Phare Tower

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition

Manuelle Gautrand
France

 

Special Mention

Special Mention

 

Phare Tower is a 300 meter-high new-generation tower at La Défense, on the western rim of Paris, France. The program consists of 140 000 m2 of office space with two restaurants and a rooftop viewing deck for the general public. The concept we are evolving aims at two things. First, express power in a high-rise structure that is a communication device without precedent. Second, introduce poetry by creating a unique building the size of the Eiffel Tower. Read the rest of this entry »

London Overground

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition

Drew Mills, Sebastian Messer, Paul Warrior
United States

 

Special Mention

Special Mention

 

Central London is amongst the most expensive locations for land and real estate in the world despite having a 19th Century transportation system at full capacity that puts the city in danger of stagnating and losing its pre-eminent world city status. The long-delayed Cross Rail Project, which will form a rail link between Heathrow, Brentwood, and Shenfield, via the West End and Canary Wharf, will likely begin construction in 2008. It will not be completed until 2015, three years after the London Olympics. Read the rest of this entry »

Skyscraper Roots

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition

Laurent Saint-Val
France

 

Special Mention

Special Mention

 

At a time when Mankind understands the need to respect and protect nature, in order to enable the continuation of life, architecture draws its inspiration from nature and attempts to use nature’s energy in the most ecologically friendly manner. A skyscraper cannot be built on a site as a vulgar object, without link with its urban environment; it must grow from the ground. Is there a tree without roots? To live, plants need to be in contact with the ground, so their roots draw water and rock salt necessary for their development. In the same manner, it seems to me that the new skyscraper needs to weave a link between the basement (its foundations), the ground, and the sky. Read the rest of this entry »

Space-scraper

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition

Richard Porter, Chris Allen, Cam Helland, Stephen Phillips
United States

 

Special Mention

Special Mention

 

Spacescraper creatively invents a new speculative world structure with advanced NASA technology that expands urbanity into outer space. Innovative photovoltaic elevators, powered by lasers, carbon nanotube fiber structures, and advanced environmental control systems, support an extensive universal cable system that houses societal needs on mass scale. Space for individuals, corporations, and entire cities grow to organize within Spacescraper’s continuous exoskeletal form. Derived through a series of digital scripting explorations initiated alongside study of carbon molecular structures, Spacescraper performs as a habitable biomimetic network tethering the Earth’s atmosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

Continuous Vertical City

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

2nd Place
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Gonzalo Pardo, Susana Velasco, Victoria González
Spain

 

Second Place

Second Place

 

When you visit Manhattan as a tourist you keep the city in your memory as a series of fragments, bodies, perceptions, sounds, and atmospheres. The position of everything is engraved in your memory; a new psycho-geographic map of the city is born. We have chosen seven fragments of Manhattan, (5th Avenue, Broadway, piers, Financial District, Brooklyn Bridge, and Central Park), that could be thought about as individual cities; autonomous bodies, landscapes, and infrastructures. Read the rest of this entry »

Peristal City

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

3rd Place
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Neri Oxman, Mitchell Joachim
United States

 

eVolo06-18-2

Third Place

 

Peristalsis: The rippling motion of muscles in tubular organs characterized by the alternate contraction and relaxation of the muscles that propel the contents onward.

The core of the skyscraper, its structural and circulatory conventions, as a central obstacle to tall building design is well known. Should the elevator, of all things, persist as the non-negotiable limit of our vertical habitats? The limit is vexing, for not only does it determine compositional forms but, more significantly, the arrangement of social practices with regards to both our labor and leisure. Elevators stifle more than facilitate our movement by virtue of their rigid planes and fleeting occupations. That is to say, the vast space which the elevator shaft occupies is, temporally speaking, useless. But suppose we involved ourselves with a different interpretation of that inactive, rigid, and sequestered domain which much of this central shaft represents. It would demand a vital shift, or at least a conceptual reworking, towards an active utilization of such space. Read the rest of this entry »

Skyframe

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Marco Steiner
Germany

 

Special Mention

Special Mention

 

How to transform horizontal into vertical?
The famous German architect Erich Mendelssohn once said: “Man can only find tranquility in today fast living in the motionless horizontal line”.

How do we combine the vertical expression of the skyscraper with the serenity of a horizontal space? The “Skyframe” tries to answer this question. The Skyframe is a multifunctional skyscraper in which public areas such as conference center, shopping mall, cinemas, and recreational spaces are located on the ground floor. Restaurants and apartments are located in the upper part while the rising verticals allocate offices and meeting rooms. The vertical segments reflect the active and busy aspects of working life. Read the rest of this entry »

Hong Kong in the 21st Century

By:  | December - 15 - 2009

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Justyna Karakiewicz, Jeff Cheng, John Kao
Hong Kong

 

Elevation

Special Mention

 

Hong Kong is a city of extreme landscape conditions in which the majority of the land is defined as high steep terrain. Due to this condition there is a complex infrastructure of trains and escalators for the mobility of the pedestrians. This type of infrastructure accounts for more than 50 percent of the available land. The remaining areas are clustered with isolated skyscrapers surrounded by heavy vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Read the rest of this entry »

BIG – Fuglark: Faroe Islands

By:  | December - 14 - 2009
Hillside View - © BIG

Hillside View - © BIG


Bjarke Ingels Group and Fuglark Architects win the largest ever commission on the Faroe Islands for a 19.200 m2 Education Centre in Torshavn.

BIG, in collaboration with Fuglark, Lemming & Eriksson, Sámal Johannesen, Martin E. Leo and KJ Elrad design the new Education Centre in Marknagil situated on a hillside on the outskirts of Torshavn, to serve as a base for coordination and future development of all educational programmes in the region. As the largest educational building project in the country’s history, the institution combines Faroe Islands Gymnasium, Torshavns Technical College and Business College of Faroe Islands in one building, housing 1.200 students and 300 teachers. Read the rest of this entry »

Urban Art Projects

By:  | December - 13 - 2009

Urban Art Projects’ sustainable artwork revitalises Brisbane car park


Lasercut Drawing

Lasercut Drawing


International studio Urban Art Projects (UAP) has completed a major art installation that transforms the streetscape of Albert Street, Brisbane, through the inventive reworking of an existing multi-storey car park into a highly sustainable, visually compelling art project.

The artwork, ‘Landlines’, by Jennifer Marchant was developed and crafted in UAP’s studio in Brisbane. Wrapping around three elevations of the car park, the piece is created from 549 powder coated, laser cut aluminum panels, all 1.2m x 3.6m. Collectively these components of the design have been beautifully worked to represent the contours of a map of Cunningham’s Gap and the Main Range, Brisbane. Read the rest of this entry »