DESIGN CONCEPT
Located in the heart of Kigali central business district, the new MMI headquarters is a ninth-stories mixed use building designed to accommodate space for retails, MMI offices, and rentable office space. The contemporary and innovative glass, the open green terraces, and Aluminium aerofoil sun shading devices represent the building’s most prominent design features. By using innovative design technologies instead of opaque materials, the ninth stories office building will mitigate the intense heat gain and glare from the eastern and western sun radiation.
The main idea is to create a new type of office building that will not only accommodate the MMI headquarters but also attract major national or international prime tenants. The building incorporates ample parking for 30 cars and some retail spaces at the lower ground floor level, retails and restaurant on the upper ground floor and offices on the upper floors. To break the barrier between the outside and inside, to maximize the view to the surrounding magnificent sky line and minimize the daily energy usage, we are using current glass technology and a high-performant curtain wall system, along with innovative shading to provide sun control.
MMI Gallery
The envelope exterior was designed to efficiently respond to not only the building’s orientation but also the aggressiveness of the Rwandan weather.Each façade works simultaneously with the others, showing a cohesive expression of the building’s relationship with its surrounding urban environment.
In the aim of providing healthy working environment, reducing stress and air pollutants, the office environment will feature indoor decorative plants. The proposed indoor plants for office spaces, walkways and the atrium, all known for their ability to purify indoor air by absorbing toxins from electronic equipment and other materials like carpet, will give a natural feel to the inside.
The project features an atrium starting from the ground floor all the way up to the roof. It pulls warm air out of the building by stack effect. The office spaces facing the inside are ventilated through the atrium. In addition, the atrium also allows sunlight to pass through the building, making the work environment more pleasing, and keeping the lighting costs down.
Furthermore, the building is cross ventilated via large openings on either sides oropen green terraces allowing a significant reduction of the cooling load.