Marco Polo

Limassol, Cyprus

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Marco Polo

Limassol, Cyprus

Firm

UHA

Type

Residential › Multi Unit Housing

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2024

SIZE

25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET

$10M - 50M

Angled at almost 22° and reaching 12 storeys, Marco Polo is the product of client ambition, elegant engineering, and innovation through design. Marco Polo sits on the Limassol coastline 6 miles east of the city centre, next to the St Raphael Marina. It is a finalist in the Completed Buildings: Housing category at the World Architecture Festival 2024, and won the Residential Development (10–19 units) category at the European Property Awards 2024–2025. The 50 metre tower consists of south-facing luxury 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom duplex apartments.

The concept for this luxury development was developed in order to maximize south facing terraces. The local Cypriot norms allow for a limit of 25% of the overall internal area to be added as 'covered veranda' unless the terrace is open to the sky. In order to exceed the 25%, every floor was offset by 1.5 m to create a large area of 'uncovered terrace' on each floor and resulting in supersized sea-facing terraces on each floor.

The solution presented unique technical challenges in terms of structure and vertical transportation, which we addressed with a dual-core, a front (for the lower floors) and a rear core (for the highest floors) acting as the building’s structural spine.

The design of the structure, located in the highly seismically active region of Limassol, was made all the more challenging by resisting significant slope-induced horizontal shears and overturning moments due to gravity loading. To achieve the proposed slope of the building, the core is sized to resist the “lean” of the building under its own weight with the floor slabs acting as in-plane deep beams to transfer the storey shears from sloping columns/walls into the core.

Using post-tensioned slabs and the dual-core system to create the building’s lean, we further added double curve and compound curved cladding elements (Alucobond) to enable each floor to wrap around as it steps back away from the shoreline.

The result is a split tower angled at almost 22°, reaching 12 storeys in height with apartments ranging from luxury 2-bedrooms to large 4-bedroom penthouse duplexes. Each resident has a private cabana beside the 50-metre-long sea-facing pool that extends from inside the tower towards the ocean, overlooking St. Raphael Marina to the west.

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Marco Polo

Limassol, Cyprus

Marco Polo

Limassol, Cyprus

Product Spec Sheet

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