The Scorpion Tower

The exoskeleton of Zaha Hadid’s Scorpion Tower, officially known as One Thousand Museum, is created using glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC). Typically used as a decorative covering, these GFRC panels are instead being used as formwork — a mold for the concrete — to help support the structure and to create the smooth, luxurious finish from Hadid’s design.

The Scorpion Tower’s head of interiors, Mark Morabito, must conduct a floor-by-floor inspection of the building every day. However, due to the build’s unique curved design, no two floors are the same, and it’s during one of these inspections that Mark spots an alignment issue with the lights and sprinklers.

To help transport construction materials and builders to different floors of the Scorpion Tower, the team uses two elevators attached to the building, known as buck hoists. Though the buck hoists are meant to ease the building process, the crew encounters a dilemma when they discover that the buck hoist tower has begun to lean away from the building.