The Tanzanian island of Zanzibar is to be the site of a 70-storey spiral-shaped building that will be the tallest in Africa after Egypt’s Iconic Tower, newspaper The Citizen reports.
The $1.3bn Zanzibar Domino Commercial Tower is being developed on an artificial island by Tanzania’s AICL Group and Edinburgh-based investment company Crowland Management.
The design, by xCassia – an architecture, design and branding firm based in New York and Dubai – is similar to a Domino tower proposed for Ha Long Bay in northeast Vietnam (pictured) that was brought to a halt by the pandemic.
The 370,000 sq m mixed-use development is composed of 360 “dominos” curled around a yachting marina. It will contain 560 residential apartments and two luxury hotels.
Youssef Amour, the executive chairman of AICL group, commented that the aim was to build “one of Africa’s first truly iconic global destinations for tourism, entertainment, culture and conferencing”.
Jean-Paul Cassia, the architect’s founder, said the design came to him 2009, after he played a game of dominos with his father and two sons.
He said: “I dreamed of building this project for over a decade. Between its innate mathematical order and geometries found in nature, its pure lines and proportions that evoke growth, progress and freedom, it had all the bearings of an icon anyone could remember and draw on a paper napkin. all it lacked was the right visionary investor and site to make it come true.”
No date has been announced for the beginning of work on the Zanzibar tower.
Image: xCassia’s rendering of the Domino tower concept
