Abu Dhabi Investment Council Headquarters Towers / Aedas – Arup
The Abu Dhabi Investment Council Headquarters Towers designed by Aedas (the world’s fifth largest architecture firm) in collaboration with Arup will reach a height of 145m (476ft) and will be completed in 2012. The design occupies two sites at the Al Qurum Beach and will act as a gateway to the city providing working areas and private amenities for 2,000 people.
An innovative honeycomb structure was designed following the analysis of high-efficient load paths. The towers will also accommodate three sky-gardens at the top to reduce solar heat gain on the most exposed elevation.
Aedas described their project as a “design generated from a mathematically pre-rationalized form that derives from Islamic design principles…a key feature of the design is the application of a diaphanous screen that envelopes the most exposed aspect of the building in the form of a dynamic ‘Mashrabiya’, opening and closing in response to the sun’s path, significantly reducing the solar heat gain and providing a more comfortable internal environment.”
Vertical Village in Dubai Harvests Sun
Vertical Village designed by Graft is a mixed-use development in Dubai organized to reduce solar gain and maximize solar production. The buildings are massed as self-shading slabs to the North on the East-West axis to reduce low-angle sun penetration while a vast array of solar panels are located to the South. The solar roof behaves like a leaf with veins that break the solar field into units that provide structural support and transport the collected energy. Beneath lies an urban district with cinemas, restaurants, shops and theatres. The complex is designed to get gold LEED certification.
GEOtube Building Grows Its Own Structure and Skin from Sea Salt
Born from unique environmental conditions, GEOtube is a new kind of urban sculptural tower designed by California-based Faulders Studio. Gravity-sprayed with adjacent Persion Gulf waters, its building skin is entirely grown rather than constructed; is in continual formation rather than fully completed; and is created locally rather than imported. The world’s highest salinity for oceanic water is found in the Persian Gulf (and the Red Sea) – local salt water is supplied to GEOtube via a new 4.62 km buried pipeline and misted onto the tower’s exposed mesh. As the water evaporates and salt deposits aggregate over time, the tower’s appearance transforms from a transparent skin to a highly visible white solid plane. The result is a specialized habitat for wildlife that thrives is this environment, and an accessible surface for the harvesting of crystal salt.
Underwater Skyscraper
Underwater Architecture
During the next few days we will showcase 5 proposals for sustainable underwater architecture. These projects were submitted for the Annual Skyscraper Competition from 2006 to 2009.
Project 4 of 5
Higinio Llames, Ifigeneia Arvaniti
Spain
This proposal understands the need of living in harmony with nature in a sustainable way. There is a close relationship between the building and its surrounding. It could be described as a surface that holds an inverted skyscraper under the sea. The “living spaces” below the sea are independent units with living and working areas while the gathering spaces, farmlands, and recreational areas are located at sea level.
The skin of the building interacts with the sea and produces tidal energy with a double membrane that it is also used as a floating device as a ballast tank that controls the weight by controlling the amount of air and water like a submarine. Solar panels and wind turbines are located in a dome-shaped basin at the top with rain water collectors.
Andre Kikoski Wins 2010 James Beard Award – The Wright Restaurant
New York-based architect Andre Kikoski has won the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant Design for his firm’s design of The Wright in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Kikoski, an emerging young talent, launched his firm only seven years ago. The Wright is a prime example of Kikoski’s work, showing his deft skill with materials, his ability to create a meaningful dialogue between art and architecture, and his finesse in designing a contemporary space inside an iconic structure.
Kikoski’s design of The Wright has garnered raves from local, national and international press. Says the New York Times, “The Wright at the Guggenheim is striking, impressive visually and elegant.” Fast Company called it “a gem in the Guggenheim.” And The Real Deal’s James Gardner wrote that the restaurant “recreates the Guggenheim’s formal vocabulary with greater skill and feeling than it had the first time around, 50 years ago.” The project is representative of Andre Kikoski Architect’s style – inventive, dramatic and highly tactile. Sculptural forms for the flared ceiling, undulating banquette, and torqued bar and communal table are based on Wright’s underlying geometries but crafted in contemporary materials. The design brings to life a play between these sculptural elements and the architecturally-layered, illuminated materials that invite participation and a sense of delight for all patrons.
Namib Biomimesis Research and Eco-Tourism Tower
Namib Biomimesis Research Tower (NABR) designed by architects Hunter Ruthrauff, Hayley Stewart, and Garrett Van Leeuwen is a biomimetic research lab in the Namib Naukluft National Park with the purpose of studying indigenous plant and animal species which may act as role models for the creation of new ecological technologies. It consists of a research center, eco-tourism hub, and a utility tower proposing a low-impact solution within the Namib Desert. Eco-tourism has recently become popular to thrill seekers looking to carve down the massive dunes on sand board. This coupled with a research center invested in new sustainable technology creates a micro economy that can support the continued preservation of the land.
NABR hopes to edify travelers on the biological phenomenon that dwell within one of the oldest most hostile environments on earth which has subsequently forced their evolution to take a very specific route. Environments like this yield the greatest amount of biomimetic potential, therefore it is in these places where man must look for sustainable solutions. NABR was created with two such organisms in mind, those are: the fog basking beetle (genus Stenocara) and the Welwitschia plant (genus Welwitschiaceae). Without water not even the most intelligent organism on earth could survive.
The Namibian Desert receives less than an inch per year of rain but it is one of few in the world that have a frequent fog roll in during the early mornings. On such mornings hundreds of fog basking beetles can be seen perched atop the tall dunes slanting their bodies forward high on their legs. The beetle’s shell is divided into hydrophilic bumps and hydrophobic crevices. Microscopic water molecules build up the bumps until they coalesce into larger droplets to heavy to be held by the hydrophilic attraction. They then travel down into the hydrophobic region which is contoured and shaped directly toward the mouth. Aside from the surface composition a key component to the beetle’s ability to capture water is its body temperature being colder than the air around it.
The tower employs a similar strategy but with inspiration from the Welwitschia plant which has a tap root that can extend up to 10 feet. The design here being that in order to cool the hydrophilic cells it would require cool water radiating through them. In order to mimic the beetle’s strategy dripping water from the fog would be circulated deep into the earth where temperatures are cool then transferred up through the cells and back down again. Arriving travelers and sand boarders coming down from the top enter via the lowest tubes to the north and south sides of the dune. The other tubes situated higher on dune allow light to penetrate deep into the atrium space while also circulating hot air outward keeping the interior cool even when the temperature outside exceeds one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit. The gale force winds are harnessed by two seventy five foot diameter turbine blades while a nearby solar field provides all the energy the colony could ever need.
Towers in a Park vs Parks in a Tower
Green Skyscrapers
In the next few days we will showcase 25 innovative proposals for green skyscrapers. These projects were submitted for the Annual Skyscraper Competition from 2006 to 2009.
Project 4 of 25
Chris Lee, Marcus Carter
United States
Park in a Tower
Le Corbusier’s Plan Voison, or City for Three Million, introduced a new order to embody what he thought were the spirit and needs of the Machine Age. His towers in a park sought to provide open space to the modern city, though in the end it destroyed the dense urban fabric necessary for vibrant urbanism. Our proposal inverts the building-park relationship by pulling the park into the building thus creating a new typology of the skyscraper: Parks in a Tower.
This new skyscraper rethinks the traditional notions of zoning by pulling the public space up from the street level. Often high-rise developers are required to provide public space in front of their buildings in exchange for additional height allowances. Instead here, the public space penetrates the interior providing an important amenity at all levels. Each level of the park would allow for different uses, vegetation, and possibilities for occupation. By pulling the park into the tower, the building can be urban-friendly, able to be inserted into a dense context.
Local + Global = Glocal
Programmatically, we envisioned the skyscraper as the physical interface of a multi-national corporation linking the local context with other satellite locations. Conceptually and physically the skyscraper is segregated into three primary zones of business based on multiple interacting time zones. This creates a coexistence – yet separation – of the different zones inducing the overlap of temporal and social relationships at various moments. In this way, it explores the conflation of local and global, now termed as the “glocal”. Such a structure would house offices, retail, leisure activities, and residences (for foreign workers) to create a true mixed-use environment. This allows for 24-hour operation that begins to localize the global economy, reasserting the importance of place.
The bottom-most volume would occupy the program that houses the “local” time zone. The “foreign” zones can only be reached by passing through the local to the park which operates as the “international waters” between different zones. In this way, much like your television, computer, or phone, the “foreign” time zones are mediated by the local. The building itself is new media.
The proposal defies the traditional formal operations of the skyscraper by blurring the distinctions between landscape and architecture, public and private zoning, and form and program. The building acts as the interface with other locations in globalized space. Here we also see not only the virtual, but physical overlay of different cultures, times, and notions of place. The concept of collective, yet independent, programs lends this design to other uses: the metropolitan campus, the urban resort, the vertical neighborhood, or even a hotel + retail + relaxation point along a rural highway.
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Bionic City UAE
Project submitted to the 2006 Skyscraper Competition
Designed by: Helmut Sprenger, Oliver von der Lippe
Ocean City – Underwater Architecture
Underwater Architecture
During the next few days we will showcase 5 proposals for sustainable underwater architecture. These projects were submitted for the Annual Skyscraper Competition from 2006 to 2009.
Project 1 of 5
Keith Dewey, Clayton Cowan, Robert Jakovina
Canada
Gyre creates a new class of eco-tourism by bringing scientists and vacationers together to understand the least known environment of our planet. As much as a skyscraper is an economical method of reducing footprint on land, Gyre goes a step further by juxtaposing those footprints to the ocean. Its unique design permits the simultaneous application of wind, solar and tidal energy generation technologies. Peaking at a depth of 400 meters, its ample space provides for a comfortable living and working environment, including areas for shops, restaurants, gardens, and recreation.
The center piece of the design features a double-hulled vortex with both hulls being clad in reinforced glass, where each floor levels are essentially a layering of concentric rings ranging is size from 30,000 square meters down to 600 square meters. Inclinators riding along the structural ribs provide for vertical / diagonal transportation between floors. Gyre´s radial arms feature a pedestrian upper level and a transit system on the lower level to access to the outer protective barriers. The barriers create an inner harbor and a port of approximately 1.25 kilometer in diameter, accommodating the needs of the world’s largest ships.
In addition to using vertical axis wind turbines, electrical energy is also collected by solar means. Furthermore, underwater nacelle’s function both as tidal generators when the structure is anchored and as thrusters for propulsion when Gyre is under way.
The first two levels of the vortex are dedicated to circulation, community gatherings, restaurants, and commerce. Intermediate levels accommodate long-term residents, oceanic experts, hotel guests and crew members. The deepest levels are dedicated to a scientific observatory for oceanographic research.
Gyre is a structure that utilizes ocean currents and wind to navigate the oceans. Resort destination, transportation hub, scientific laboratory, Gyre expands the realm of architecture into an exciting and sustainable frontier.
Torre Espiral in Barcelona / Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid’s design for the Edifici Campus confirms the role of the 22@ area at the very forefront of Barcelona’s changing water edge. The tower’s striking design creates a new presence in a territory of transition.The spiralling tower stitches the border of the municipalities of Barcelona and Besòs, creating a new infrastructure that is a joint-venture of the two cities and two clients: El Consorci, Zona Franca de Barcelona y b –TEC, Consorci del Campus Interuniversitari del Besòs.
The design articulates the transition between the forum and the campus, between the new equipments and parks water-front area, in Barcelona, and the requalification of the delta of the river Besòs area, in Sant Adriá del Besòs. The formal theme of the spiral actively binds the two together with an encompassing movement, stimulating the seamless integration of the city fabric, connecting in a dynamic way, the different surrounding areas.
images ©Zaha Hadid Architects
Urban Intervention at the Eixample in Barcelona
Chris Gassaway and Mitch Rocheleau designed this project that operates as an application of a diagrammatical mapping study to formulate an urban intervention within a pre-existing Eixample block in the Poblenou district of Barcelona, Spain. Intensive on site analyses lead to the generation of a mapping tool which addresses the issues of visual permeability and visual densities within the pre-existing urban condition of the site.
Through the compilation of a series of horizontal sections, each containing an organization of projected visual vectors from the corresponding perforations of each façade, we were able to derive a precise volumetric spacial organization depicting the most visually dense areas within the block. From this point another iteration of vectors was produced with the same diagrammatical constraints. This new diagram took into account the original site as well as our intervention (or most visually dense area) within the site. This next set of vectors would now allow us to see the most visually dense areas with our implementation in place. It was determined that this new diagram would be the generating agent for various implementations of public space and circulation pathways within the proposal.
The porosity of the exterior skin is a reaction to the final generated diagram and the densities designated as public space. The areas of skin most exposed to public space have the maximum porosity with an exponential decrease in porosity as exposure to the generated public space decreases.
FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium / Foster and Partners
FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium, one of the world’s greatest football venues, is to be extensively remodelled by Foster and Partners. The stadium, already the largest in Europe, will be enlarged to accommodate over 106,000 fans, together with extensive new facilities including hospitality and public areas. A new roof will also be created to shelter the fans. The stadium will be enclosed by a brightly coloured mosaic outer skin that wraps around the building and continues over a new roof. The multi-coloured enclosure comprises overlapping translucent tiles in the club colours. The myriad of tiles can be seen as symbolising the loyalty and devotion of FC Barcelona’s fans worldwide.
The remodelled stadium retains the essential elements of the original Camp Nou, designed by architects Francesc Mitjans-Miró, García Barbon and Soteras Mauri, which was inaugurated in 1957. On match nights, the stadium will glow, providing a new architectural icon for the city. In the same way that FC Barcelona is ‘more than a club’, the new Camp Nou will be much more than a stadium.
Erick van Egeraat Wins International Competition for Dynamo Stadium in Moscow
Erick van Egeraat has been awarded the first prize in the closed international design competition for VTB Arena Park in Moscow on the initiative of the VTB Bank. The 300,000-m2 VTB Arena Park is one of the largest projects that will be developed in the Russian Federation in the coming years. VTB Bank will provide an investment of approx. €500 million for the development of this large-scale project.
VTB Arena Park comprises the redevelopment of the Dynamo Moscow stadium and its surrounding park. Erick van Egeraat proposed a contemporary multifunctional urban regenerator, that will play a key role in transforming its wider surroundings. Erick van Egeraat’s 300,000-m2 multifunctional culture, health and sports centre will be developed on a 116,000-m2 site and will comprise a 45,000-seat Stadium Arena for Dynamo Moscow, a 10,000-seat Arena Hall, a Retail and Entertainment complex, restaurants, parking and other facilities.
Erick van Egeraat and his Russian partner Mikhail Posokhin (Mosproekt-2) selected a team of Russian and internationally acclaimed consultants for this competition, including Bollinger + Grohmann structural engineers, Amsterdam ArenA Advisory, Artec Acoustic consultants and Illuminator lighting consultants. Erick van Egeraat’s design was chosen out of five international competitors, including NPS Tchoban Voss with gmp von Gerkan Marg und Partner, STD development with Interstudio, ABD with Perkins Eastman International, and Mosproekt 4 with Populous.
The final jury sitting was held on Monday 28 June 2010. The jury, consisting of international specialists and chaired by Yuri Luzhkov, Mayor of Moscow, Andrei Kostin, VTB Chairman and Alexander Avdeev, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation, was unanimous in selecting Erick van Egeraat’s design. The jury especially praised the design for its ‘all-under-one-roof’ concept, providing a multifunctional mix of sports and cultural facilities all concentrated in and underneath the current stadium perimeter.
Other key characteristics of the winning proposal are:
- historic preservation: the two stadiums will be situated within the ring of the old stadium, preserving the perimeter façade of the existing arena and integrating it functionally and esthetically into the new proposal
- self sustaining business model: to be financially self sustaining VTB Arena Park will also host cultural and retail facilities. The mix of sports, culture and retail facilities creates profitable and vibrant activities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year
- park preservation and enlargement: VTB Arena allows the existing park to be completely preserved as a public, green area. Parking facilities will be included underground, and horeca and sports training facilities will be included above ground, with the park continuing over the roof of these functions.
- full FIFA compliance soccer stadium: the complex is designed in full compliance with the FIFA regulations, allowing the stadium to play a significant role in Russia’s ambitions to host the 2018 FIFA world cup.
- transferium: the combination of retail, parking and metro next to the Leningradskiy Prospekt make the project an excellent transportation hub. This allows for all-year-round commercial exploitation of the parking facilities, and would help offloading the city’s congested roads.
After a redevelopment according to this design proposal, VTB Arena Park will be better equipped than ever to be a welcoming destination to anyone living, working or visiting the city of Moscow.
“After the announcement of our winning design the jury presented their ambition for the site, acknowledging that this was the only design that achieved all objectives whilst respecting the park and the monumental value,” says Erick van Egeraat. “This challenging site embodies a great tradition which we must honour. It also holds all potential conflicts a city can offer. To resolve this, we proposed a design that embraces the history and context of the Dynamo stadium and the Petrovski Park and creates a contemporary icon of the 21st century of which the people of Moscow can be proud. A project that will provide diversity to the area and reinforce its identity.”
About the site
The Dynamo Moscow stadium is located at Petrovsky Park in the heart of Moscow, a site that has a rich history that goes back to the year 1782, when Catherina the Great ordered the construction of the Petrovski Palace. Over time, restaurants, terraces, concert pavillions and even a cinema studio were erected in the park, becoming a main Moscow cultural and entertainment get-away. The Dynamo stadium was inaugurated in 1928. In order to comply with contemporary international requirements, and to support Russia’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Administration of the Stadium and VTB in 2010 organised the tender for the development and reconstruction of the Dynamo site.
Cricket Stadium on top of a Skyscraper in India
designed by Matthew Graham, Mike Lamprides
United States
As India approaches the 63rd anniversary of its independence, it is emerging as a cricket powerhouse. The sport that was left behind by the British, over a hundred years ago, has ultimately been adopted, creating a recreational gift to the nation. The sport has political and cultural implications reaching far beyond the imperialist colonization which initially engendered it. In the ICCT tower we will challenge the very nature of the skyscraper by aggressively reinterpreting programmatic, scalar, and contextual norms.
The traditional setting for a stadium exists on the ground plane. By inverting that norm and elevating the stadium to 300 meters in the air, the contextual and scalar norms of a stadium and a high-rise are simultaneously and radically challenged. The elevation creates a vertical void to be filled with recreational areas for the community.
The form of the building is derived from the sport of cricket itself. Cricket requires a large oval playing surface. The oval floor plates are designed to accommodate an open playing field while support programs are nested between the inner and outer diagrids.
Sports Park in Datong, China / Populous
Architecture studio Populous has been selected to design a new sports park in the historic city of Datong, in the northern Shanxi Province, near Beijing, China. This is the second major sports hub for Populous in China.
The sports park which includes a 30,000 seat stadium, an 8,000 seat arena, a 1500 seat natatorium and a multiuse training hall, is part of a larger plan by the Datong Mayor to regenerate the historic old city and create a new city centre with other development including a city hall, museum, convention centre.
Inspiration for the new Datong Sports Park has come from both its impressive cultural heritage and the stunning rugged beauty of the surrounding landscape outside the city. The rich valleys, escarpments and weathered mountain faces surrounding the Loess Plateau outside Datong City rival the brutally etched Judean desert as it stretches towards the Dead Sea. The colour and texture of the mountain ranges are comparable to the landscape of the Grand Canyon in America.
The win for Populous, which has its Asian base in Queensland, comes as its first sports park in Nanjing celebrates five years of successful operation. Populous won an IOC/IAKS Gold Award for the design of Nanjing, built for the 2005 China National Games, and the catalyst for a major city centre development.
The Sports Park in Datong will provide work for 10 professional staff in Populous’ Brisbane office. The firm’s senior principal Paul Henry said the win reflected Populous’ future strategy in Asia.
“Our strategy in China as elsewhere in Asia hinges on producing world class design in the Queensland office, and investing in the development of long term Client relationships.
China recognizes the value sporting venues have as gathering places for modern communities yet, which also reflect the unique qualities of each particular city.”
Populous Principal Andrew Colling says the inspiration for the unique design in Datong has come from the surrounding Yungang Grottoes or Cloud Ridge Caves, “These shallow caves just out of Datong are symbolic of the rich cultural heritage of the region, which has evolved over several thousand years. The visitor approach and entry to the stadium is like entering the nearby caves, with the sandstone bases clad in a series of irregular titanium shells.
The Datong Sports Park provided the opportunity to celebrate a number of strong, unique features in the city’s history and cultural character combined with the more humanistic ideals and ambitions embodied in the design of modern sports parks.”
via Archicentral
Neil Denari’s Kite City
Neil Denari explains his urban project for Weifang, China
“Weifang is a special city in China. Not only is it well known for the history of its handicrafts such as paper–cutting and New Year’s paintings, it is the world’s most important city for kite flying and the history of kites. For more than 2,000 years, the people of Weifang have enjoyed the exhilaration of seeing these colorful objects flying in the brisk winds of the Shandong region in Northern China. For this project, located on the Bailang River in the heart of Weifang, we have been inspired by a poem by Zheng Banqiao in which he described kites as “Paper flowers that fly over the sky like snow.” Indeed, the color and lightness of the kite, it buoyant qualities, and its formal qualities have further inspired our work. The Bailang river has become over the last few years a vital place for the interaction of people and a true public space enhancement for Wiefang. We see our project along the river as furthering this public cause through an open, networked organization that allows both pedestrian and vehicular flows across the site. Beyond, the river and mountains are reflected in the light blues and greens of the buildings, lending a fresh air to the site, a place that is welcoming and open. The arrangement of the buildings is based on the traditional north-south orientation of units (as required per the brief). Each residential building has floor through apartments with only four units per floor. With strategic planning, we have deployed a large amount of mass on the site in a way that respects light, views, and social space. It is our hope that this site will foster new forms of urban experience for Weifang.”
Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China / Steven Holl Architects
Steven Holl Architects’ latest Chinese project, Sliced Porosity Block, is a showcase of his explorations of carved porous urbanism. The early watercolor diagrams make it clear that the project seeks to subvert the typical modernist rules of tower and base. A strong dynamic thrives and feeds on the interactions of mass, void, and the resultant parallax of their shifting alignments. The new project takes the ideas of porosity developed in the MIT dorm and Linked Hybrid projects to a higher level of refinement and formal exuberance. The sensitivity to color, pattern, environmental considerations, and metaphorical thinking are all marked departures from the earlier work.
The massing and resultant slices were driven by local codes in Chengdu limiting the amount of daylight that a new project can block from the existing fabric. The outer and inner facades of the project are cloaked in a postmodern, graffiti like gridded wrapper. Angled glass planes slice through these outer shells in a direct response to the sunlight restrictions. The end product is an undulating mass that hovers between urban form and natural landscape. The project captures the carving light, freezing it and thus locking impermanence into a permanent condition. This interaction of light and form should reminds us of the ever changing qualities of light we often take for granted, in a similar fashion as do the early cathedral studies by Monet.
At first glance the scale of the project seems to be a mixture of a Charles Sheeler painting and Charles De Gaul airport. The scale of the towers seems mammoth in comparison to the scale of the pedestrian pathways surrounding and penetrating the building. But the heroic forms speak to a more delicate sensitivity made apparent upon closer inspection. What breaks down the scale beyond the carving actions of the mass are three small idiosyncratic pavilions designed by Lebbeus Woods (high tech pavilion), Ai Wei Wei (Du Fu pavilion) and Steven Holl (history pavilion). These small forms, inset into the façade, create centers of interest set on axis with pedestrian slices cut through the façade. Glimpses of these anomalies set into the gridded façade will pull people into a central plaza. Upon moving into the plaza a series of “stray” glass escalator tubes slide down from the pavilions bring the visitor’s gaze to rest on three large organically shaped pools. The pools also serve as skylights to bring daylight to a series of retail spaces located bellow the plaza. The main color for the project comes up and out from the retail facades and stores. The colors are a more subdued inner layer that adds a quiet sophistication to the project and generates a spatial parallax between colored center and grey scale facades.
The reference to the poetry of Du Fu, one of the most significant Chinese poets, binds the project into its cultural context. The depth of the metaphorical meaning of the three pools trapped in the urban valley transcends the need to make a project that speaks to a literal “Chinese” architectural language.
The project is set to be Leed Gold. The most salient green features being utilization of geothermal heating and cooling along with rain water collection in three central pools on the main plaza. The 310,000 square meter project follows a substantial series of recent Chinese work including the Linked Hybrid in Beijing, The Nanjing Museum of Art, and the Vanke Center and 4 Towers in One Competition both in Shenzhen.
Current design commissions and competitions in China are part of a golden moment for architects in the pursuit of visionary ideas. China is in a moment of transition away from a reputation for the production of cheap goods to a world leader in quality and luxury products. Chinese clients are pushing to do the best possible designs. If an idea is reasonable and can be seen to elevate the project above comparable projects it will be accepted without question. The recent opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games speak to this drive to be a world leader in design. This cultural shift doesn’t represent a free for all for architects but an alignment of motivated clients seeking innovative ideas that go beyond what is expected.
Projects, like Sliced Porosity Blocks, that push architectural boundaries in a sensible and conceptual manner are valuable examples of creative urbanism for both clients and architects alike. The beauty of a successful and bold project is the liberation it offers from timid thinking and deeply grooved design methodologies. This project hits just the right notes to become a design enabler because it stems from a more systematic rebellion- not falling into the trap Marcuse alerted us to of “anarchy’s inevitable consolidation” of order. Simply put it will open doors for other architects. This project is fair game for conversation at the next series of cappuccino office roundtables- well maybe more likely around the water cooler with respect to the current climate.
Photos: ©Iwan Baan / Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects
Watercolors: ©Steven Holl
Steven Holl’s LEED Platinum ‘Horizontal Skyscraper’ in Shenzhen
When tasked to design a multi-use project for the Shenzhen Vanke Real Estate Co, Steven Holl opted against tradition, and came up with a rather intriguing design – a horizontal skyscraper. Holl and his team where shackled against a 35 meter height restriction and instead of building multiple smaller building for each function, they kept them in one building and laid it on its side. In fact, if you laid the Empire State Building on its side, the two would be about the same length. On top of the unique design, the Vanke Center is slated for LEED Platinum certification and is built to withstand a tsunami, should it ever experience one.
Located in Shenzhen, China, the roughly 440 meter long horizontal skyscraper is built upon eight stilts, propping the building up off the ground and creating a substantially large open park underneath. In case of a tsunami, the building is elevated high enough and is strong enough to let water flow underneath it unharmed. The 1,296,456 square foot building itself is mixed-use development and contains a hotel, apartments, office space, a conference center, a spa as well as public garden space with restaurants and walkways.
Propping the building up off the ground allowed for more open space as well as better views over the lower developments of surrounding sites to the South China Sea. Under the bottom of the floating structure are hanging glass cubes, which offer visitors or employees 360 degree views of the lush tropical gardens below. Meanwhile the multiple ends of the structure each look out to a specific vista in the distance, whether it be the nearby lake, the ocean or the surrounding landscape.
The garden itself was inspired by Roberto Burle Marx’ gardens in Brazil, and contains restaurants and cafes in vegetated mounds bracketed with pools and walkways. Breezes flowing in from the sea help to cool the gardens as well as the building, and at night the breezes carry with them the scent of jasmine accentuated by the colorful glow of the underbelly of the complex.
Designed to achieve LEED Platinum certification, the Vanke Center includes many sustainable design elements. On the roof of the building, a solar photovoltaic system provides the building with 18% of its power. Inside, the doors, floors and furniture are made from a bamboo, considered a renewable resource because it grows so quickly, and the carpets are made from recycled materials. High performance glazing and the narrow design allows for a lot of natural daylight, but minimizes solar heat gain and cooling needs. The Vanke Center was recently completed in 2010 and has since been awarded 2010 Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects.
Solar Powered Skyscraper Cools the Environment
Designed by Kenneth Loh and Michelle Lim this project is an investigation for a new urban prototype of solar powered towers. The entire façade is covered with a thin membrane of solar cells and a water collector system. The main idea is to develop a green building with different types of programs. The building core is a hollowed cylinder that moves hot air from the surface and creates micro-climates for gardens, farm fields, and recreational areas. Residential units for low, medium, and high density are attached to a continuous ramp or street. Along the entire structure there will be ‘pockets’ of different sizes and materials for cultural and educational areas. The building is connected to an underground cistern with a power plant. Rainwater is collected, filtered, stored and used to produce sufficient energy for the entire community. A series of these towers will cool the environment and solved the housing problems of some urban settlement worldwide.
Global Warming City
During the last couple of years there has been an increased awareness on global warming and its tragic consequences. It is possible that many coastal cities will be underwater after the melting of the polar ice-caps. In an effort to save these cities many visionary architects have started to draw different ideas. Turkish architects Sinan Gunay and Mustafa Bulgur propose City(e)scape as a series of structures attached to skyscrapers to create a second ground plane. Instead of preventing the flooding, the idea is to use the infrastructure for a secondary city at 70 meters above sea-level. Although this idea might seem a bit radical and “desperate” it starts to imagine the possibility of making the most out of existing cities.
Maldives Skyscraper – Floating States
Finalist – 2010 Skyscraper Competition
William Fong, Joshua Loke, Livee Tan
Australia
With an average ground level of 1.5 m from the sea level, Maldives is the lowest county on the planet, with its highest point topping off at only 2.3 m above sea level.
The country is in a dire situation as sea levels are set to rise to 59 cm above the sea level in the year 2100. This rate would probably be accelerated if natural disasters are to be accounted for. The 2004 tsunami affected many of Maldives’ inhabited islands, where only 9 islands managed to escape flooding. 57 islands faced serious damage to its infrastructure, 14 needed to be completely evacuated and 6 were decimated.
Physical destruction aside, the flooding of Maldives would also signal the obliteration of the proud Maldivian culture, as well as a complete loss of her people’s sense of self and sovereignty.
While plans have been made to buy land in India, Sri Lanka and Australia to keep the country going, this essentially makes the people of Maldives strangers in strange lands. It is perhaps conceivable that this nation of 400,000 people can live in vertical structures floating in its own waters. That way, the legacy and memory of the Maldives can live on, albeit in a vastly different iteration. At the same time, the republic in this new form can continue to be sustained by its famed tourism industry.
The Floating States of Maldives can be recognized still as a series of islands, but are essentially engineering marvels of buoyancy and height. The network of towers soar to a maximum of 1000m above sea level and their keels dive 1000, below, accommodating floor areas of up to 56 times that of the combined Petronas Twin Towers, while maintaining the density of its capital city, Male. As the population increases, more modules can be added to the structure, increasing the towers’ heights and expanding the network, like land reclamation, only floating.
Thus, we have a dialogue between the tallest and the lowest in the world, side by side; looking down at the remnants of its previous generation of dwellings, while proudly looking upwards to the new age of urban lifestyles. The Floating States of Maldives is a new paradigm of new sovereign nations.
Underwater Skyscraper
Underwater Architecture
During the next few days we will showcase 5 proposals for sustainable underwater architecture. These projects were submitted for the Annual Skyscraper Competition from 2006 to 2009.
Project 4 of 5
Higinio Llames, Ifigeneia Arvaniti
Spain
This proposal understands the need of living in harmony with nature in a sustainable way. There is a close relationship between the building and its surrounding. It could be described as a surface that holds an inverted skyscraper under the sea. The “living spaces” below the sea are independent units with living and working areas while the gathering spaces, farmlands, and recreational areas are located at sea level.
The skin of the building interacts with the sea and produces tidal energy with a double membrane that it is also used as a floating device as a ballast tank that controls the weight by controlling the amount of air and water like a submarine. Solar panels and wind turbines are located in a dome-shaped basin at the top with rain water collectors.
Observation Tower Built with Logs Opens in Reusel, Netherlands / Ateliereen Architecten
Ateliereen Architecten just completed a 25 meters high viewing tower in Ruesel, Netherlands. The project is composed by six wooden boxes made out of half logs (from the park) supported by a steel skeleton.
Project description by Ateliereen Architecten:
In the Netherlands over 50 spots are marked on the map as starting points for recreational use of the rural landscape. People are encouraged to park their cars at these locations instead of at other, more preserved, areas. From here they can explore nature by foot, mountain bike, horse etc.
In the small town Reusel, the nomination motivated a local sports merchant to found an outdoor sports park. A tower, 25 meters high, with sport facilities like climbing and abseiling is the main attraction. It consists of six cubes, hanging on a core of steel columns. Straight flight staircases raise in between and cross the cubes several times in different positions.
Two of the six cubes are accessible. The third one is the start platform for a rope slide and a high rope track. In the top box people can enjoy a panorama view of the surrounding landscape and there is a starting platform for abseiling. The athletes on the 13 meters high climbing wall are observed by visitors of the adjacent bistro.
Huge stacks of logs can be found in the surrounding production forest. The cladding of the tower consists of the same halved, stripped logs. This way it is an addition, as well a product of it’s surroundings. The climbing of the stairs is a surprising experience, because of the different intersections of stairs and cubes and the varying directions of the cladding.
The use of wood makes the object fit in it’s setting. The orthogonal (unnatural!) shapes on the other hand create an exciting composition.
International System Skyscraper
Finalist – 2010 Skyscraper Competition
Vision Included
Martijn de Geus, Albert Dijk
The Netherlands
The International System skyscraper is a project that recognizes the specific function of each space with a design that derives one-hundred percent from it. Each part of the building is different according to its program but they all come together with transition or buffer zones. This project was designed for the city of Almere in the Netherlands. Its plinth makes a connection with the urban fabric of the existing city. Among the different programs within this city-like structure there are schools, libraries, housing, museums, cinemas, and shopping areas.
Sky Table – A Social Implant
Special Mention
2010 Skyscraper Competition
Ayrat Khusnutdinov
Russia
The Sky Table is a large horizontal building suspended above six blocks of an abandoned neighborhood of a generic city. Its primary structure is a steel mesh that peels into four colossal columns that connect to plazas and parks at street level. Due to its large scale and the variety of programs this proposal could be considered a city within a city where offices are located inside the pillars, housing is available in ten levels within the platform and recreational areas cover the entire roof level.
Many green technologies are integrated; a recycle plant and gas tank is located underground below the main columns. Solar panels are located on the roof level along with wind turbines which are also used below the steel mesh where the aerodynamic shape of the building will direct fast air currents.
