Index Tower

2006-2007 (Dubai, UAE)

Fluidity-DC • Project Designer

A new 80-story skyscraper designed by Norman Foster’s architecture practice requires the entire tall building’s foundation to be surrounded in a plaza of water.

At this time Fluidity had just finished a beautiful water feature within Foster’s highly regarded conversion to Hearst Tower in New York City:

We were then contacted to design the water feature for the Index. Cascading walls of water and surface pools were developed to protect the sunken entrance and create a cool, calm approach in a hot, arid landscape.

The Index is one of the first towers in the region to intelligently embrace its climatic surrounding environment within its fundamental design principles. The tower provides much needed shade to the plaza below. The plaza is open on one side to vehicular traffic and a drop off area, and framed on three sides in a grand two-story tall cascade. The space of the plaza is alive with the sounds of water from the cascades. The tower’s shade and the moisture from the waters combine to create a transformed microclimate of comfort and style.

“A great plaza, dressed in water, is conceived for the desert city of Dubai. ”