Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) / Ole Scheeren
City of Singapore, Singapore

Aerial View - © OMA

Ole Scheeren of OMA introduces a new residential typology to Singapore with The Interlace, a large-scale complex of interconnected apartment buildings stacked in an innovative hexagonal arrangement, developed by CapitaLand and Hotel Properties Limited.

The Interlace is located on an elevated eight-hectare site, bounded by Alexandra Road and the Ayer Rajah Expressway, amidst the verdant Southern Ridges of Singapore. With about 170,000m2 of gross floor area, the development will provide 1,040 apartment units of varying sizes with extensive outdoor spaces and landscaping. The site completes a green belt that stretches between Kent Ridge, Telok Blangah Hill and Mount Faber Parks. Read the rest of this entry »

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
Astana, Kazakhstan

Perspective © BIG

Invited as one of five pre-selected architect led teams, BIG was awarded first prize in an open international design competition which included 19 entrants among others Lord Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid. The new National Library, named after the first President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, encompasses an estimated 33,000 sqm.

The design of the National Library combines four universal archetypes across space and time into a new national symbol: the circle, the rotunda, the arch and the yurt are merged into the form of a Moebius strip. The clarity of the circle, the courtyard of the rotunda, the gateway of the arch and the soft silhouette of the yurt are combined to create a new national monument appearing local and universal, contemporary and timeless, unique and archetypal at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »

Shift Architecture
Reykjavik, Iceland

© Shift

DIY Reykjavik is a Do-It-Yourself, non-profit design experiment initiated and designed by Arnaldur Scram and Simon Stigsby of New York-based design firm Shift, in collaboration with Angelica Biddle and Dr. Sigurður Gunnarsson. The pavilion is a temporary installation situated in front of the Nordic House in Reykjavik and coincides with the 2009 Reykjavik Design Days and 2009 Reykjavik Art Festival. The structure is declared ownerless and represents a stepping stone for the local community to question Iceland’s future. Read the rest of this entry »

Skyscraper Of The Future
Carlo Aiello
Digital copy
200 pages

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eVolo_02: Skyscrapers of the Future

Interviews with:
Carol Willis
Giacomo Costa

Skyscrapers by:
Herzog & de Meuron
Morphosis
MVRDV
Jean Nouvel
Office for Metropolitan Architecture
Skidmore Owings and Merrill
Studio Shift

Essays by:
Brian Ahmes
Marcos Betanzos
Joanna Borek-Clement
Benny Chow
Mario Cipresso
Elie Gamburg
Arvin Garay-Cruz
Mohamed Ghamlouch
Ted Givens
Maryana Grinshpun
Mathias Henning
Reinaldo Leandro
Andrew Liang
José Muñoz-Villers
Chad Porter
Maria Prieto
Javier Quintana

2009 Skyscraper Competition:
30 most innovative projects

Aranda / Lasch:
Recent work

It has been a tremendous satisfaction to compile this issue about the past, present, and future of the skyscraper. No other architectural genre captures our imagination and reflects our cultural and technological achievements like these towers that pierce the sky. We start off with the history and evolution of building high, from the Egyptian pyramids, Gothic cathedrals, and first American skyscrapers to the contemporary reality in Asia and the Middle East.

We present two fascinating interviews, the first one with Carol Willis, the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum in New York City, who explains the true genetics and economics behind the birth and future of the skyscraper. The second one with Italian artist, Giacomo Costa, who shares his vision about “the relationship between the natural environment, human activity, and supernatural reality” with provocative images of an apocalyptic urban future.

Javier Quintana exposes the time gap between new architectural concepts and their built reality – like Arne Hosek’s “City of the Future” designed in 1928 and materialized in 1998 by César Pelli as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur or Sergei Lopatin’s 1925 idea for the Veshenka Tower in Moscow, later observed as the Willis Tower (former Sears Tower) in Chicago in 1974.

Another group of essays explore the global influence of Manhattan as a contemporary Babylon to be replicated across the world, or the role of the Italian Futurists, Japanese Metabolists, and Archigram, who influenced generations of architects and designers to push forward the concept of vertical living.

In the ‘Opinion’ section you will find critiques on some of the latest ideas for skyscraper design by some of the most forward-looking architects – like the concept of pixilated tectonics in Le Project Triangle in Paris by Herzog & de Meuron and Rodøvere’s Sky Village by MVRDV. On the other hand, Jean Nouvel redefined the Italian loggia towers of the seventeenth century with the Tour Signal in La Défense, Paris; while Morphosis Architects explores new programs for vertical density with The Phare Tower. Lastly, Studio SHIFT masterfully integrates their Miyi Tower in Sichuan, China, with the existing landscape.

Central to this issue are thirty projects from eVolo’s 2009 Skyscraper Competition which look into the future of the skyscraper with the use of new technologies, programs, and aesthetic expression. Sustainability, globalization, flexibility, and adaptability are just some of the multi-layered elements explored by some the entries. You will find examples of cities in the sky, horizontal skyscrapers that link various cities, or emergency architecture for disaster zones.

Finally, we present the work of Aranda / Lasch, a young New York-based design studio which develops their research on the observation of the patterns of organization in the natural world and its implementation in architecture and design. Their “Quasi-Series” furniture is designed following the assemblage logic of Quasi-crystals, where a structural pattern does not repeat itself.

We would like to acknowledge our readers for their encouraging letters and e-mails that we have received over the last months. It is our mission to continue discovering and promoting new talents and to present a new wave of architecture that will undoubtedly transform our world.

Housing For The 21st Century
Carlo Aiello
Digital copy
176 pages

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eVolo_01: Housing for the 21st Century

It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to the premier issue of eVolo. This architecture and design journal was initially conceived in 2004 by a group of graduate students at Columbia University in New York City. Following graduate school, inspired and idealistic, many of us felt the need to reach further and look more closely at ourselves and our specific strengths to figure out what we could uniquely contribute to the field of architecture. Unfortunately entering the work force revealed a scary truth; the world of architecture is a tough place, making little room to accommodate all the unique contributions that so many brilliant young architects were so eager to make. This, specifically, is the inspiration for eVolo; to provide a forum for showcasing the most innovative, the most avant-garde designs that will define architecture in the twenty-first century. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Loren M. Supp
United States

Special Mention

Rather than looking at the city as an extension of architectonic space, the Shanghai market is here reinvented as an internal extension of a fluid landscape. Operating under this axiom, the vertical market changes the previous horizontality of the urban activity by pulling the city fabric upwards, enabling a further densification of the city.

While modeling the existing economic flows of the city there was revealed a potential for a systemic expansion of the streetscape skyward. This move enables an accretion of market functions, pulling the chaotic action to a single site. Formally and theoretically, the degradative nature of fluid market economics define the building architecture, the thickness of circulatory structure responds to the predicted expenditure of capital as one moves through the building, and space is allocated for market activity accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »

The World Village of Women Sports seeks to create a natural gathering place for the research, education and training in all areas connected to the development of women’s sports. Located in the centre of Malmo, the 100.000 m2 facility will create a regional landmark and new attraction for the area.

Aerial view - © BIG

Composed as a village rather than a sports complex the WVOWS combines individual buildings with a variety of uses with open spaces and public gardens. The sloping roofscapes and alternating building volumes provide the complex with the varying identity of a small village thus reducing its scale to the adjacent neighborhood. The interior streets animated through public functions resemble a medieval downtown, supporting all aspects of human life – generous living, work and intensive play. Read the rest of this entry »

KiBiSi Logo - © KiBiSi

Founded by Kilo Design / Lars Holme Larsen, BIG / Bjarke Ingels and Skibsted Ideation / Jens Martin Skibsted, KiBiSi is a Copenhagen based idea-driven industrial design firm. Each partner contributes with intelligence and experience from within his specific field, providing KiBiSi with cutting-edge knowledge and knowhow within the fields of architecture, design, furniture, electronics, transportation, contemporary culture and lifestyle. Having collaborated on multiple projects for years Lars, Bjarke and Jens Martin decided to turn their intuitive inclination to work together into a full time collaboration. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2008 Skyscraper Competition

Hajung Lee
United States

Special Mention

Throughout history, mankind has been competing to build higher towers, not only to meet spacial demands, but also to celebrate and display their technological ability. Perhaps, this kind of proud achievement is interpreted as the origin of our desire towards vertical architecture. In this sense, one can say that every vertical structure has its own monumentality. While a historical monumental tower speaks of certain memory or event, a contemporary skyscraper should celebrate its height, functions and achievement of technology. The depiction for monumentality of a skyscraper should be a different concept from the representation of a historical monument. Contemporary skyscrapers tend to express their grandiosity in a monotonous way, as if to mimic a historical monument. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Marco Vanucci
United Kingdom

Special Mention

In nature, organisms try to respond to the impact of various forces with minimum energy consumption. Similarly, materials are subject to a process of self-organization/adaptation in relation to the action of intrinsic as well as extrinsic forces acting upon it, aiming to fulfill a state of equilibrium. Exploring the inherent properties governing the behavior of a given material and its effects on the surrounding environment, represents the starting point for a broader understanding of material forms as a mutable, multi-performing, and generative design tool. The bottom-up approach towards the research onto a given material system discloses the opportunity to deeply investigate the proprieties of such a material, as well as opening unexpected potentials for inclusive performances and effects. Read the rest of this entry »