Aspire Tower, Qatar

Project: Composite panelling
Location: Aspire Tower, Al Waab, Doha, Qatar
Client: Khalifa Sport City Development Committee
Architect: Hadi Simaan, AREP
Engineering Consultants: Arup
Facade Design: Midmac / Six Construct
Handover: 2007

​To create a stunning centrepiece for the 15th Asian Games in 2006, architect Hadi Simaan envisaged a beautifully curvaceous 300 metre skyscraper in the shape of a torch, topped by a symbolic flame. Ten years later, Aspire Tower – also known as The Torch Doha – forms the hub of Doha Sports City and remains the tallest structure in Qatar. Among the tower’s many features are health clubs, a five-star hotel across 17 floors, a three storey sports museum, a revolving restaurant and an observation deck, made possible with advanced, lightweight composite panelling from BFG.

Working in close partnership with the lead contractors, BFG developed high performance decorative panelling to clad three storeys of the tower’s soffit, in addition to its elliptical swimming pool. Fabricated using conventional hand-tooling and contact moulded, the single skin gel coated FRP panels are fire retardant to Class 1 BS476 Part 7.

To enable the hotel’s signature swimming pool to extend 12 metres out from the building, it cantilevers off the central core, as a 300 tonne concrete box. BFG’s parabolic matt-finished panels were painstakingly attached to the pool’s exterior structure at a height of 80 metres above ground level.