FEATURE – ARCHITECTURE
ARCHITECTURALLY INSPIRED From hotels to residential complexes, architecture is constantly evolving. Robyn Tucker-Peck introduces some cutting-edge designs.
If we could dream and imagine what environment we would be happy living in, what would that look like? Would we want lots of trees and flowers? Would we want exquisite designs in the interior of our buildings or would we want our buildings to dominate the sky with its exterior, boldly making a statement in our city or town? These are the questions architects raise when they receive a project from their clients such as hotels, residences, office buildings or any structure commissioned by owners, municipalities, urban development, city councils and the like.
I have come to admire buildings like never before. If we looked up more often when we walk along a street and appreciated their beauty, extraordinary structures and craftsmanship we would be in awe of the designs and the myriad details that go into their creation. There are so many possibilities for building structures we just have to imagine what can be possible and create it. There are many organizations related to building architecture and construction, but one has a unique role and that is to recognise projects and individuals that have made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment, and that achieve sustainability at the highest and broadest level.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to smarter, more sustainable cities and a more viable future for global populations. CTBUH is headquartered in Chicago and has offices in Shanghai and Venice. CTBUH’s worldwide membership network includes companies from real estate development, architecture, engineering, cost consulting, building management and construction, among others. Every year the CTBUH Annual Awards program delivers a comprehensive and sophisticated view of these important buildings, spaces and technologies, while advocating for improvements in every aspect of their performance, especially those that have the greatest impact on the people who use them each day. This means that the buildings highlighted are often not the tallest in a given year, but the ones that represent the best qualities and innovations in the typology.
The CTBUH awards recognize projects that have made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment, and that achieve sustainability and human well-being at the highest and broadest level. The winning projects must also exhibit processes and/or innovations that have added to the profession of design and enhance the cities and the lives of their inhabitants. ctbuh.org
Let me take you on a journey of some of the most stunning designs and projects included in the CTBUH Annual Awards program. But let us also dream a little about what is possible in our world of living and creating unique spaces like the BiodiverCity Penang where Bjarke Ingels Group, Hijjas Kasturi and Ramboll have been selected as winners of Penang State Government’s international competition to design a masterplan for Penang South Islands, providing Penangites with approximately 4.6km of public beaches, 600 acres of parks and a 25km waterfront.
BJARKE Ingels Group
A Copenhagen, New York, London and Barcelona-based group of architects, designers, urbanists, landscape professionals, interior and product designers, researchers and inventors. “We believe that in order to deal with today’s challenges, architecture can profitably move into a field that has been largely unexplored. A pragmatic utopian architecture that steers clear of the petrifying pragmatism of boring boxes and the naïve utopian ideas of digital formalism. Like a form of programmatic alchemy, we create architecture by mixing conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, parking and shopping”. BIG’s projects have indeed found freedom to change the surface of our planet. big.dk/#projects
VANCOUVER HOUSE
2021 CTBUH Awards, Best Tall Building Worldwide 2021 Winner, Best Tall Building 100-199 meters 2021 Winner, Best Tall Residential or Hotel Building 2021 Winner. Vancouver House in Vancouver, BC, Canada negotiates a difficult site trisected by the Granville overpass and burdened by setbacks. The tower will maximize its mass where it has the most impact. At its base, a 30m setback from the highway dictates a triangular footprint on the ground. But as it ascends in elevation, the tower clears the zone of noise and visual pollution. It then exploits the opportunity to overcome the setback and reclaims the valuable space. In doing so, it provides an icon for the city’s skyline with a generous public space at its base.
SHENZHEN ENERGY COMPANY
The 96,000m two office development for the state-owned Shenzhen Energy Company is designed to look and feel at home in the cultural, political and business center of Shenzhen, while standing out as a new social and sustainable landmark at the main axis of the city. The development consists of two towers rising 220m to the north and 120m to the south, linked at the foot by a 34m podium housing the main lobbies, conference center, cafeteria and exhibition space. Together with the neighboring towers, the development forms a continuous curved skyline marking the center of Shenzhen. Winner of the CTBUH Best Tall Building Award of Excellence, 200-299 Meters Category 2019, HKIE Structural Excellence Award 2018. big.dk/#projects
LEEZA SOHO
CTBUH Award of Excellence:
Best Tall Building 200-299 meters and Award of Excellence for Interior Design 2021. Located on Lize Road in southwest Beijing, the Leeza SOHO tower anchors the new Fengtai business district – a growing financial and transport hub between the city centre and the recently opened Beijing Daxing International Airport to the south. The tower’s design divides its volume into two halves enclosed by a single facade shell. The emerging space between these two halves extends the full height of the tower, creating the world’s tallest atrium at 194m which rotates through the building as the tower rises to realign the upper floors. This rotation of the atrium intertwines Leeza SOHO’s two halves in a dynamic ‘pas de deux’ with connecting skybridges on levels 13, 24, 35 and 45. zaha-hadid.com
ONE THOUSAND MUSEUM
A 62-storey residential tower opposite Museum Park in Miami. With views across Biscayne Bay, this popular 30-acre park was redeveloped in 2013 as one of downtown Miami’s primary public spaces and includes the city’s new art and science museums. The tower’s design continues Zaha Hadid Architects’ research into high-rise construction that defines a fluid architectural expression consistent with the engineering for the entire height of a structure. One Thousand Museum’s concrete exoskeleton structures its perimeter in a web of flowing lines that integrates lateral bracing with structural support. CTBUH Award of Excellence: Best Tall Building 200-299 meters, 2021. 1000museum.com
MORPHEUS
In Cotai, Macau, City of Dreams is a leading integrated resort including casino, two theatres, shopping district, 20 restaurants and four hotels designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. Informed by the fluid forms within China’s rich traditions of jade carving, the Morpheus’ design combines dramatic public spaces and generous guest rooms with innovative engineering and formal cohesion. Conceived as a vertical extrusion of its rectangular footprint, a series of voids is carved through its centre to create an urban window connecting the hotel’s interior communal spaces with the city and generating the sculptural forms that define the hotel’s public spaces. CTBUH Winner: Fire & Risk Engineering Award 2019 and Award of Excellence: Best Tall Building 100-199 meters, 2019. cityofdreamsmacau.com
HEATHERWICK STUDIO
Was commissioned by Swire Properties to design an apartment building in the historic Newton district of Singapore. The focus on creating a garden for each apartment is a response to the disconnection between high-rise apartments and the lush greenery at street level in Singapore. Responding to Lee Kuan Yew’s original vision of Singapore as a ‘city in a garden’, the design extends the landscape of Singapore upwards through the building with a series of hanging gardens, connecting the interior living space with the outdoors, while providing views of Singapore’s green landscape. heatherwick.com
1000 TREES, SHANGHAI, CHINA
Designed by Heatherwick Studio for the developer Tian An China, 1,000 Trees is conceived not only as a building but as a piece of topography. It takes the form of two tree-covered mountains, populated by hundreds of columns.
HAYRI ATAK ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN STUDIO (HAADS)
Hayri Atak is an architect, designer and trainer who works on many different scales such as environment, city, building and industrial design. Atak, who graduated from Istanbul Technical University, Department of Interior Architecture, also studied architecture at Auburn University as part of his undergraduate education and had the opportunity to participate in various workshops at Rural Studio. Adopting concepts such as futurism and informatics in architecture and drawing attention with his modular and organic form works, Atak closely follows many subjects such as parametric design, robotics in architecture and artificial intelligence in architecture.
CYTOKINESIS TOWER
CYTOKINESIS TOWERHayri Atak is an architect, designer and trainer who works on many different scales such as environment, city, building and industrial design. Atak, who graduated from Istanbul Technical University, Department of Interior Architecture, also studied architecture at Auburn University as part of his undergraduate education and had the opportunity to participate in various workshops at Rural Studio. Adopting concepts such as futurism and informatics in architecture and drawing attention with his modular and organic form works, Atak closely follows many subjects such as parametric design, robotics in architecture and artificial intelligence in architecture.
THE ECO-FLOATING HOTEL, DOHA, QATAR
THE ECO-FLOATING HOTEL, DOHA, QATARThe Eco-Floating Hotel is inspired by the sea with which it is associated in the first degree in terms of form and design principle. The project will work efficiently in areas where there is a continuous and certain current. However, the sea, which gives the structure physical and tangible power and receives the return it needs in a mutualistic form, also governs the shape of the structure with the idea of the vortex. Due to its characteristic moving feature, it generates electrical energy by rotating around its position according to the water current and provides users with different perspective experiences. Created as a 5-star hotel, the Eco-Floating Hotel has a construction area of 35,000 sqm and 152 rooms.
SQUALL TOWER
SQUALL TOWERA concept project formed by combining 3 different parameters in the most appropriate way. The elegant connections within each other lead it to create a transparent and calm image within the Dubai city skyline. hayriatak.com
FAENA HOTEL
Miami Beach is the result of a collaboration between some of the most talented and creative minds who continue to challenge existing concepts of culture, entertainment and community. Guestrooms and suites were conceived by Alan Faena and designed by award-winning film director/producer Baz Luhrmann and four-time Academy Award winning production and costume designer Catherine Martin. Set on a gorgeous stretch of beach, each of the 169 rooms and suites, and 13 penthouse residences feature an artful visual language that recalls the glamour of the 1950’s with stunning Art Deco appeal. The hotel is also home to the 3,000 square-foot Faena Theater, boasting world-class shows in an unmatched setting for guests and the public alike, as well as Tierra Santa Healing House, a one of a kind South American-inspired spa dedicated to the art of well-being, with a holistic approach to healing, fitness and relaxation. faena.com
