Marfaa office building - Beirut central district - 2016 - Architecture

A continuous loop, wraps a cubic volume at the periphery with a large roof garden on top. Located in Beirut Central district, on Charles Helou main Avenue, the 9-storey building integrates retail spaces at the ground and first floors, office spaces in its six upper floors, restaurant at the top level, while the five lower levels accommodate parking spaces and storage. The Mixed use complex is an act of urban reconciliation. It is conceived to knit together the dynamic life of the street to the panoramic vistas of the roof top. Wrapping escalators facilitates the flow between the various levels, running peripherally around the spaces and accessing transitional green areas at different levels visible from any public zone of the building. The social areas, are interspersed throughout the building to provide areas where can staff and users interact and relax. With resting and working stations dotted along the plantations, the coffee bar at the first floor and the restaurant at the top floor cater for a relaxed break. Shops line the base of the elevations, while the sequence of gardens and the mechanical walkways wrap the building. The façade skin is composed of white silk printed glass panels dotted with progressive transparency that help protect the building from the heat and glare of the sun, without interrupting the views out over the skyline of Beirut, the sea and the adjacent harbor. The edges of the blocks are marked by thin vertical lines, designed to emphasize the verticality of the building.