The proposal for the Taichung city cultural center is to create a gradient urban limit in which two programs join together over the main perspective axes, creating a 200m door for the Taichung Getaway Park. The door will allow visitors to experience the project’s mass scatter away over their heads. A gradual introduction into the green lung of Taichung where all the built elements dissolving nature takes over.

Walking through the Door into the plaza, visitors will come across the two lobbies, the gift shops and book stores as well as the refreshment area where they will be able to appreciate the view of the Getaway Park and the Taiwan Tower. The perspective of the passage through the door is aligned with the Parks fulcrum and the clean air area. The plaza’s opening will also welcome crowds coming from the Convention and exhibition center.

These visitors will experience a feeling contrary to those coming from the Park Avenue2, in which the boxes of the two programs will appear through the tree tops and the flourishing nature. The Library will be located on the west side of the building site. A10 m spacing on the side and its scattering will prevent the vis-à-vis with Convention and Exhibition Center. Read the rest of this entry »

Not only now the situation in the housing market is exacerbated. Even in recent years, far too few apartments have been built in the inexpensive segment. So affordable housing must be re-implemented as soon as possible. Prof. Henner Herrmanns sees in wooden structures the excellent building material which is ideally suited to its pre-fabrication and aesthetic radiance to build quickly houses, also just because of the massive immigration. He proposes in his feasibility study to create in Koblenz on the area of the university a prototype as a superstructure of the parking lot in front of the university. Here prefabricated modular components should be used for affordable housing. The feasibility study is based on the fact that due to the high prefabrication wooden structures allow a fast, efficient and economical construction process. Read the rest of this entry »

In the twenty first century two majors orientations are competing: on one side the awareness of our environment’s vulnerability, on the other, omnipresence of the numeric technology in our everyday lives. The virtual world and the ecological one are fighting on Earth.

This duality has long been expressed in the Japanese popular culture, where is merged the nostalgia of a lost tradition and a fascination for a modernism without complexes. Our society would be the theater of a perpetual conflict between the world of spirits, of the forces of nature and on the other side the too human society, where the cult of progress disconnect gradually its inhabitant from a more essential reality.

Part of the debate on the cultural evolution of our society is torn by this duality. In Japan this is reflected by the concepts of Honne (本音) and Tatemae (建前), this is represented by the confrontation between the real feelings and the opinions that must be expressed in public. The internal feelings of individuals will be contained in an accommodating and polite attitude. The universe of the manga knew how to draw in this duality in order to express a sharp criticism of the society through four concepts: The Spirit, The Ecology, the Technology and the Humor. Read the rest of this entry »

The TAO Insurance Office Tower, designed by Suyabatmaz Demirel Architects, has been designed as a high-rise building so as to play a symbolic figure in the Financial Center Project where it is located. Located on a sloped land on the northwest side of Atasehir Financial Center area in Istanbul, TAO Office Tower has many determining features to be a part of a mega finance district in the context of location, topography and urbanism. More images and architects’ description after the break.

A design proposal for a limited close competition organized by the client, the project land is close to the TEM Highway which is one of the main connection road between European and Asian Sides of Istanbul. Since it is located in front of the Financial Center Project’s land, it is perceived easily by the people who drives on the direction of Ankara. The project has to communicate well enough with its neighbors on the Financial Center in the future but at the same time it has to differentiate itself visually in order to sustain its commercial success. The steep slopes of the topography gives an opportunity to create spaces spreading horizontally below the ground. These outstanding features of the land are the inputs which shaped our approach and solutions to TAO Office Tower. Read the rest of this entry »

Tubascular – Prosthetic Aesthetics is a research project looking into the expressive possibilities of the body as a site for installation. The design process began with the question of how different ideas of the body give rise to different ways of relating the body to architecture. The hypothesis of the project is that the body as a living system and the morphological principles of architecture are moving towards a new form of convergence.

The project is based on the idea of body transformation and the associated effects on spatial experience. Tubascular is a 3 dimensional prosthetic installation, which follows the landscape of the body. The installation is wearable and serves to extend the interior vascular system to an added exterior one. The additional vascularity, externalises a system that is very delicate and vital in the human body. It enhances the skin by a specialised liquid flowing in the tubes injecting it to the internal arteries. The liquid causes a doping transformation. The skin becomes younger, healthier and more sensitive to stimulus, thus enhancing bodily experiences. The project challenges the boundaries of the body, creating a new interface between the self and the world, by re-defining the body schema. Read the rest of this entry »

Fictional Constructs’ is an architectural film set in Kraftwerk, Berlin. Kraftwerk is located in the centre of Berlin – a former industrial power station, built approximately at the same time of the Berlin Wall between 1960-64. The project establishes a fictional film of ‘Mediaspree’ (area in Berlin) where it integrates an urban film studio while regenerating various disused buildings. The design proposes a new open film set/public space that constantly evolves, grows and performs, acts and expands, merging the boundaries between the everyday and the iconic, the real city and its representation in film. The ending of the film reveals the true scale of the cinematic construct. The film uses several key techniques such as anamorphism (distortion of projection to augment perception of scale), kinetics animation (moving / growing parts), slow motion and experience of vertigo in order to reveal a cinematic architecture.

Through studies into the use of narratives in design, augmented and hyper-real spaces the project proposes a new architectural vocabulary – appropriating cinematography techniques such as the cut, frame and montage. In order to decode and understand spatial representation, the research refers to the taxonomy of cinematic images as described by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and explores the Semperian-like use of montage as a compositional generative architectural tectonic device, through a Baudrillardian hyper-real fantasy world.

The overall research explores the use of digital modes of representation in architecture and design and questions whether the appropriation of filmic techniques in architecture is relevant today in digital prototyping/ architectural design. The project could be perceived as a generative design tool for establishing new spatial constructs and validating those tactile digital experiences as leading to or useful in creating architecture. Read the rest of this entry »

This building, designed by Aedas, is a pioneer development on Hengqin Island in Zhuhai. Part of the Pearl River Delta, it is in the process of developing into a financial centre. This project on a site overlooking the water is a 334-metre high office and apartment tower which segues into a ground level retail podium with conference, commercial and exhibition facilities. The four components of the tower shoot up out of the lateral mass of the podium symbolising the convergence of talents from Zhuhai, Macau, Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

The inspiration for the tower is the well known Southern Sung Dynasty painting, Nine Dragons, in which the dragons rise strong and commanding from a stormy sea. Designed by Keith Griffiths and Andy Wen at Aedas, it takes the form of a flood dragon busting from the sea. In ancient Chinese literature the flood dragons are magical creatures capable of invoking storms and floods and is often used to describe a newborn power – an apt symbol for a new building devoted to the development of an experimental financial zone.

The elevations are clad in glass and metal panels. At the base the canopy over the entrance to the tower reads as a huge curtain swept aside and twisted in the cosmic wind ending in a flurry of horizontal creased material surrounding a tall exhibition space. Here is a fresh way of dealing with the mixed-use combination of tower or towers rising either side of a retail podium. The potentially awkward junction of high and narrow with expansive and relatively low height is resolved by simply dragging the vertical elements around the corner and turning tower wall into podium roof. Read the rest of this entry »

aerial view

Most cities around the world are facing environmental problems as a result of rapid population growth. Industrial urbanization has also worsened the effect of an increasing population. To fulfill the need for more space, many forest and farmlands have been cleared for housing; hotel and resorts; high rise buildings and commercial areas, resulting in a poorer environment in cities and at large. With lesser farmlands comes a lack of steady food production to support the needs of highly populated cities. The loss of forests also increases global air temperatures and pollutants, deteriorating living conditions.

The Third International Tatlin’s Tower was designed in 1919 by Russian Architect Vladimir Tatlin – a tremendous structure that was meant to serve as a political propaganda hub for the city, state and the world beyond. It was the result of a nation’s ego in competing against big developed countries to gain worldwide recognition and influence – to challenge modernity at that time so that the tower can surpass other countries’ monuments such as Eiffel tower and the statue of Liberty.

Alas, the tower is only known for its utopian symbolism because it was never built. As the ideology of the tower has appealed to many over the years, we try to rethink on its design and reuse possibilities to solve current problems. We look to nature as a basis for us to create new thoughts in this modern society – to look for better sustainable human life; to establish new sustainable system concepts and technological improvements; and to invent a livable and sustainable city of tomorrow.

New Tatlin’s Tower

Our research project is set near Ciliwung River, the longest polluted river in Jakarta. As it flows through the capital city of Indonesia, many buildings have been built along its riverbanks, and as such, Ciliwung river has suffered the effects of an expanding population and urbanization. The river used to support a rich ecosystem, but that is no longer the case. The river today has a high density area – with an estimated 472 people per hectare – which causes a decreasing river width and a rough water flow/ Therefore. Many problems such as floods (1 to 3 meters high every year); water population and sanitation; poor air quality; electricity deficit; and a lack of public space have become major issues in the neighborhoods along Ciliwung river.

Tatlin’s tower is almost 400meters in height and consists of a declined “backbone and skeleton” structure surrounded by two helices that support the podiums inside – a massive box, a pyramid, a tube and hemisphere. By studying the spaces created by the structure, it can be inferred that the tower has the potential to support various activities, programs, and technologies. Addition structures and vertical transportations can be incorporated and its vast surfaces utilized in many different ways.

In order to enable the Earth to recover its ecosystem, the proposed design intends to clear the lands on the Ciliwung riverside by moving people into the tower. The proposed programs in the tower includes housing livestock farming; fish and insects farming; public spaces; energy production; water and air treatments; and purifier plants.

There are three main zones: public, residential and production areas. Public areas are located on the ground and in each of the podiums. The market in the tree conservation area is set aside to sell the farming’s excess production; each space rises above the ground and is connected by bridges. The residential areas are located inside the core of each space and are surrounded by farming, which is located in spaces between the residential area and skeleton structure throughout the tower. The main purpose of farming is to ensure a continuous availability of food supplies for those in residence – vegetables, meat, fish and dairy products – the excess will be sold in the fresh produce market. At least 10 percent surplus can be generated for each product. One tower can be occupied by 9000 people, and hence allows 19 hectares of land to be restored to its natural state.

Together with the wind-generated propellers, the photovoltaic panels that cover the tower’s surfaces will be able to generate a constant supply of electricity. The water turbine also generate electricity by using gravity-Ciliwung river water is pumped up through the backbone structure and runs down the double helix. During this time, the water will be purified and stored in a reservoir beneath. The cleaned water will also be distributed along its way down to the residential and farming areas.

In the end, by rethinking and redesigning the Tatlin’s Tower, we try to propose new spaces in the city where communities can come together to live and work in self0sustaining towers. By envisioning the tower after 100 years, we offer a different provocative thought on how new modern societies can adapt with the development of technology and new spaces that will change urban concepts and social relationships while healing nature.

PHL Architects (Patrick Lim Hendy Lim)
Design and Research Team
Principal : Patrick Lim
Team: Melani Sugiarti, Ricardo Lionar, Juanita Christine, Jennifer Hansbert

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residential program

livestock farm

insect farm

market

air purifier

size comparison

concept

program

program relationship

ventilation

water cycle

plan

When heritage and contemporary architecture interact, the whole history of the city is revealed. This is the ambition of this project. Facing the castle, the new gymnasium at Pestalozzi Street has its main facade; this confrontation creates a new dynamic space and showcases both the old as the new building town.

The layout of the building is simple and respects both urban constraints as the original site of the old gym. The building displays its main face to the parking on the side of the castle facade. It is on this front that are moving the three gyms. The building consists of two volumes with very different architectural character value functions.

The main volume dominates. It consists of two parts that are home to the three gyms. A base on the ground floor, the structural character is underlined by slanted columns in front, welcomes two full rhythm. Above it is a volume in the fluid volume which houses the large gym. The secondary volume, south side houses the changing rooms spaces, hospitality and technology. Treatment is much more intimate. Two simple volumes, parallelepipeds concrete are connected by an open space that protects the hall the reception area and corridors. Read the rest of this entry »

The museum designed by Paolo Venturella and Cosimo Scotucci takes shape by the deformation of the classic courtyard typology, according to functions and context. The courtyard building, that works as a path for visiting the exhibition, is taken into consideration as a starting point and then deformed pushing one side on the other.

The deformation literally goes beyond its limits and alters a simple typology into a more complex one. In this way the park enters in the project making the courtyard a public space open to the city. Moreover it cantilevers on the street side creating a covered area for the entrance and making the building appearing as if it were “welcoming” visitors that are coming to visit the museum.

The volumes that step up and down are a urban promenade that host rooms where the main artworks are shown and drive people to the upper terrace facing the park. Form follow exterior function while interior functions follow form. Read the rest of this entry »