TEK is a public building in Taiwan that uses a form and highly mixed program to encourage a large cross section of users. Designed by BIG Architects, the 57 meter cubed building has an open section, or ‘street’ to allow full public access through the building. The access rises and dilates near the top of the building and opens onto a rooftop garden. The roof is to be a public park and informal performance area.

Radiating from the street will be hotel, retail, office, restaurants, etc, with no particular formal arrangement. The building is an expression of a city bock packed into a more vertical system. The ribs, evocative of the underside of a mushroom form stairs through the structure and is repeated on the walls and ceiling thus creating a visually continuous facade. The access through the building allows for ventilation, shade, and increased fenestration for the occupants. The building site is not yet disclosed. Read the rest of this entry »

As a part of the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark the signature Bella Sky Hotel is currently under construction. The towers lean 15 degrees in opposite directions to provide views for all the rooms but still alolows the towers to share a common footprint. Being located adjacent to Copenhagen Airport 3XN Architects had to design two 75m tall (25 floors) towers rather than a single tower to accommodate 800 rooms .

The 42,000 square meter facility is intended to provide a landmark status for Bella Center, host to many international events. A turn on the top floors of the towers is designed to lower wind turbulence around the structures and soften the angularity. The fenestration is angled with the towers lean, an effect enhanced from the interior view. The Bella Hotel recalls the Puerta de Europa twin towers in Madrid, only at a larger scale, becoming the largest hotel in Nordic Europe. Expected to top out this summer the first phase of the Bella Hotel will be completed in spring 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

Capital Gate is a new building forming the entrance to Capital Centre, a major development project in Abu Dhabi and is designed by RMJM Architects.  It is an advanced parametrically designed tower sitting at 160 meters featuring a leaning façade of 18 degrees off horizontal. This technically has given it the title of the most substantial lean to a building in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The building contains a substantial concrete core slightly off center that carries the cantilevered floors. 490 pilings were cored to a depth of 30 meters to counteract the cantilever. A diagrid exterior structure made of triangular tubular steel units creates a ridged mesh to add support and act as a frame for the custom glazing units. The exterior was also developed to reduce the supports mass, thus weight. The triangular glass is a double glazing unit and is custom cut to fit the constantly changing form of the building’s skin. The individual units were installed in a prebuilt panel that was then secured to the diagrid structure. The building’s exhaust air cycled between the panes of glass to lower the radiant temperature. Read the rest of this entry »

Critical Practice is a public arts group based at the University of the Arts, London. They operate under the proposition that developing aesthetic and programmatic space is a radial rather than lineal process and created the installation Parade to explore the effectiveness of their process in the public square. Made from 4300 black milk crates tied together with zip ties the structure’s components were minimized in order to focus on special relationships during the design and assembly process. It was constructed on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground at Chelsea Collage of Arts and Design during the third week of May, 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

The living building challenge was created by the Cascadia Green Building Council to guide commercial development that would be net-zero energy and net-zero water use. Based in Portland, the Oregon Sustainability Center has stepped up to the challenge as they are working to build the first high rise of its kind to follow this standard. They first approach the issue with aggressive passive design. Proper fenestration, thermal mass and natural cooling is carefully incorporated. User energy consumption will be carefully monitored with feedback and active systems to encourage the occupant’s management of energy usage.

Active solar energy production, then, is anticipated to provide the building with its net yearly energy consumption. Four separate solar panel installation systems will be incorporated into the building to maximize solar output while shading the glazing from midday solar gain. Water systems are designed to minimize consumption and maximize reuse before final treatment and discharge. Rain catchment and greywater are plumbed into the building. All excess water will be discharged by various means onsite or nearby.

The building has a 4 degree shift in orientation per floor to maximize proper solar orientation, which dictates a more organic look to the structure. A shallow oval floor plate allows natural lighting to replace artificial during peak occupancy hours. It also allows occupants to be no more than 30 feet from an operable window for fresh air and cooling needs, a requirement for the Living Building Challenge. No conventional AC will be used, natural ventilation and ground source heat pumps will provide all the necessary heating and cooling.

The building will contain offices for non-profits that collectively make up the Center as well as a campus facility for the Oregon University System. The occupants are expected to work at developing an experimental framework in the building to maintain a net zero energy, water and waste foot print. The building program is also to be a classroom environment for outside parties to learn how zero energy design and implementation works.

Mexico City will soon see a new landmark take its place on the landscape. Torre Reforma is a 244 meter tall, mixed-use tower with a projected LEED Platinum certification, a first for Latin America. Wedge faced on one side, flat on the other, its changing character will complement and counter balance its smaller neighboring tower Torre Mayor. The building is designed by LBR&A Arquitectos. Read the rest of this entry »

The newly opened Unilever Headquarters for Northern Europe has two basic principles in mind-sustainability through low energy use and a social climate based on a town center. The first is achieved though carful thermal control elements and the latter though a large day lit atrium. The headquarters is located on the Elbe River in Hamburg, Germany. Read the rest of this entry »

When the EPA needed a new building for their Region 8 operations in Denver, Colorado they saw it as an opportunity to rethink the build environment. Completed in 2007 their LEED Gold district headquarters highlights the strength of sustainable building to the local design community. The highlights are the deep penetration of natural light and an aggressive green roof system which is helping mainstream the concept in a high altitude and arid climate. Designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects LLP the buildings exterior design was intended to transition from a modern downtown district on one side and the historic LoDo area on the other, and so took on modest look for the neighborhood. The design team instead turned to focus their creative energy to the inside. Read the rest of this entry »