Atkins’ Bahrain World Trade Centre set to complete

Atkins' Bahrain World Trade Centre is about to complete.

Atkins' Bahrain World Trade Centre, the focal point of a masterplan in the Gulf kingdom's capital of Manama, is about to complete.

The building comprises two 50-storey sail-shaped towers, which taper to a height of 240m and support three 29m-diameter horizontal-axis wind turbines.

The towers – which project from a three-storey sculpted podium accommodating a shopping centre, restaurants, a health club and parking facilities – are at the centre of a masterplan to rejuvenate Manama's City Gardens site.

The wind turbines take advantage of an unobstructed prevailing onshore breeze from the Gulf to provide energy for the project. They are predicted to generate between 1,100 and 1,300MWh a year, which will be around 11-15 per cent of the office towers' annual electrical energy consumption.

A spokesman for Atkins said the project 'is the world's first large-scale integration of wind turbines into a building'.