The building was the result of a limited design competition commissioned by Nice Day Developments. The client’s brief specified the design of a contemporary office tower with shops at ground level, offices on five levels and a basement parking place. The site is located within the commercial centre of Nicosia outside the Venetian walled city. Situated on a typical urban plot and surrounded by high buildings on three sides, with a limited west-facing street façade, the site posed serious constraints regarding the spatial strategies to be employed.
The functions are split into five parts: a) The shops at ground level, which act as a podium for the offices above, b) The atrium, which bisects the building on the east-west axis of the site, functions as the main circulation route, and defines the entrance to the offices, c) Four typical office floors, d) The penthouse on the top level with directors' suites and conference rooms, and e) The service tower with the vertical means of transport and services.
The main concern was to explore the spatial relationships between the different functions, as well as the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, and to devise a circulation pattern that both distinguishes and unifies the various functions and services. The final form of the building — five visible bodies integrated into a whole — explores the above relationships.
The basic structure is a concrete frame with a steel frame on the top floor. Fairface concrete, steel, aluminium, glass and stone clearly define the zones and functions of the building. An attempt was made to combine contemporary building methods with traditional materials, and this is reflected in the choice of local stone as an infill material in the curtain walling. The use of local tradesmen for the construction of the curtain walling made this experiment rather challenging.