News: American firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has revealed designs for a skyscraper in Jakarta that will be over 500 metres high and will harvest wind energy through an opening at its peak.
With a proposed height of approximately 530 metres, the Pertamina Energy Tower will be twice as high as Wisma 46, currently the tallest building in Indonesia, and will feature an integrated “wind funnel” that generates energy from prevailing air currents.
SOM designed the building as a headquarters for state-owned oil and gas corporation Pertamina and it will be constructed as part of a proposed campus that also includes a mosque, a performing arts and exhibition centre, sports facilities and an energy plant.
The exterior of the tower will be glazed and will gently taper towards the top to frame the opening of the wind funnel. This curved facade will feature solar shades to allow natural light to enter, without the problems of solar heat gain.
“Pertamina Energy Tower’s iconic presence will stand as a model of sustainability and efficiency, as well as collaborative workplace design,” said SOM director Scott Duncan.
“The headquarters’ performance-driven design supports and reflects the ambition of Pertamina’s mission and forges an innovative model of green development in Jakarta.”
The building is scheduled for completion in 2020 in Jakarta’s Rasuna Epicentrum neighbourhood and will accommodate up to 20,000 Pertamina employees.
Pertamina reveals plans for SOM-designed tower in Jakarta
Plans were unveiled on Monday for Pertamina Energy Tower, a highly sustainable corporate headquarters in Jakarta, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), the renowned architecture, engineering, interiors and planning firm. Created for the state-owned energy company, Pertamina, the large-scale project will feature a performing arts and exhibition pavilion, a mosque, and a central energy plant in addition to the office tower. Rising more than 500 metres above Jakarta, the tower will be a new landmark on the capitol’s skyline.
The architectural expression of Pertamina Energy Tower reinforces the sustainable strategies at the core of its design. Gently tapering towards a rounded top, the tower opens up at the crown, revealing a ‘wind funnel’ that will take advantage of the prevailing winds and increased wind speeds at the upper floors to generate energy. Precisely calibrated for Jakarta’s proximity to the equator, the tower’s curved facade will mitigate solar heat gain throughout the year. Exterior sun shades will dramatically improve the workplace environment and save energy by reducing the need for artificial lighting in the office interiors.
The 99-story tower will accommodate 20,000 employees and will be the centrepiece of the Pertamina campus in Jakarta’s Rasuna Epicentrum neighbourhood. Conceived as a city within a city, the campus design endeavours to create a new model for a corporate headquarters – one that is more like a bustling city – with vibrant public spaces and communal meeting areas, such as a 2,000-seat auditorium for lectures and performances and a public mosque. A central energy plant will serve as the energy production hub for the campus, a literal and figurative “heart” from which energy and services will be distributed. A covered walkway known as the “Energy Ribbon” will knit together the constellation of campus programs and span across land bridges and gardens to create an array of accessible public spaces. The project is slated for completion in 2020.
Ma Yansong of Chinese studio MAD presents a masterplan for Nanjing, China, where buildings are designed to look like mountains and public spaces overlap with the natural landscape, as part of the Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture.
The Nanjing Zendai Thumb Plaza proposal is the latest in a series of projects by MAD based on Yansong’s Shan-Shui City concept – an urban strategy based on a style of Chinese landscape painting and named after the Chinese words for mountains and water.
The masterplan, which encompasses an area of approximately 60 hectares, envisions an assortment of buildings and spaces that mediate between the city’s urban centre and its surrounding landscape of mountains and lakes.
“We need to rethink how to define the boundary between the nature and the urban on this piece of empty plot in the new city development area,” says MAD. “Is it possible to combine the high-density city with the atmosphere of the nature to create an energetic urban public space for the future, so people will reconnect their emotion with the nature?”
Expected to complete by 2017, the masterplan includes a set of high-rise buildings with unique curving profiles intended to avoid the “height competition” associated with most skyscrapers.
At ground level, pathways and plazas will be integrated with a mixture of manmade and natural landscaping.
Ma Yansong Featuring ‘Nanjing Zendai Thumb Plaza’ in Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture 2013 in Shenzhen
Ma Yansong presented his work, ‘Shanshui Experiment Complex’ in the Border Warehouse of Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture 2013 in Shenzhen. This is an artwork in-between architecture model and landscape installation, created based on MAD’s latest project, ‘Nanjing Zendai Thumb Plaza’. The total area of this urban design project is about 600,000 sqm and it is expected to be completed in 2017.
The historic city Nanjing is famous for the mountain and water landscape around the city, as well as its modern prosperities. With the culture, nature and history considered, we need to rethink how to define the boundary between the nature and the urban on this piece of empty plot in the new city development area. Is it possible to combine the high-density city with the atmosphere of the nature to create an energetic urban public space for the future, so people will re-connected their emotion with the nature?
The installation approaches those issues by creating a green open space spreading on the ground level of the city, where the natural and man-made landscape cross over with each other, existing in different dimensions both indoors and outdoors. The clear boundary of the site thus becomes blurred. While walking to their urban destination, people will feel as if they are sometimes walking in the nature. Above that, a series of buildings rise in the fog with flowing lines, changing smoothly as integrity, resolving the vertical power and the height competition, and the city skyline that used to be controlled by technology and power is now back to the artistic mood of faraway-so-close that our ancients have perceived in the nature.
News: Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron have designed a 56-storey cylindrical skyscraper as part of a nine-hectare masterplan proposed for London’s Canary Wharf.
The residential tower is one of five new buildings proposed at Wood Wharf, the eastern end of Canary Wharf, in the first phase of a major mixed-used development submitted for planning approval today by London architecture firm Allies and Morrison.
Herzog & de Meuron and London studio Stanton Williams are working on the three residential buildings of the proposal, providing a total of 884 homes, while Allies and Morrison has designed two office blocks targeted at creative media, technology and telecommunications companies.
Later phases of the masterplan aim to surround the new buildings with a network of public squares and parks, as well as over 100 shops, restaurants and cafes at street level. Additional buildings will accommodate education and healthcare facilities, while more residential accommodation will bring the total of new homes up to 3100.
George Iacobescu of property developer Canary Wharf Group commented: “This is an exciting new project for Canary Wharf Group which represents the continued redevelopment of east London almost 30 years after the original transformation of Canary Wharf began.”
“The revised masterplan will create a strong and complementary mix of uses, and provide new homes, offices and retail spaces set within a network of streets and public spaces, designed to support the social life of new residents, employees and the surrounding community,” he added.
If planning approval is granted, construction of the phase one buildings is set to commence next year, with completion scheduled for 2017.
Here’s the full press release from Canary Wharf Group:
Canary Wharf Group submits new Planning Application for Mixed Use Urban Neighbourhood on Canary Wharf’s Eastern Edge
» Revised masterplan by Allies and Morrison will broaden Canary Wharf’s appeal as a working and living urban district
» New Wood Wharf neighbourhood will be defined by a network of high quality parks and public squares with a kilometre of dock-edge walkways
» The new neighbourhood will offer a range of homes from park-side townhouses and affordable housing to luxury penthouses in some of London’s tallest residential buildings designed by world-class architects
» New offices will appeal to a range of tenants but with a focus on creative media, technology and telecommunications
» Over 100 new shops, restaurants and cafes are planned at street level that will attract a range of new concepts and products
» The Masterplan provides for: – 3,100 residential units – 240,000 sqm (2.57 million sq.ft.) (GIA) of commercial offices – 31,000 sqm (340,000 sq.ft.) (GIA) of shops, cafes and restaurants – 3.6 hectares (8.9 acres) of interconnected public spaces
» Illustrative design information for Phase I to include 884 residential units in 3 buildings designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Stanton Williams totalling 100,379 sq. m (1,080,179 sq ft) (GIA); and 2 office buildings totalling over 20,000 sq. m (216,000 sq.ft.) (GIA) designed by Allies and Morrison. All three architectural practices are internationally acclaimed and award winning firms of the highest calibre (see notes below).
– Planning application submitted today to London Borough of Tower Hamlets – Extensive public consultation has been undertaken over the last 12 months – Details can be found at www.shapingwoodwharf.com – New images of development released alongside revised plans
Continuing the redevelopment of East London
Canary Wharf Group plc (“Canary Wharf Group”) today announces that it has submitted planning applications for, a new 9.23 hectares (22.8 acres) mixed-use urban neighbourhood immediately east of Canary Wharf in central London. The new masterplan proposes the development of more than 3,000 homes and over 240,000 sq. m (2.57 million sq.ft.) (GIA) of commercial offices offering a range of floor plates that will appeal to a wide array of occupiers including the fast expanding TMT sector.
Commenting on the plans, Sir George Iacobescu, Chairman and Chief Executive of Canary Wharf Group plc, said:
“This is an exciting new project for Canary Wharf Group which represents the continued redevelopment of East London almost 30 years after the original transformation of Canary Wharf began. The revised masterplan will create a strong and complementary mix of uses, and provide new homes, offices and retail spaces set within a network of streets and public spaces, designed to support the social life of new residents, employees and the surrounding community. It is a reflection of the demand we are seeing in the market, and is an opportunity for us to further expand the appeal of Canary Wharf by creating a new and exciting mixed use neighbourhood at Wood Wharf which will offer greater diversity and amenity and a richer urban fabric for the fast emerging City Centre of Canary Wharf.”
A range of house types are proposed for 3,100 residential units, including town houses and mid and high-rise apartment buildings. Housing tenure will include private housing for sale and rent and intermediate and affordable housing for rent. The planned offices will be capable of accommodating a wide range of company sizes and types, in line with the mixture of demand we anticipate including the expanding TMT sector in East London. This vibrant, new development is expected to create over 17,000 new jobs, of which we expect around 3,500 will be taken by local residents.
Building a Community
The broad range of public spaces, homes, offices and shops is designed to offer a rich and diverse working and living environment. This diversity is a key element of the new Masterplan. The shops and restaurants will include a range of names new to London to further expand Canary Wharf’s broad retail offer. The Masterplan provides for two hotels and serviced apartments. The scheme also includes 3.6 hectares of interconnected public spaces with two squares and two parks, one based on a typical London square, the other lining the southern dock edge of Wood Wharf with 1km of dockside boardwalks.
Plans for Wood Wharf include a two-form entry primary school, a multi-purpose sports hall and a healthcare facility. The highly successful Arts and Events Programme at Canary Wharf will be expanded and will offer a range of cultural activities and events in new venues and the planned public spaces at Wood Wharf.
Transport considerations include the installation of London Cycle Hire bicycles, a new bus route through the site and improved pedestrian connectivity to London Underground, DLR & Crossrail. Two car clubs are planned along with parking for 1,100 spaces.
On the importance of public space, Robert Maguire, Project Director for Wood Wharf said:
“With an extensive new network of public spaces and water’s edge boardwalks, the Wood Wharf masterplan places high quality public space at the heart of the design process. The principle achievement of the masterplan – the ‘glue’ which holds the neighbourhood together – will always be its well-considered network of streetscapes, squares, parks and water spaces. We are building a community that will both support, and be supported by, the success of Canary Wharf and the 110,000 people that work and visit Canary Wharf each day.”
Next Steps
Herzog & de Meuron and Stanton Williams have been appointed to work alongside Allies and Morrison in designing the first phase buildings within Wood Wharf. If planning permission is granted, construction is expected to start in Q4 2014 with the first buildings to be completed in 2017.
News: a tower under construction in Miami by Porsche Design and Dezer Development is to feature car elevators, allowing some of the world’s wealthiest people to park right next to their living rooms (+ slideshow).
The sixty-storey Porsche Design Tower will feature three automobile lifts to transport vehicles up to “sky garages” integrated into each of the 132 units.
Twenty-two billionaires – just under two percent of the world’s total – have already purchased property in the tower according to The Atlantic Cities.
“Featuring the level of superlative quality and groundbreaking ingenuity synonymous with Porsche Design’s iconic style, buyers understand the unprecedented value of these properties,” said Porsche Design CEO Juergen Gessler about the first real estate venture for the company.
Located in Sunny Isles Beach, a seaside district north of Miami, the cylindrical design developed by Dezer Development will rise 198 metres from the shoreline.
Depending on their size, units will have two to four garages that will be visible through glass walls inside the apartments. Resident’s vehicles will be washed and maintained by a concierge service.
The residences will include double-height spaces with ocean views, with plunge pools and outdoor kitchens on expansive balconies. Other amenities in the tower will include a spa, a cinema, a game room and a seafront ballroom.
Construction began in April 2013 and the first residents are predicted to move in during early 2016.
$214 Million Construction Loan Secured for Porsche Design Tower
Largest loan for a single construction project in the Southeast United States
New York/South Florida-based Dezer Development today announced that it had closed a $214 million loan from Wells Fargo for construction of the iconic Porsche Design Tower Miami, located in Sunny Isles Beach. It is the largest loan approved for a major construction project in the Southeast United States since the real estate recession, and exponentially larger than any post-recession loan of its kind in South Florida. At $214 million, it is almost 30 percent larger than the previous largest substantive construction loan for a South Florida project since the recovery began.
The 132-residence, 60-story, ultra-luxury Porsche Design condominium tower is located at 18555 Collins Avenue, Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. The project has already secured $535 million in sales – representing over two-thirds of the units – far exceeding the benchmarks for securing the loan. Sell-out of the remaining units is anticipated to occur towards the end of the year at the current absorption rates. The building’s expansive residences range in size from 4800 to 17000 square feet and are priced from $4.8 million to $32.5 million. The building is slated for occupancy first quarter of 2016.
“This is extremely positive news for real estate financing and the recovery of the residential real estate market in South Florida,” says Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development. “It is also a testament to how this one-of-a-kind project has been received by our buyers, as well as the lending community.”
“The opportunity to be part of Porsche Design’s first-of-its-kind real estate venture has been paramount to our sales success,” says Juergen Gessler, CEO Porsche Design Group. “Featuring the level of superlative quality and groundbreaking ingenuity synonymous with Porsche Design’s Iconic Style, buyers understand the unprecedented value of these properties.”
Reflecting the Porsche Design luxury brand’s hallmarks of technical innovation, forward-thinking and its timeless Iconic Style, the Porsche Design Tower Miami features a one-of-a-kind automobile lift system which will allow owners to park their vehicles in “sky garages” directly next to their units. While typically a luxury reserved for the most elite of penthouses, the building features plunge pools and outdoor summer kitchens on the balconies in almost every unit which completes the feel of the sky residence.
Other incomparable building amenities include a state-of-the-art spa equipped with treatment rooms featuring Vichy showers, sunset terrace complemented with twin over-sized spa tubs, an oceanfront ballroom and multipurpose clubrooms including a movie theatre and game room, and a Car Concierge who will tend to a resident’s vehicle, by assisting with regular maintenance, tire rotations, washing and other services.
Architects Agnieszka Preibisz and Peter Sandhaus have unveiled a conceptual skyscraper for Berlin with a twisted figure-of-eight structure that curves around elevated gardens and is held up by cables.
Agnieszka Preibisz and Peter Sandhaus, who are both based in Berlin, developed the design to contribute to a new masterplan being put together for the eastern quarter of the city.
“The state of society in the twenty-first century requires that we develop new visions for living in densely populated inner cities,” Preibisz told Dezeen. “This process inherently triggers an essential confrontation of material and social values, and so there is a nascent yearning for an architecture that offers a high degree of potential for community.”
Describing the building as a “vertical garden city”, the architects have planned a network of gardens and greenhouses that would slot into the two hollows of the figure-of-eight, intended to serve a growing desire among city dwellers for self-sustaining gardening.
Residences would be arranged to encourage neighbours to interact with one another, fostering a sense of community that the architects compare to social networks.
“While in social networking, the border between the public and the private spheres is being renegotiated, architecture and urban planning of cities such as Berlin lags behind these significant social and demographic changes,” they explain.
Named Green8, the tower is designed for a site on Alexanderplatz. The architects are now consulting with an engineering office to assess the viability of the structure.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Green8 Concept
How Do We Want To Live?
While trying to answer the query of how and where to house, many modern families today are torn between the desire for a pulsating urban life and the craving for a lifestyle in harmony with nature.
Our identification with and our desire for a free and urban life style defined by short distances to work, excellent public transportation, and proximity to cultural and commercial amenities, does not need to end with the decision to start a family or with retirement from active professional life.
Current trends towards a ‘sharing-spirit’ and a new participation in the community life counteract the anonymity and isolation in the metropolis. While in social networking, the border between the public and the private spheres is being renegotiated, architecture and urban planning of cities such as Berlin lags behind these significant social and demographic changes.
The unease with the global imperative of continued growth propagated by financial markets, seems to be spreading. Confidence in industrial food production finds itself nowadays significantly eroded. At the same time also the mass production of organic and healthier food has its limits and fails to appease growing groups of customers.
The longing for self-sustaining gardening and for knowing about the origins of what one is eating, are the most important reasons for the current boom in urban gardening.
What do these developments mean for architecture and urban planning? How do we want to live and house in the future?
As an integrative solution to this dilemma, the architects Agnieszka Preibisz and Peter Sandhaus are proposing project Green8 for a vertical garden city on Alexanderplatz in Berlin.
The residential high-rise structure is based on a business model of a cooperative collective. It envisions a self-determined community encompassing all generations. With its generous greenhouse and community spaces Green8 offers to organise not only the food production but also the sport and leisure activities, as well as the care of children and seniors.
Green8 reflects a dream come true: living in the centre of the city with breathtaking panorama views, while having one’s own vegetable garden at one’s doorstep.
Thanks to its cooperative and integrative principles, this housing concept is economically efficient. This form of home ownership is free from many constraints of real estate or land speculation, and the long term costs are lower than those of conventional homes.
News: German studio HENN has won a competition to design a 280-metre skyscraper in Taiyuan, China (+ slideshow).
HENN designed the office and hotel building, named Cenke Tower, for a site in the centre of the Chinese city, which is located in Shanxi Province.
The front and rear facades will feature smooth profiles that curve gently outwards, while the narrow sides are designed with convex curvatures. Each of these elevations will be glazed, exposing the aluminium cross-bracing supporting the structure.
The majority of the building will accommodate offices, while the hotel will be located on the uppermost floors and a shopping centre will be housed in the basement.
An entrance on the western side of the tower will provide access from the adjacent boulevard, plus a sunken courtyard on the opposite side of the building will lead visitors through to the shops inside.
The new tower for the Cenke Group is located on the north-south axis in the centre of the Chinese metropolis of Taiyuan. As well as office space, the building also contains a hotel on its upper floors and a retail area at the basement level. The longer sides of the 280 metre-high building take the form of convex shells with vertically accented facades constructed from opaque aluminium elements and glass of various degrees of transparency.
The trapezoid-like shape reduces successively with the building height in the upper levels and determines the amount of direct sunlight admitted to suit the planned use of the space within. While the offices receive optimum solar shading and maximum interior daylight, the hotel guests can enjoy the widest possible views over the city.
The narrower sides of the tower with their concave curvatures and smooth transparent glass facades strike a counterpoint to the solid, powerful overall appearance of the building. They allow views into the building’s interior and show off the elegant, diagonally braced structure.
The entrance area is located on the western side of the building along the lively boulevard. A planted sunken courtyard south of the building merges seamlessly into the basement.
News:OMA has completed the Shenzhen Stock Exchange – a skyscraper with a skirt at the heart of the city’s Central Business District (+ slideshow).
As one of OMA‘s best-known designs, the 250-metre skyscraper nicknamed “the miniskirt” features a three-storey podium that has been elevated 36 metres above the ground to sit around the body of the tower, creating a sheltered public plaza below and a roof garden on top.
This suspended structure provides the large trading rooms of the stock exchange, which are framed behind a sequence of zigzagging trusses that contrast with the grid of square windows on the building’s main facades.
“The Shenzhen Stock Exchange embodies the Pearl River Delta’s phenomenal transformation over the past thirty years,” commented Rem Koolhaas, whose firm won a competition to design the building back in 2006.
He said: “We are greatly excited about the building from an architectural standpoint, but I believe its true significance emerges when viewed in an economic, political, and ultimately social context. We are immensely honoured to contribute to Shenzhen’s twenty-first century landscape.”
“It is exciting to see OMA’s extensive research on Shenzhen materialise as a building in the city,” added OMA partner David Gianotten. “The experience of building in Shenzhen further informs our vision for the future of the city. SZSE has a simple and powerful concept – it transcends a generic form into an innovative prospect through the simple gesture of lifting the podium.”
The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is OMA’s second major project to complete in China, following the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing.
OMA completes the Shenzhen Stock Exchange HQ in China
The new headquarters for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) has been completed in Shenzhen’s Central Business District. The 180,000 m2 building is OMA’s next completed building in China after the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing.
Defying the conventional building typology of tower-on-podium, SZSE’s three-storey base is cantilevered 36m above the ground, allowing for a generous public space below and a lush roof garden on top. The raised podium contains the listing hall and offices of the Stock Exchange; in its elevated position, it can “broadcast” the activities of the stock market to the entire city.
While the generic square form of the tower blends in with the surrounding homogenous buildings, the façade of SZSE is differentiated through its materiality: a translucent layer of patterned glass wraps the tower grid and raised podium, rendering the façade mysterious and enigmatic, while revealing the construction behind. The façade changes continually with the weather, becoming a reflection of its environment.
The SZSE project was led by OMA partners Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten, and associate Michael Kokora, in collaboration with partners Ellen van Loon and Shohei Shigematsu.
Construction was overseen by OMA Asia’s Hong Kong office and OMA’s on-site office in Shenzhen, working day-to-day with the client and contractors throughout the construction process. OMA’s team consisted of over 75 architects at various points in the design and construction phases.
SZSE was developed in collaboration with the local design institute SADI, and consultants DHV, Inside Outside, L&B and Arup. OMA won the competition for SZSE in 2006 and construction began in October 2008. OMA is currently designing a number of other buildings in China, including the Tencent Headquarters in Beijing and the Prince Bay Masterplan in Shenzhen.
News: science-fiction author Neal Stephenson is developing a concept for a 20-kilometre (12.4-mile) skyscraper that could be used to launch rockets into space.
The author, who studied physics before moving into science-fiction, says that high-grade steel could one day be used to build a tower that is around 24 times as tall as the 830-metre Burj Khalifa – currently the tallest man-made structure in the world – and near double the height flown by most commercial aeroplanes.
“It ends up being all about wind,” he told the BBC. “In a windless environment making a structure that tall would almost be trivial. But when you build something that is going to poke up through and get hit by the jet stream from time to time, then it becomes shockingly much more difficult.”
Stephenson and ASU structural engineer Keith Hjelmstad are now looking at where a building like this could be located and whether it is possible to address the problems caused by wind pressure. If so, Stephenson claims its height could make it the cheapest way to send objects into outer space.
“The future of space travel, at this writing, is up for grabs with NASA eyeing destinations more distant than the International Space Station and commercial space travel just starting to get some traction,” writes Hjelmstad in an accompanying research paper. “It is an interesting time to consider ideas like the Tall Tower.”
The Tall Building project is a strand of Project Hieroglyph, a research programme bringing various science-fiction writers together with scientists to develop ambitions for the future. Inspired by papers written by author and scientist Geoffrey Landis, Stephenson began his project with the question: “How tall can we build something?”
“The idea of the project in general is to come up with innovations or ideas… sufficiently near-term and doable that a person sort of graduating from university today could say, ‘Well, if I began working on this now, then by the time I retire it might exist’,” he said.
Here’s an introductory movie from Project Hieroglyph:
Here’s some extra information from the project team:
The Tall Tower
The Tall Tower project is part of Project Hieroglyph, headquartered at the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. Hieroglyph teams up top science fiction writers (including Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, Bruce Sterling and Madeline Ashby) with scientists and engineers to imagine a near future radically changed by technological innovation. The project is designed to reignite our grand ambitions for the future and to inspire scientists, engineers and students to think big about the projects they pursue during their careers. The first Hieroglyph anthology, co-edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer, will be published by HarperCollins in late 2014.
The Tall Tower project began with Neal Stephenson asking a simple question: how tall can we build something? (The question was inspired by papers on the subject written by hard science fiction author and scientist Geoffrey Landis.) As he started working with structural engineer Keith Hjelmstad of ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, it became clear that it might be possible to build a very large structure – up to 20km tall – using high-grade steel. Keith developed some simple models to explore the structural requirements of such a tower and Neal began thinking about where such a building might be placed.
As the tower conversation continues, the circle of collaborators has expanded to include aerospace engineering, sophisticated digital modelling and architectural design. In a sure sign that the tower project is about to get excitingly weird, Bruce Sterling wants in. In the months to come the tower project will continue to serve as a pilot for the larger ideal of Hieroglyph: a freewheeling conversation about a radically ambitious project that could be accomplished within the next few decades. An original story about the Tall Tower, written by Stephenson and titled “Atmosphæra Incognita,” will be featured in the Hieroglyph anthology.
News: New York studio SHoP Architects has revealed its design for a 411 metre skyscraper in Manhattan on a plot that is just 13 metres wide.
Proposed for a lot on West 57th Street in Manhattan, the building would be approximately 30 metres taller than the Empire State Building and would feature a stepped facade facing the street.
News: Chinese architect Ma Yansong has revealed plans for a mixed-use complex in Beijing featuring skyscrapers, office blocks and public spaces modelled on mountains, hills and lakes.
Yansong, who leads Beijing studio MAD, designed the urban development for a site on the edge of Chaoyang Park, one of the largest city parks in the world. Rather than creating an obstacle between the city and the green space, the architect wanted to design buildings that bring the two districts together.
“By taking the natural beauty of lakes and mountains, the architectural complex can be read as a futuristic city landscape painting,” explained the designers. “High-rise buildings act as the peaks, individual office buildings as the slope, high-end offices as the ridge and residential buildings as mountain ranges, in combination with classical landscape elements like lakes, springs, forest, streams, valleys, rocks and peaks.”
Two skyscrapers overlooking the park will tower above the surrounding buildings, boasting striated volumes that reference organic rock formations.
The design is based on Yansong’s ongoing Shan-Shui City concept, which proposes a kind of architecture and urbanism that is influenced by nature and emotion, enabling city dwellers to reconnect with the natural world. The concept was first developed in the 1980s by Chinese scientists.
“The whole architectural complex does not look like it is ‘built’, but growing up naturally from its surrounding environment and recreating a new Shan-Shui space typology,” added the studio.
Ma Yansong’s latest design, Chaoyang Park project was launched at Times Square in New York city
At 6pm New York time, September 5th of 2013, a green building with distinct Oriental features designed by Ma Yansong was launched at Times Square in New York city. Located along the lake of Beijing Chaoyang Park, this city complex is the continuation “Shan-Shui City” – a design concept Ma Yansong has been pursuing. It is a new interpretation of China’s ancient natural philosophy in contemporary city. In this typical CBD area that is flooded with extreme-modernism buildings, Ma Yansong aims at infusing the vigorous Shan-Shui culture into the new urbanisation with this “Chao Yang Park” project.
Since this project is adjacent to the world’s second-largest city park, Ma Yansong hopes that it will not become the boundary that separates the park and the city. On the contrary, by introducing the Shan-shui elements into the design, the building and the park is to be merged into a whole landscape, so to have the nature extending into the city, and to create a land of idyllic beauty in the city. The design starts with the understanding that the park is part of the plot: by taking the natural beauty of lakes and mountains, the architectural complex can be read as a futuristic city landscape painting in which high-rise buildings act as the peaks, individual office buildings as the slope, high-end offices as the ridge and residential buildings as mountain ranges in combination with classical landscape elements like lakes, springs, forest, streams, valleys, rocks and peaks. As a result, the whole architectural complex does not look like they are “built” but growing up naturally from its surrounding environment and they recreate a new Shan-Shui space typology. People can feel both the grandeur of the holistic landscape and its exquisite inside scenery.
This project is an ecological complex mainly functions as offices and residential buildings. However, it goes beyond the usual concept of green building. It is a Chinese-featured green building developed with the “spirit of green”. What Ma Yansong concerns a lot about is to seek the new direction of contemporary architecture and city from the traditional culture. This also decides if Chinese architecture can find its own way for future urban development. The simulation of the landscape of an international metropolis should take over the traditional Shan-Shui spirit and restore the natural traditional values followed with the innovation of architectural forms and the transformation of urban structures. In conformity with this idea, Ma Yansong will proceed with his exploration and practice of Shan-Shui City.
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