The proposed Ward Village Gateway towers define the center of an ambitious plan for a 60-acre sustainable development located along the coast in Honolulu’s Kaka’ako district. All aspects of the design respect and respond to the site’s extraordinary natural beauty, combining distinctive architecture, with generous public spaces and diverse amenities to activate a vibrant new civic center in the heart of the city.
The two towers, one taking the form of a blade and the other a cylinder, define the core of the master plan and establish the development’s iconic waterfront presence. The thin, 36-story blade-shaped tower is aligned with the modern high-rises of downtown Honolulu and simultaneously engages the region’s historic urban fabric. The 29-story, cylinder-shaped tower, provides a balanced counterpoint to the dynamic blade shape, establishing an architectural transition between city and ocean. The facades of both towers make extensive use of integrated exterior shading elements and large sheets of crystal-clear glass, which symbolically reflect the purity of Hawaiian water and the surrounding natural landscape.
The project’s many sustainably initiatives include the revitalization of the area’s natural spring, which was once a vital part of the local ecology but has long been hidden by decades of urban development. This restored waterway will flow through a new publicly accessible estuary between the towers.
