A TOWER in Kuwait has been fitted with a self-cleaning glass and aluminium facade that will improve the structure’s aesthetics while reducing maintenance costs, according to the system’s suppliers.

The ‘intelligent’ windows system for the Al Jawhara Tower in Kuwait City – which has 32 floors and rises to a height of 135 m – comes from Austria’s iku intelligente Fenstersysteme, a specialist in self-cleaning façade systems. All in all, 8,000 sq m of aluminium and glass façade and 2,000 unitised façade panels were fabricated and installed on site.
Following completion of the project, the facade of Al Jawhara – which means ‘jewel’ in Arabic – will wash itself at the touch of a button.
The facade’s electro-mechanical works include power and water feed lines, 100 motors with wipers, and electronic units which control the cleaning cycles.
iku says that with its system, the tower can be cleaned in under seven hours, compared to the several weeks or even months that it would take using traditional building maintenance units (BMUs). The company also points out that though its system costs more than a BMU system – at $390,000 compared to $260,000 – lower running costs and cheaper maintenance will enable the building’s owner to recover the additional expense in less than two years.
 iku’s local partner Al Ghanim Aluminium won the contract for the tower, while the British Link Kuwait Company (BLK) was the façade manufacturer on the project.