Foster + Partners’ National Bank of Kuwait headquarters completed

Foster + Partners recently completed the new headquarters of the National Bank of Kuwait, in Kuwait City. The skyscraper – 300 meters high and located in the financial district of the city, Sharq – combines sustainable features and structural innovation, developing with a form that allows it to obtain high energy efficiency and passively protect its inner space from the extreme characteristics of Kuwait’s climate.

The sixty-three floors of the tower are punctuated by sky lobbies, which act as a social aggregator for employees and offer meeting spaces. At the tower's base, an 18-meter-high lobby greets employees and visitors. The eighteenth-floor houses a spectacular double-height restaurant; the nineteenth a gym, and on the thirty-eighth there is a ballroom and an auditorium. The director's office is at the top of the tower, with an iconic skylight that traces an arch into the space and offers a panoramic view of the city and the coast.

The design maximizes the surface of the upper levels, thus providing automatic shading formed by the overhang of the flooring. The curved facade on the North offers a view of the Arabian Gulf. Utilizing both passive and active measures water consumption is reduced, energy use is minimized and the indoor air quality is improved.