Hasta La Ideas

News: architects and critics have called for the earthquake-damaged Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand to be restored to its original gothic appearance after rejecting two contemporary proposals as “bizarre” and “architecturally illiterate”.

Writing for the New Zealand news website The Press, British architecture critic Kieran Long said the proposals by New Zealand firm Warren & Mahoney, which were unveiled by Anglican leaders last week, offered “a fairly mediocre architectural choice.”

If pressed to choose between the three options – a full restoration, a traditional redesign or an entirely new building – Long said he advocated the complete rebuilding of British architect George Gilbert Scott’s gothic revival cathedral, which was constructed in the second half of the nineteenth century and suffered major structural damage during Christchurch’s 2011 earthquake.

Above: traditional redesign proposal
Top: new building proposal 

“It is the only piece of architecture of these three that will have enduring meaning. It would speak of continuity, which is surely something valuable in a city like Christchurch today,” said Long, who was recently named senior curator of contemporary architecture at the V&A museum in London.

The traditional redesign proposed was “architecturally illiterate”, he noted. “The hexagonal facade treatment is bizarre and at odds with the ornamental logic of the gothic – the pattern and the rose window jar horribly.”

He also criticised the contemporary timber and glass proposal as “too generic to be interesting”, adding: “Its clumsy modern gothic is a kind of euphemistic architectural language that wants to appear rooted in history but in fact doesn’t take it very seriously.”

Above: original restoration proposal

Ellis Woodman, architecture critic for the Telegraph in London, also called for a straightforward restoration, dismissing the two alternatives as “painfully voguish”, while Australian architecture critic Elizabeth Farrelly agreed that the “depth and mystery” of the original gothic cathedral should be preserved.

Professor Paul Walker from the University of Melbourne and Australian architectural writer Justine Clark added to the debate by saying reconstruction should be “given serious consideration”, but called on Anglican leaders to think more carefully about their options.

An online poll conducted by The Press found that, as of this morning, 30.6 per cent back the restoration option, 24.2 per cent are for the traditional redesign and 39.6 per cent approve of the contemporary proposal, while 5.6 per cent of voters say they want something else.

Above: photo by Searlo

Christchurch’s mayor Bob Parker backed the contemporary option, saying it “points us to where we need to be thinking as a city” while its lower costs and shorter estimated completion time also worked in its favour.

“I love the idea of something new. I think it’s about looking forward rather than looking back, and this design helps with that,” he said.

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has meanwhile designed a transitional cathedral for the city made from an A-shaped frame of cardboard tubes, which is due to be completed this spring.

Above: Shigeru Ban’s cardboard cathedral, photo by Shigeru Ban Architects

Earlier this year we featured a spiralling titanium-clad church completed in northern Norway and a proposal for a chapel in Miami shaped like a flowing gown – see all churches on Dezeen.

Images are by Warren & Mahoney except where stated.

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earthquake-hit Christchurch cathedral appeared first on Dezeen.

Bright red louvres screen the gabled walls of this office building in Tilburg, the Netherlands, by Dutch architects Équipe (+ slideshow).

Proyecto Roble is the headquarters of landscape firm Van Helvoirt Groenprojecten, who asked Équipe to upgrade an existing building that had become too small.

The architects demolished the canteen of the old office, then added a new structure stretching out in its place. Constructed around a chunky timber frame, the building has an asymmetric shape with floor-to-ceiling glazing along its sides and the red slatted timber across its ends.

“The original building wasn’t that old so we tried to reuse it,” architect Daniëlle Segers told Dezeen. “We demolished half of the structure then reused as much of the materials as we could, for example the old brickwork was used in the foundations.”

Describing their decision to use red paint, Segers explained: “We had a discussion about leaving the wood in a natural colour, but it wouldn’t stay beautiful in the future. Now, when you approach the building you notice the colour stand out against the green, but it’s still a natural pigment.”

The roof of the building is covered with a mixture of sedum grass and photovoltaic solar panels.

Meeting rooms are located in the old building, while all the offices occupy the new building and are lined up beside a spacious corridor.

The architects designed custom furniture for use throughout the building, then added reclaimed chairs and LED lighting.

This is the second bright red building we’ve featured in the last week, following a temporary theatre that recently opened in London. See more red buildings on Dezeen.

Photography is by René de Wit and Équipe.

Here’s a project description from Équipe:

“Proyecto Roble” extension of Van Helvoirt Groenprojecten in Berkel-Enschot

“Proyecto Roble” by young office Équipe is a grass roots project, a building embedded in the local context in the rural south of the Netherlands. The client, owner of landscaping firm Van Helvoirt Groenprojecten, had a vision for his headquarters to be a flagship model of sustainability. This was to be a key project where sustainable innovations replace money-issues as the bottom line.

The building is a custom designed environment with no standard details. The project was undertaken as a research into the potentials for creating a positive workplace. Key themes were broken down into components and expressed in the design. “Feel Good!” was the catchphrase coined that encompassed the different themes as renewable energy, passive climate control, abundance of natural light and the relationship to the external landscape, which was to be a showpiece of healing environment garden.

Sustainability was thus been payed attention to in all stages and all scales. From a period of studying what ‘sustainability’ actually means to making sure everyone on the building site understands and embraces these principals.

A.o. a new way of tendering was used, called the Building-team Plus and a new formula was invented to document decisions on materiality and techniques.

The new extension immediately catches the passing motorist’s eye, a sleek red form in the agrarian landscape, replete with a fully integrated photo-voltaic-panel roof and a green roof. The green roof transcends its cosmetic role, and is a testing ground for emerging water filtration technology. In the beginning of the 20th century Tilburg was re-known for its textile industry, collecting the workers pee in pitchers for using it as a bleach. Now this project goes back to this tradition inventing worlds first sloped constructed wetlands.

Urine is separated from the black water using it a as a nutrition ingredient for making fertiliser in the clients landscaping activities. Further the grey water runs through the grass roof leaving it as clean water that can be used in the building again. This is only one of the multiple innovations in this project that has been designed to the smallest detail: from building to garden, from the bicycle shed to the bespoke interior and signposting.

The building consists of two parts, connected by the clay stove. Heated with prune wasted from the greenery’s own business, this element brings together the office-employees and the outdoor workers. Thus connecting the new extension to the traditions of the family business. Besides the pleasant indoor atmosphere the clay stove also brings technical advantages. The air heating pump could have less capacity and in addition the heater is used as a hot water boiler.

The north part of the building consists of offices. The linearity of the building is emphasised by the interior elements, that are placed on the coloured pathways. By using red linoleum on different areas of the floor and furniture the interior keeps a coherency to the exterior looks of the building.

The southern part of the building is a oversized foyer that connects all spaces. This multipurpose lobby, used for bigger and smaller, organised and spontaneous meetings, provides a green and transparent link to the outdoor world. The play of lines has been made expressive by folded raw aluminium lighting trays that float the length of the building.

Above: site plan

The facades are made of open detailed, wooden slats painted red with water based ‘nature paint’ thus creating different transparencies between inside and outside. The structure of prefabricated cross laminated timber elements is left unfinished, the imperfections of the timber adding to the natural serenity of the interior. The timber imbues the internal spaces with a positive connection to nature, something which contributes to the landscaping firms green image. All interior elements, apart from second-hand chairs and desk LED lamps, were custom designed. They are specifically designed in consultation with the personnel. Chairs and table carriages are second hand, like all kinds of smaller parts in the interior design: the door handle of the employees entrance (a re-used banister), the magazine stand (heating pipe) and the fruit boxes in the sample cabinet. Also in the furniture low environmental impact products were used. Special research was done to investigate what material could be best used in what elements and how should these materials be connected. Just like for the exterior the ‘decision document’ was used to explore the considerations in the building team plus and to be able to document conclusions. This proved to be a very useful tool that helps making choices that exceed standards or norms. During the whole process norms were never leading anyhow. Choosing consciously prevailed following scores. (Nevertheless all calculated scores are excellent) F.e. were passive house theories and Dutch energy performance norms may lead to small windows in the north facade, this building has high windows from floor to ceiling that provide the employees with a view to the landscape and lots of northern light.

Above: floor plan

Project title: Proyecto Roble
Address: Oisterwijksebaan 8a 5056 RD Berkel-Enschot, Gem. Tilburg the Netherlands
Client: Van Helvoirt Pensioen BV
Architect: Équipe voor architectuur en urbanisme
Project architects: Huib van Zeijl, Daniëlle Segers
Employees: Adam Murray
Interior design: Equipe voor architectuur en urbanisme
Garden Design: Studio Van Helvoirt

Function: office
Original building year: 1996
Research & design: 2006-2011
Start building: May 2011
Deliverance I employment: June 2012

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by Équipe appeared first on Dezeen.

Slideshow feature: Zaha Hadid’s Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi is pictured in these new images by London photographers Hufton+Crow (+ slideshow).

The 842-metre-long bridge connects Abu Dhabi Island with the mainland and comprises a sequence of concrete waves that curve up and down from the water to reach a height of 64 metres. A four-lane highway runs across and the two road decks are cantilevered from the sides of the structure.

Zaha Hadid Architects completed the project in 2010 – read more in our earlier story.

See more photography by Hufton + Crow on Dezeen, or on the photographers’ website.

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photographed by Hufton+Crow appeared first on Dezeen.

Architecture firm Haworth Tompkins has installed a bright red auditorium amongst the brutalist concrete of London’s National Theatre (+ slideshow).

Haworth Tompkins designed The Shed as a monolithic red box, entirely clad with rough-sawn timber boards. This material references the board-formed concrete of Denys Lasdun’s celebrated 1970s National Theatre and was intended by the architects to appear as its opposite.

Four towering chimneys rise up from the corners, helping to draw air through the structure using a stack-effect system of natural ventilation. These chimneys were also planned as a reference to the architecture of the theatre and they mimic the angular geometry of its riverside facade.

A temporary foyer is created beneath the existing balconies and leads straight through into the 225-seat auditorium.

Reclaimed chairs provide all of the seating inside the building, while recycled materials were used for all of the cladding and surfaces.

“This collaboration has been a wonderful opportunity to explore the ways in which temporary public buildings can alter our perceptions of places and organisations,” said practice director Steve Tompkins. “We hope The Shed will be seen as a playful but thoughtful building, both challenging and complementary to the permanent cultural architecture.”

Above: photograph is by Philipe Ville

The auditorium will remain in place for a year, temporarily replacing the Cottesloe Theatre room while it undergoes a renovation.

Pop-up theatres and cinemas have become increasingly popular in London over the last few years. In 2011 a team of volunteers built a cinema under a motorway flyover, while a theatre for an audience of six travelled around Clerkenwell during last year’s design week in the district.

Above: photograph is by Philipe Ville

Other temporary theatres created recently include one made from scaffolding and plastic pond liner in southern England and one in Estonia made from straw bales. See more theatres on Dezeen.

See more architecture by Haworth Tompkins, including the new home for print-making and photography at the Royal College of Art.

Photography is by Hélène Binet, apart from where otherwise stated.

Above: photograph is by Philipe Ville

Here’s some extra information from the architects:

Haworth Tompkins creates temporary venue at the National Theatre ‘The Shed’

Haworth Tompkins announces the completion of The Shed, a temporary venue for the National Theatre on London’s South Bank. The Shed will give the NT a third auditorium while the Cottesloe is closed for a year during the NT Future redevelopment, also designed by Haworth Tompkins.

The artistic programme for The Shed, recently announced by the Director of the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, pushes creative boundaries, giving the NT the opportunity to explore new ways of making theatre. In the same way, The Shed has been a test bed for experiment by the architectural design team. Conceived by Haworth Tompkins and regular collaborators Charcoalblue, it was then designed and built in little more than a year, a collaborative process between the building designers, the National Theatre, and theatre-makers who will work in the space, in a way that more closely resembled a theatre show than a conventional construction project.

Above: photograph is by Philipe Ville

Its temporary nature, building on Haworth Tompkins’ earlier temporary projects like the Almeida Theatre at Gainsborough Studios and King’s Cross, permits a structure that can be seen less as a building than as an event or arts installation – a vibrant intervention on London’s South Bank that will entrance, and sometimes bewilder, passers-by for a period of twelve months.

Above: photograph is by Philipe Ville

The Shed occupies Theatre Square, at the front of the National Theatre, beside the river. Its simple form houses a 225-seat auditorium made of raw steel and plywood, while the rough-sawn timber cladding refers to the National Theatre’s iconic board-marked concrete, and the modelling of the auditorium and its corner towers complement the bold geometries of the NT itself. A temporary foyer has been carved out from the space beneath the NT’s external terraces and provides easy connection to the existing foyers. The Shed’s brilliant red colour covering the entire mass of a form without doors or windows, announces its arrival boldly against the concrete bulk of the NT, giving it a startling and enigmatic presence.

Above: photograph is by Philipe Ville

The Shed also represents another step in Haworth Tompkins’ ongoing project to research sustainable ways of making theatres. Built of materials that can be 100% recycled and fitted out with re-used seating, The Shed is naturally ventilated, with the four towers that draw air through the building providing its distinctive form.

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by Haworth Tompkins appeared first on Dezeen.

A plant-covered twisting tower shaped like a DNA strand by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut is under construction in Taipei, Taiwan (+ slideshow).

Described by Vincent Callebaut as “neither single tower, nor twin towers”, the 20-storey Agora Garden apartment block is designed with a double-helix structure that twists up around a fixed central core.

“Different from the modern city built of concrete, glass and steel, the Agora Garden tower appears in an urban centre as a green twisted mountain,” says the architect.

Balconies on each floor will be filled with plants, vegetable gardens and fruit trees, creating a cascading layer of greenery across the exterior. These will enable residents to grow their own food and compost all their biodegradable waste.

Between two and four apartments will be located on each floor of the building and will integrate a number of sustainable technologies, including rainwater-harvesting and solar energy.

“The concept is to build a true fragment of vertical landscape with low energetic consumption,” explains Callebaut. “The project represents a built ecosystem that repatriates the fauna and the flora in the heart of the city and generates a new box of subtropical biodiversity.”

Agora Garden is being constructed on one of the largest designated residential sites in the city and will be surrounded be a moat. As well as apartments, the building will also accommodate rooftop clubhouses, a swimming pool, gym facilities and car parking floors.

Vincent Callebaut won a competition to design the building in 2010 and construction is set to complete in 2016.

The architect also recently unveiled a futuristic concept for “farmscrapers” made from piles of giant glass pebbles. See more architecture concepts by Vincent Callebaut.

Here’s a detailed project description from the architect:

Agora Garden, An Ecologocal Residential Tower

Taipei, Taiwan, 2010-2016

In November 2010, Vincent Callebaut Architectures SARL was awarded as the successful tenderer for the construction of a new luxurious residential tower located at Taipei. The project is currently under construction and will be completed in 2016.

You will find below the conceptual design proposal presented during the competition phase in 2010 by Vincent Callebaut, design architect:

The Ecologic Philosophy of the Project

In the heart of the urban networks of Xinyin District in full development, the Agora Garden project presents a pioneer concept of sustainable residential eco-construction that aims at limiting the ecologic footprint of its inhabitants by researching the right symbiosis between the human being and nature.

On this site that is the last and only biggest parcel of land for residential use, the concept is to build a true fragment of vertical landscape with low energetic consumption. The building is thus eco-designed. It integrates not only the recycling of organic waste and used water but also all the renewable energies and other new state-of-the-art nanotechnologies (BIPV solar photovoltaic, rain water recycling, compost, etc.). The project targets thus the energetic performance so as to be officially approved by the Green Building Label, the norm for high environmental quality, delivered by the Home Affairs Ministry of Taipei.

Part of the concept of inhabited and cultivated vertical farm through its own inhabitants, this project of residential tower enables first to design by its avant-gardist architecture a new life style in accordance with the nature and the climate. Actually, the Agora Garden tower superimposes vertically wide planted balconies of true suspended orchards, organic vegetable gardens, aromatic gardens and other medicinal gardens.

Such as a living organism, the tower becomes metabolic! It overpasses its energy-consuming passive role (absorbing all the natural resources and rejecting only waste) to produce its own organic food. The architectural concept is thus to eco-design an energy self-sufficient building, whose energy is electric, thermal and also alimentary.

Therefore, the project answers directly to 4 main ecologic objectives of the After Copenhagen:

1. The reduction of the climatic global warming.
2. The protection of the nature and the biodiversity.
3. The protection of the environment and the quality of life.
4. The management of the natural resources and waste.

Finally, according to the Cradle to Cradle concept where nothing is lost, everything transforms itself; all the construction and furnishing materials will be selected through recycled and/or recyclable labels. By imitating the processes of natural ecosystems, it deals thus with reinventing in Taiwan the industrial and architectural processes in order to produce clean solutions and to create industrial cycle where everything is reused, either back to the ground as non-toxic organic nutrients, or back to the industry as technical nutrients able to be indefinitely recycled. Biotechnological prototype, the Agora Garden project reveals thus the symbiosis of human actions and their positive impact on the nature.

Above: north and south facades

The Morphologic Philosophy of the Project

Neither single tower, nor twin towers, the project arises towards the sky with two helicoidal towers gathering themselves around a central core. This architectural party offers a hyper-compacted core and a maximal flexibility of the housing storeys (with the possibility to unify two apartments units in one without any footbridge). It brings a reduction of view angles towards the urban landscape and a hyper-abundance of suspended gardens.

The Agora Garden tower is, as its name indicates it, directly inspired of the structure in double helix of the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid), source of life, dynamism and twinning. Every double helix is represented in the project by two housing units forming a full level.

Thus, from its base to the top, the 20 inhabited levels in double helix stretch themselves and twist themselves at 90 degrees. By metaphor, the obtained sinuosity corresponds to the universal musical symbol of harmonic revealing the notion of ultimate balance praised by the project.

» This twist of 90 degrees answers to four major objectives:

1. The first objective is to be perfectly integrated in the north/south pyramidal profile of the building volume. Actually, the morphology of the project changes according to its orientation. Its east/west elevations draw a rhomboidal pyramid whereas the north-south ones represent a reverse pyramid.

2. The second objective is to generate a maximum of cascades of suspended open-air gardens, not part of the F.A.R. (floor area ratio). Thus, the planted balcony surface area can easily exceed the limit of the required 10 percents. The global framework of 40 percents of building coverage ratio, i.e. 3 264 M2 is thus totally respected.

3. The third objective is to offer to the inhabitants exceptional panoramic views on the skyline of Taipei by multiplying the transversal views, especially towards the very close Taipei 101 tower and the Central Business District in full emergence.

4. The fourth objective is to generate from a flexible standardized level a progressive geometry with corbels which assures the intimacy and the confidentiality of each apartment by avoiding the indiscreet vision axes.

Inspired from nature, the Agora Garden project is shaped with an organic fluid and dynamic geometry. From the simple and standardized element of the double helix of housing superimposed vertically and put in successive rotation of 4.5 degrees level by level, a multi-facial morphology appears all in convex and concave curves.

Actually, according to the point of view of the pedestrian from the surrounding streets, the Agora Garden tower changes of faces and proposes new profiles. Besides this moving geometry wearing a planted dress with sensual style, the project represents a built ecosystem that repatriates the fauna and the flora in the heart of the city and generates a new box of subtropical biodiversity. It is a new nest in the city!

Above: east and west facades

The Main Components of the Project

The luxuriant forest and the glade

In order to ensure the confidentiality of the residents, the whole perimeter of the site is bordered by a mineral moat that animates the outside public space with organic urban furnitures. Inside the parcel, the walls of this moat transform themselves into planted surrounding walls. The main access of the site is located at the Song Yong Road which is less busy that the main avenue, Song Gao Road. The tower is coiled up in the centre of a heavy and luxuriant safe forest of mature trees that protects the intimacy of the inhabitants from the surrounding urban pollution. In the heart of the vegetable lung, the pedestrian square of exotic wood opens itself on a mineral and aquatic glade.

Such as the shock wave created by a water drop, the landscape design is made in circles arches and radiates from the epicentre of the tower. A circular light well, curved this time, makes the light, the abundant plants in cascades to the deepest basement. The car parks, the swimming pool and the fitness are thus naturally lightened and ventilated.

The lobbies in indoor – outdoor connectivity

The ground floor in double height sets through its great transparent facades a high connectivity between the interior community spaces and the exterior garden.

The central core, a vertical twisted garden surrounded by sky entry foyers

The central core has been designed to separate totally the vertical circulations into two housing units on the same level. This core is fixed (it does not pivot). But in order to ensure the rotation of the storeys floor by floor, it is surrounded by a (naturally lightened) horizontal circulation loop welcoming the entry foyer dedicated to each unit. This buffer loop enables thus to set the main entrance always in the axis of each apartment and this despite of the 4.5 degrees rotation storey by storey. An alternative has been studied to build sky entry foyers directly around the cylindrical central core offering thus planted entry foyers with spectacular front view on the city of Taipei.

By level, the central core gathers 2 staircases, 4 high speed elevators of 24 people (1800 kg), 1 car elevators (also useful to carry enormous art pieces, luxury antique vehicles, or even huge pianos, etc.), 2 sky garages in glass and also all the vertical shafts for the main flows. All these vertical flows are covered by a huge bearing exoskeleton in reinforced steel.

The apartments, a maximal spatial and technical flexibility

The apartments of 540 M2 on average superimpose themselves under the shape of two planted twists unified around a central core. Each unit presents a storey structurally made with Vierendeel beams system behind glass facades only on even floors. All levels are linked at both ends by two spiralling mega columns covered by green walls. Each apartment is completely free columns!

This structural concept inspired by the DNA chain enables a maximal flexibility in terms of interior layout. It ensures also an optimal visual permeability (indoor outdoor connectivity) towards the suspended gardens of the balconies in foreground and the urban panorama on the background.

» The spatial flexibility is divided in 4 main typologies of storeys of 2 or 4 units:

Typology A: 2 units with curved living rooms around a central core.
Typology B: 2 units with living rooms stretched in the length behind the Southern façades.
Typology C: 2 units with living rooms set in bow by the panoramic storey.
Typology D: 4 units in duplex with living rooms benefiting from a double height.

In addition to these basic typologies, two huge clubhouses are set up on the roof floors so as to respect the setback required by the building volume. Therefore, from the same standardized double helix (1.250 M2 floor area), the rotation of the storey and its customizable interior laying-out makes every level be a unique floor for each resident!

Above: north-west and south-east facades

» The technical flexibility is obtained by the integration of the double deck and double wall concepts:

Spatially hyper-flexible, the constructive system proposed also a total flexibility to the level of technical distribution of the flows. Additional vertical flows are organized with “oblique shafts” along the glass façade. The system of double deck is integrated at each level under the shape of a double floor and a suspended ceiling. The network of the flows (rain water, used water, hot water, electricity, under floor-heating, cool air, hot air, optic fibre, etc.) crossing the central core can thus irrigate without any difficulty on the horizontal way all the surface area of each storey. Moreover, the use of castellated beams will enable to take advantage of a maximal free height under ceiling. The interior partitioning of each apartment will be à la carte according to the wishes of each inhabitant. The double walls will compartmentalize the different rooms following the curved axes of the building by integrating also many useful storage spaces.

» The energetic efficiency is obtained by isolating façades with high performance named inter-layer or double-layer:

The Agora Garden tower is covered by linear crystalline façades repeating themselves at each level. The identical facades in every apartment will be pre-manufactured in factory to accelerate their setting-up during the works. A multilayer glass (airspace + Polyvinyl Butyral) or double layer façades with integrated blinds will be directly associated there in order to protect the interior spaces from the solar radiation in summer and to limit the calorific loss in winter.

The landscape balconies, green cascades of flowers, fruits, vegetables and aromates

The landscape concept is to build a cascade of suspended gardens which cover the entire building. The tower becomes then a true vertical inhabited park, in a box of nature in the heart of the city! The selected essences will be preferably eatable in order to make each inhabitant gardener in its own vegetable consumption. Suspended orchards, organic vegetable gardens, aromatic and medicinal gardens will flourish the wide and deep jardinière along the global periphery of each apartment. Garden furniture, compost spaces from waste to organic fertilizers, fuel cells, rain water tanks for the irrigation of plants, and ecologic nests for birds will be directly integrated in the design of these jardinières. In order to protect the organic substrate tanks from the heating coming from the solar radiation, the planting beds will be covered by a layer of Bethel white granite on honeycomb. The white colour of the Agora Garden tower will provide a new emblematic, pure and fresh identity.

The tower generates through its morphology in rotation two types of very specific landscape balconies:

1. The balconies called ascending or positive:open-air, they benefit from a maximal sunshine and enable to cultivate their trees and shrubs of subtropical essences. We will preferably set up the living rooms on this side. It will be also possible to inlay photovoltaic sunshades at the extremity of the slab according to the wishes of each resident. Thermal captors could be also set up in order to produce sanitary hot water.

2. The balconies called descending or negative:Covered by the superior level, they offer half shadowed relaxing spaces to cultivate flowers, vegetables, aromatic plants and falling and climbing species. We will preferably set up the bedrooms on this side.

In bow of the housing storeys, are laid-out some outdoor garden bath sanctuary that coils themselves up in an alcove dig in the façade of each apartment. Different from the modern city built of concrete, glass and steel, the Agora Garden tower appears in an urban centre as a green twisted mountain. Following the seasons, the planted essences (with persistent and deciduous leaves) will make its colours and its abundance to evolve. Declining a camaieu of green in the summer, the tower will blaze with golden and bloody colours in autumn. In spring, it will be bloomed with thousands colours and will liberate floral fragrances from its fruit trees. The tower will then develop perfumed micro-climate for the very best welfare of its inhabitants!

The photovoltaic roof and its gardens for phyto-purification

Located at 100 meters high, a huge photovoltaic pergola of 1000 m² transforms the sun rays into electric energy which is directly reintroduced into the network of the building. Under this layer with blue-steel reflection, clubhouses are located on the roof surrounded by panoramic sky gardens. They filter and purify the rain water with the action of the plants in order to reinject the water by gravity in the distribution network of sanitary water. From this terrace, there is an extraordinary panoramic view on the 101 tower.

Above: north-east and south-west facades

The landscape basement naturally lightened and ventilated:

Contrary to the traditional car park of 2.10 M high under beams and plunged under an artificial shadowy light, the car park of the Agora Garden project benefits from the natural light. Actually, a light well integrating seismic joints makes the light and the fresh air fall to the levels of the basement. Thus, the car park and the connected facilities (swimming pools and fitness) are naturally ventilated. The main access of the basement is done by the Song Yong Road under a sculptural entry gate inspired by a spiralling leaf.

From the level B1, we can access to both car elevators inside the central core and go very quickly to the sky garages located at the entrance of each apartment. The car park is designed in the existing perimeter of the current car park of the pre-existing Agora Garden hotel in order to limit the works cost of excavation and foundations.

Only the south-west wall has been corrected so as to set up a laying-out with double helix. Actually, in the continuation of the rotating tower, the car park is drawn according to a circular plan with an ascending interior helix around the core in the direction of the exit and a second descending helix in the direction of the entrance. The whole set forms a continuous banister that welcomes more than 230 cars and 500 scooters. From slab to slab, the minimal height is 3,10 meters which improves comfortably the atmosphere of the building of an immaculate white. It is important to notice that the structure of the tower weights through this car park in order to facilitate the descent of the loading of the whole building.

The Challenge Of A Positively Ecologic Revolution!

In the architecture of the Agora Garden project, the association of the living (Bios), the biotechnologies (renewable energies and nanotechnologies), and the NICT (New Technologies of Information and Communication), can meet the Chinese antique thought which always refused to separate the nature and the humanity that nourishes itself from it; the body from the spirit that did not exist without it. Avant-gardist on the theme of contemporary ecologic crisis, the Chinese thought prefers the relationships rather than the separated elements. The human being and its life framework depend from the fusion of the variables:

As humbly wrote the influent sinologist, specialist in old China Marcel Granet in the Chinese Thought in 1934: None opposes the human being from the nature; do not think of opposing them such as the free element from the determined element. The Chinese people only see in the Time and the Space a gathering of occasions and sites. These are interdependences, solidarities that constitute the order of the Universe. We do not think that the Man could form a reign in the Nature or that the spirit distinguishes itself from the material.

In the heart of Taipei, after having built the city on the landscape, after having then built the city on the city, it is now time for the landscape to rebuild itself on the city! In this perspective of ecologic resilience, the Agora Garden project must be considered as an abstraction of geography and a distortion of ecosystem. The Agora Garden project is a nature built from the living that fights for the re-naturalisation of Ecopolis of tomorrow! This tower reveals strongly and surely the challenge of reinventing a new lifestyle for residential tower, that is self-sufficient, sculpturally unprecedented. It is a project absolutely unique in the world and charismatic drawing with poetry in the oriental sky, a delicate superposition of sky villas with wide suspended private gardens.

Last but not least, it is a unique ecologic landmark, new symbol of sustainability at the bottom of the prestigious 101 tower!

Above: cross section

Type: International Competition – First Prize Winner In November 2010
Client: Bes Engineering Corporation, Taipei
Contract Location: Xinyin District, Taipei City, Taiwan
Program: 40 Luxurious Apartments + Facilities
Surface Area: 42.335.34 M²
Delivery: 2016
Current Phase: Construction Documents – Below Grade Under Construction
Green Certification: LEED Gold

International Design Architect: Vincent Callebaut Architectures, SARL Paris
Local Architect: LKP Design, Taipei
Structural Engineer: King Le Chang & Associates, Taipei
Local Mep Engineering: Sine & Associates, Taipei
International Interior Architect: Wilson & Associates (Wa), Los Angeles
International Landscape Architect: SWA, Sausalito, San Francisco
Local Landscape Architect: Horizon & Atmosphere (H&A), Taipei
International Lighting Designer: L’observatoire International, New-York
Local Lighting Designer: Unolai Design, Taipei
Green Consultant: Enertek, Taipei
VCA’s Team: Emilie Diers, Frederique Beck, Jiao Yang, Florence Mauny, Volker Erlich, Philippe Steels, Marco Conti Sikic, Benoit Patterlini, Maguy Delrieu, Vincent Callebaut
Model Maker: Patrick Laurent

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