The elevation
Tomorri white marble clads the towers throughout. Bladed elements stand proud of the slab edge, shaping the views, taking the low sun off the glass and lending the elevations a depth that migrates through the day as their shadows travel across the stone. At the corners the mass steps out beyond its supports, the load returned to the frame by prestressed concrete beams.
Because the marble carries almost no colour of its own, the elevations change with the hour rather than with the material: cool at first light, the colour of the hills across the bay by late afternoon, almost the colour of the sky at dusk. Not to vanish, but not to assert itself either.
The site
Four intentions shape the massing. The views are moulded toward the sea, the setbacks answer the proximity of the neighbouring buildings, the footprints are refined to the irregular geometry of the two plots, and the ground floor is left open to public life. Both towers rise to ninety-eight metres over twenty-four floors and a rooftop, matched in height and distinguished only in plan. Sun-path analysis fixed the position of each volume so that neither obstructs the other's light.
The section
Circulation is separated by programme, with dedicated cores for residential, hotel and restaurant access. The section stacks parking and services below grade, commercial uses at street level, hotel floors, residential floors, and a skybar and restaurant on the roof. At the ground, gardens of Hungarian oak, sycamore and myrtle mediate between the buildings and the surrounding streets. On the roof, only what survives a dry summer without help: wild olive, rosemary, sage, mountain tea, lavender and Albanian spurge.
Materials
The question asked of the cladding was asked of everything behind it. Three routes are under study for the binder, each replacing a share of the cement: metakaolin at thirty per cent, blast-furnace slag at forty, and Seratech silica at thirty. Part of the coarse aggregate is to be replaced with material recovered from demolition and street works nearby, crushed concrete, reclaimed asphalt pavement and recycled glass, so that a share of the structure and all of the cladding are drawn from the same ground.
The envelope follows the same logic. Gypsum board and extruded polystyrene are replaced by biobased alternatives: hemp-clay boards, wood fibre boards and insulation, and cellulose from recycled paper, which regulate humidity and resist fire without the embodied carbon of the materials they stand in for. Rain is collected and used again, for occupants and for the irrigation of the planting on site. The work is organised under four themes: energy and water management, health and wellbeing, biodiversity, and the choice of materials.
