Emerging Corporate Territories: Trade of Shades
Monday 11 – Thursday 21 August 2014
Seoul National University, Seoul

Registration is now open to students and professionals alike, who are interested in participating in an 11 day AA Visiting School design workshop in Seoul, focused on exploring the form, image and identity of the corporate building

The Visiting School returns to Songdo, the newly finished corporate hub of South Korea, the wannabe Singapore-Hong-Kong international node of the booming economic future of North East Asia. Smart, Leed certified and directly plugged in into an airport, equipped with one Central Park and one Venice Canal, Songdo is the latest venture in the corporate real-estate bonanza.

So new and so fast with so much glass, and so few people walking down its streets. This sleek ghost town is not only waiting for its people but also itching to have its first architectural reading. So join us as we depart from the scale of the master-plan and delve specifically into these shimmering buildings, to understand each node of this wired operational network through its own face and skin.

Taking as a given the dominant form of the typical plan, the deus ex machina of architectural solutions, we will challenge this in-discriminant sprawl of towers strictly vertically. Each student will propose a full bleed curtain-wall facade system, which will speak of feeders such as economic and technologic drivers as well as corporate aesthetics and architectural fetishes.

What story will your facade want to project?

Ps. Invisible towers are forbidden.

The workshop is open to current architecture and design students, phd candidates and young professionals. Software Requirements: Adobe Creative Suite, Rhino (SR7 or later), or any CAD software knowledge is preferred.

Email: visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk
Website: http://korea.aaschool.ac.uk/
AA Seoul Webpage: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/STUDY/VISITING/seoul

Colonizing Rococo is a design project by Michael Royer, done at University of Pennsylvania. The main idea behind the project was to use contemporary techniques, such as aggregation and emergence in order to try to revisit architectural problems of the past. Contemporary computer techniques allow for the use of highly complex geometries that could only be achieved by master craftspeople in the past.

The project is significantly dealing with the ideas of asymmetry and symmetry and questions of ornament. Looking back at problems from the 18^th century lights our contemporary issues in different way, bringing new way of answering questions such as façade as ornament and the relationship between symmetry and asymmetry. Baroque and Rococo craft work and architecture were a specific jumping off point when looking at these issues. The emergent qualities in the building arise from the aggregation of parts to create a whole. The symmetry in the project was then put in as a counterbalance to the emergent technique that had already taken place. This is the point at which an uncanny scenario happens in the building where emergence and contemporary issues of creation are brought back into the historical issues of symmetry and asymmetry of the Baroque and Rococo. Read the rest of this entry »

The Vertical Village in Calabria, Italy by  OFF, Tanguy Vermet, Philippe Rizzotti, Samuel Nageotte and  Ramboll UK is a winning competition proposal for a ‘Solar Highway’, which re-used sections of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway soon to be decommissioned by the Italian Highways Authority.

The project of a viaduct is ambitious as well as audacious in both its program and architectural form. As they state at Oxo Architects, every consideration on viaduct redevelopment must start with particular attention to the largest sense of its context as well as its components, both visible and invisible. It is of course essential to consider the site potential in order to integrate the project within its landscape. The authors faced two opposite scenarios as the viaducts can be either adapted to integrate in the continuity of Calabria’s common society, or on the other hand, they can give a push of motivation for new possibilities that such an atypical redevelopment offers to the region, and developed the second option.

The winning architectural team proposed a re-appropriation of the viaducts into residential, leisure and health centers that take on a typology that rises out of the context and the goal of environmentally conscious development. The project was influenced by the primary observable characteristics of the site. The Calabria region has one of the most stable climates in the world and is located in a variety of natural habitats among human interventions.

The Vertical Village is designed as an autonomous community. Read the rest of this entry »

Widely known, award-winning architectural practice Snøhetta has designed The Makkah Metro C-Line Stations for Saudi Arabia. The exciting design envisions the unique fusion between the ultra-modern technology of the metro system and the historical richness of Makkah, therefore architecture acts as a framework – both for understanding and enriching the places it meets along the metro line – and for projecting the future vision and goals of the city.

The station – a sleek skin of the future, hovers delicately above the rising urban landscape of the city, creating a new public arena in the space between the ground and the sky. Linking again with tradition, the wrap is a unique ceramic tile with varying degrees of textures and signatures developed in cooperation with local artists.

The hard shell of the station on the inside is revealed to have a soft and ornamented interior consisting of a complex yet contextual mashrabiya screen. The screen links history and technology, consisting of traditional patterns applied through the latest of computer and fabrication technologies – symbolizing the duality between the future and the past. ​From station to station the mashrabiya screen changes again in color and material offering each station a personal signature whilst retaining a coherent identity throughout the line.

The meeting point, suspended between these two moments, as the plaza rises and the station reaches down, represents the common link between these two distinct elements within the public realm. Creating a bold yet elegant icon for each station – the design defines the network as a coherent unit changing slightly from station to station, because of the different city pattern.

Due to using a highly adaptable strategy for the demands and constraints of the site on the landscape, the new urban plaza connects, orients and safely manages both large and small groups of commuters and pilgrims from all parts of the city and the world – whether departing and arriving on a daily basis or for the first time.

eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2014 Skyscraper Competition. The 2014 edition marks the ninth anniversary of the competition established in 2006 to recognize outstanding ideas for vertical living through the novel use of technology, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations.

eVolo Magazine received 525 projects from 43 countries in all continents. The Jury, formed by leaders of the architecture and design fields selected 3 winners and 20 honorable mentions.

The first place was awarded to Yong Ju Lee from the United States for his project “Vernacular Versatility”. The proposal reinterprets traditional Korean architecture in a contemporary mixed-use high-rise.

The second place was awarded to Mark Talbot and Daniel Markiewicz from the United States for his project “Car and Shell: or Marinetti’s Monster” which proposes a city in the sky for Detroit, MI.

The recipients of the third place are YuHao Liu and Rui Wu from Canada for their project “Propagate Skyscraper” that investigates the structural use of carbon dioxide in skyscrapers.

Some of the honorable mentions include a skyscraper that filters the air of polluted cities, a sky village for Los Angeles, a 3D printed tower in the desert, and a vertical transportation hub among other innovative projects.

Awards
First place – US $5000 + press kit distribution by sponsor v2com
Second place – US $2000
Third place – US $1000

The Jury was formed by: Wiel Arets [principal Wiel Arets Architects, dean of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture], John Beckmann [principal Axis Mundi], Michael Hensel [principal AKNW + NAL, professor at Oslo School of Architecture], Lisa Iwamoto [principal IwamotoScott Architecture, professor at University of California Berkeley], Kas Oosterhuis [principal Oosterhuis-Lénárd, professor at Delft University of Technology], Derek Pirozzi [architectural designer Oppenheim Architecture + Design, first place 2013 eVolo Skyscraper Competition], Tom Price [principal Tom Price], Fernando Romero [principal FR-EE], Craig Scott [principal IwamotoScott Architecture, professor at California College of the Arts], Carol Willis [director Skyscraper Museum, professor at Columbia University], and Dan Wood [principal WORK Architecture Company, professor at Yale University]

First Place
2014 Skyscraper Competition

Yong Ju Lee
United States

Hanok is the named used to describe a traditional Korean house. A Hanok is defined by its exposed wooden structural system and tiled roof. The curved edge of the roof can be adjusted to control the amount of sunlight entering the house while the core structural element is a wooden connection named Gagu. The Gagu is located below the main roof system where the column meets the beam and girder and it is fastened without the need of any additional parts such as nails – this connection is one of the main aesthetic characteristics of traditional Korean architecture.

Historically this structural system has been developed exclusively in plan, applied only to one-story residences. However, as various modeling software have been recently developed, there are more opportunities to apply this traditional system into complex high-rise structures that meet contemporary purposes and programs. Vernacular Versatility can open a new chapter of possibilities to bring this old construction and design tradition to the present day with efficiency and beauty. Read the rest of this entry »

Second Place
2014 Skyscraper Competition

Mark Talbot, Daniel Markiewicz
United States

This project proposes a city in the sky for Detroit, MI. The new city is conceived as a vertical suburban neighborhood equipped with recreational and commercial areas where three main grids (streets, pedestrian pathways, and structure) are intertwined to create a box-shaped wireframe. Traditional and contemporary houses and other diverse programs plug in the structure to create a rich vertical urban fabric.

My partner and I have been awake all morning, our faces aglow in front of brightly burning screens, our fingers feverishly clicking to keep pace with our racing thoughts. Franticly driven by decades of fear, themselves perpetuated by an avalanche of numbers and an onslaught of “better world” fantasies born of an endless stream of technological innovation, our mission is clear: rescue Detroit from being rescued. In a world whose only acceptable path is the immediate betterment of our own existence, my partner and I demand the discipline to let it die and live another day. Sweating and panting with the knowledge that our current society’s insatiable and nearsighted appetite for growth, innovation and development is strangling the whispers of life out of the very future it hopes to serve, my partner and I can no longer stand idly by and watch our cities consume themselves with an anxious need for expansion. Our society has been poisoned by the belief that a city in decline is a city in need of resurrection.

MANIFESTO:

1. Revolt! Let us use the efficient machines inefficiently, for pleasure and not production. Loops where once there were straight lines. Dead-ends where before there were connections.

2. Why not rebel in the punishment of a relentless technology? Like a fighter leaning into an opponent’s blow, let us incite, provoke, and encourage our own urban desertion. From rust to silicon, from silicon to…

3. We shall weep for the dark ages, in the presence of the gleaming Renaissance Tower before us. Our royal Detroit we shall serve the rightful king. Long live the king. The king is dead. Long live the king.

4. Throw off the shackles of the endless sprawl ever encroaching on the lakes, streams and fields of this country! Revive the American landscape of boundless freedom and the pleasures of the open road!

5. Commute has become a dirty word. Why? I say commute your decaying suburb for a city in the sky! Read the rest of this entry »

Third Place
2014 Skyscraper Competition

YuHao Liu, Rui Wu
Canada

Carbon capture is an emerging practice aimed at obtaining and containing greenhouse gases to mitigate their net availability in the atmosphere. However, existing carbon capture practices use the method of point capture, catching carbon gases at the source, requiring a significant initial investment in additional facilities, infrastructure, and maintenance of underground storage. Hence, the implementation of point capture method may directly and indirectly contribute to a significant sum of greenhouse gases through construction, material production and processing, in addition to the contingencies associated with underground storage.

Current research on carbon gases suggests alternative method of capture, such as air capture through carbon-philic resins and material processes that transform carbon dioxide into solid construction material.

Taking this one step further, we hypothesized a material capable of assimilating carbon dioxide as a means to self-propagate. Employing such a material allows air capture of carbon dioxide and the resultant production of a solid construction material capable of supporting load. Channeling its properties, we propose a skyscraper that grows. By constructing a simple vertical grid scaffold as a framework, we are given control to the extent and underlying structure of the skyscraper. Required ingredients for material propagation are supplied through the scaffold, while its actual pattern of growth is defined by environmental factors such as wind, weather, and the saturation of carbon dioxide within the immediate atmosphere. Thus each resulting structure is sui generis in its formal expression, while maintaining a regular spatial organization for ease of occupation and adaptation.

Various circulation methods can be employed depending on the need; this and the retrofitting of circulation enable the occupation of individuals in different ways. Naturally, clusters of habitation will emerge with the circulation access at its center, with each structure able to accommodate multiple circulation access ways and clusters. As occupied spaces increase, varying points of access can be linked to form lifted streetscapes between a multiplicity of clusters. While programmatic attributions are left undefined and inherently open to occupying individuals, the open structural framework allows tetris-like stacking and up to six directions to extend existing space. The regularity of its physical form guarantees the ease and accessibility of occupation, attracting and inspiring new methods of habiting within the skyscraper. Given the three-dimensional freedom of occupying space, new forms of social interaction may also emerge as a result.

Unlike conventional skyscrapers, which rely on steel frame and concrete casting, the proposed skyscraper suggests a more environmental conscious construction method, an alternative mode of occupation and ownership, and possibly a distinct organization of social relationships. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2014 Skyscraper Competition

Qiu Song, Kang Pengfei, Bai Ying, Ren Nuoya, Guo Shen
China

Sand Babel is a group of ecological structures designed as scientific research facilities and tourist attractions for the desert. The structures are divided into two parts. The first part, above ground, consists of several independent structures for a desert community while the second part is partially underground and partially above ground connecting several buildings and creating a multi-functional tube network system.

The main portion of each building is constructed with sand, sintered through a solar-powered 3D printer. The top structures are based on the natural phenomena called Tornadoes and Mushroom Rocks, which is very common in deserts. It utilizes a spiral skeleton structure, which is tall, straight and with strong tension, to meet the requirements of residential, sightseeing and scientific research facilities. The dual funnel model not only improves cross-ventilation, but also generates water condensation atop the structures based on temperature differences. The net structure for the portion of underground and surface is similar to tree roots. This design not only helps to keep flowing sand dunes in place but also facilitates communication among the buildings. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2014 Skyscraper Competition

Yuan-Sung Hsiao, Yuko Ochiai, Jia-Wei Liu, Hung-Lin Hsieh
Japan, Taiwan

If you feel ill, you seek medical assistance. If the city is sick, what should we do? The Climatology Tower is a proposed skyscraper designed as a research center that evaluates urban meteorology and corrects the environment through mechanical engineering. The skyscraper analyses microclimates within cities as a result of the use of industrial materials, the accumulation of buildings, and the scarceness of open spaces.

In order to maintain a healthy environment for the city, two main strategies are employed:

Environmental control engineering
The environmental control system consists of evaluation and operational programs. Evaluation programs inspect city climates through a variety of factors such as insolation, radiation, and thermal coverage. Collected data is compared with humidity levels and then mechanical systems respond to reduce or increase the levels to optimal environmental conditions.

Information expression
In addition to automatically adjusting to optimal environmental conditions, data is transferred from a control center to extensive city departments, giving opportunity to ultimately maintain a healthy environment throughout the entire city. This can benefit entire communities, notifying all of present and upcoming environmental hazards and conditions. Climatic information is also displayed publicly, though digital networks, notifying the public on maintaining certain conditions, to preserve both energy and health. Read the rest of this entry »