Salt Tower
Emotion on Communication
Most of the potable water in Qatar is desalinated seawater, a process that requires 5litres of oil per each cubic meter of treated water. Most desalination plants are located along the country’s west coast, resulting in theadjacent sea being approximately 30% more saline compared to the country’sremaining coastlines. Considering that Qatar is amongst the highest consumers of portable water in theworld, there is limited awareness amongst its population about the energy and adeptit requires to enable such consumption.The design of the Salt Tower was catalyzed by the above. Placed by Qatar’s west coast, the tower-design is surrounded by a salt farm, whichprovides the raw material – the bricks – that make up the bulk of the Salt Tower’s walls.Here, however, the tectonic support is, in a sense, ‘reversed’, and is actually providedby the gridded ‘mortar’ that surrounds the hollows that support the salt bricks.Maintaining this wall of salt would require constant upkeep. The salt farm provides thematerial, but human labour would be needed to both fabricate the bricks and to patchthe cavities resulting from seasonal rains and general erosion.