Located on a hilly promontory of Ashrafieh, Skygate provocatively completes what appears as an urban wall rising in this central area of Beirut. In a program requiring opulent residential units, the developer aims at offering a breakthrough in the Lebanese real estate market. Beyond the expected extravagance of noble materials the design capitalizes on detailing of skin, planters and playful manipulation of geometry. 

A simple yet intriguingly sculptural geometry is achieved by the superposition of four cubical volumes. Flanked by two blind walls of the adjacent buildings, the volumes move left and right leaving a series of large urban windows - a porous tower. This design gesture was the architect’s clear answer to the role assigned to him: to put in the last closing brick in the existing urban wall. 

Introducing the project is a convivial piazza, which leads the way to a 10 m high entrance lobby. Exceptional apartments stacked above are informed by distinctive indoor / outdoor environments ranging from 300 to 1500 sqm. These ‘villas in the sky’ offer 4m high living spaces bathed with light and over look the Lebanese mountains and Mediterranean Sea.

architecture: nabil gholam architects
structural design: Bureau d’Etudes Rodolphe Mattar
electro-mechanical design: Pierre Dammous & Partners
landscape design: Francis Landscapes ltd
lighting design: Maleh Design
building envelope consultants: Priedemann
lobby design: Peter Marino Architects
traffic consultancy: Sitram
wind studies: BMT fluids mechanics
acoustic consultant: Acousystem Liban
quantity surveyors: DG Jones
technical control: Apave Liban
project manager: CMA
contractor: MAN Entreprises
post-tensionning works: design & execution: Derviche Haddad PPB Structures-CCL Group
photography: Richard Saad