The project for the World War Museum in Gdansk designed by Chicago-based architect Sean Lally is organized around two straightforward principles. The first is to create a central exhibition core, a “jewel box” that contains the permanent and temporary exhibition space, continuously accessible from all sides along a “loop lobby” that encircles it: the second is the location of the public programs associated with the museum’s urban context–conference, restaurant, hotel, library, and education facilites as well as an urban park–on the upper level rooftop, initiating a “new city floor” with views to the surrounding city, accessible year-round. Making these outdoor public spaces attractive to visitors regardless of season requires the design of a “climatic wash’ that can produce artificial micro-climates and extend seasonal activities throughout the year.

This wash is made possible by harnessing the energy dumps that inevitably occur in a building of this scale (36,000 m²), which requires 900 m² of mechanical space and 11,000 m² of parking garage, both of which vent large amounts of heat and moisture, as well as the combined body heat of several thousand visitors a day. This climatically elastic and unique ‘new city floor’ is the resource for the museum and the city of Gdansk as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »

When you say the word skyscraper, do you always think of a tall rectangle? Is it freestanding? Is there one main entrance? Australian architecture student Josephine Turner takes issue with these, and other assumptions about what skyscrapers are, what they should be, and how they can function individually, within a system of other buildings and for the city as a whole.

In designing a skyscraper complex, Turner has proposed a network of “skylinks that connect elevated urban plazas” for the Bangaroo district of Sydney, Australia. Her design, the “Bangaroo Sky Village,” incorporates the elements of the skyscraper that Turner would like the public to rethink; for example, her towers are designed as stacked triangle shapes instead of rectangles, and they are rotated to give help soften the sharp geometrical look of the buildings. Using triangles to construct a massive building, she says, is exceedingly efficient when distributing weight, and therefore can allow for a more creative layout within the building.

In her design, Turner uses reinforced “spider joints” to allow for the triangular shaped modules to be stacked into towers of varying height, so as to weave artfully into the existing city landscape. The different levels in the towers are connected with skybridges that are open, fostering a pedestrian, community environment. Agricultural levels are staggered throughout the buildings, interspersed between residential, commercial and office levels, and are fed through a hydroponic system throughout each building that brings water for the crops. Read the rest of this entry »

Award-winning firm Studio SHIFT unveiled their proposal for mixed-use housing in the periphery of Milan, Italy. Mario Cipresso is the founder of the Santa Monica-based studio and commented on the project: “The project is one of twelve proposals located on the periphery of the historic city center offering conceptual solutions for the densification of Milano. Each proposal injects 25,000 inhabitants into the existing fabric of Milano for a total population increase of 300,000.

The radical nature of this undertaking, specifically the insertion of twenty-five thousand new inhabitants at the site, on the periphery of the cultural and economic center of the city, requires an equally radical response. The population increase will most certainly impose enormous demands on existing infrastructure and the social and economic well-being of the population will face new strains.

In order to address this situation, our proposal employs a comprehensive strategy that simultaneously establishes a self-sustaining community and one that seeks to integrate programmatically and physically with the existing city. Read the rest of this entry »

Creative director Byung Ju Lee of Planning Korea announced a new paradigm in bridge called ‘Paik Nam June Media Bridge’ in Seoul, Korea. Connecting Dangi-li Power Plant (which has a plan to be redeveloped into public cultural space) in the north and The National Assembly Building in the south, this bridge shows the first example of ‘a city expanded to the river’.

As a futuristic and aesthetic sculptor over the Han River, Paik Nam June Media Bridge shows how to use spaces over the bridge efficiently and eco-friendly. Inspired by the water strider, the overall shape is organic with sleek, streamlined outline. With the total length of 1080m, this mega structure bridge is covered with solar panel to generate energy by itself. Read the rest of this entry »

Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas won the “International Schematic Design Competition of Shenzhen Guosen Securities Tower” After the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport Terminal 3 won by Studio Fuksas in March 2008, on October 18th 2010 Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas won the “International Schematic Design Competition of Shenzhen Guosen Securities Tower”.

The project by Studio Fuksas is born from the intention to create a new concept of vertical public space for the tower. A three-dimensional void will be arranged along the facades giving a dynamic image to the building and creating different public scenarios for the offices. The design of the void shape explores the relation between the podium and the vertical section of the tower with diagonals spaces and fluxes that create a vertical tension in the full height of the tower. Read the rest of this entry »

A starkly modern grid-patterned skyscraper within the heart of Los Angeles, the Vertical Campus, designed by architects Gail Peter Borden and Brian D. Andrews, is a tower that “engages urbanity,” and seeks to energize and engage the community by re-orienting the landscape from the city’s horizontal sprawl to a vertical complex.

The tower is located over the Los Angeles River, using the building’s base to generate hydroelectricity, and is a mix of residential, commercial, garden and civic spaces.

Instead of just being a skyscraper, though, the Vertical Campus seeks to help re-envision how to unite people through design, how to house new growth in an already dense city, and how to blend complex building systems to unite an existing complex urban fabric. The building will, through its design and also programmatic elements, be a literal bridge that unites the people of different economic and social classes that currently reside on the opposite sides of the river.

In terms of what it houses and how it’s powered, the Vertical Campus has it all. Wind turbines join the hydroelectric to provide energy, as does photovoltaic film; horizontal farms breed algae for energy use while hanging gardens grow vegetables and flowers for residents; rainwater is collected and purified; and all of the city’s transportation paths – bike, pedestrian, car, subway, train – run across the building’s base, unifying the building in another way with its landscape. Read the rest of this entry »

The Urban Tree project was designed by Geotectura, and award-winning architectural studio based in Israel and founded by Dr. Joseph Cory as a way to merge land and architecture with sustainable elements, cost effective technologies, and social responsability.

This urban scale structure contains greenhouse platforms on dwelling floating cubes that keeps a minimal footprint on the ground. The bioclimatic structure capsule enables space and function flexibility. Variation in size and function in each unit is preserved within each cube with panoramic viewpoints and optimal air flow. Together with the multi-dimensional absolute green environment and the terrace sky courts of this versatile self-sufficient project reflect a sustainable responsability while building high. This concept of two helicoids prefabricated infrastructure is like a growing a urban tree that improves the dwellers’ quality of life while living in the sky. These mega-cubes weave nature and communities  into a dense city. Read the rest of this entry »

Kaohsiung, the largest port city in Taiwan, is in need of a cruise ship passenger terminal and public face for its contribution to the islands growing cultural importance. Sun and Associate’s submitted proposal for the Passenger Transportation District for the Port of Kaohsiung is a sweeping architectural statement on public use and green urban design. The obvious allusion to a wave creates a welcoming sensibility to visitors and speaks to the islands relationship to the sea. The building’s mixed use as a conference center, office, port and urban park expand the programs flexibility and public/ private accessibility. Read the rest of this entry »

Suspension City, comprised of complexes of housing, office and commercial sites built within abandoned quarries in the sprawling outskirts of Santiago, Chile, seeks to blend into the spread out landscape while improving its conditions.

Designed by Robert Alexander and Catherine Burce, the city uses a matrix of woven metal hills to hold pillars that reach to the bottom of the quarries, with office and residential units suspended from the pillars as they descend. Using both the art of M.C. Escher and the structuring of a beehive by the beekeeper to maximize space and accessibility as inspirations, the pair have created a design that seeks to combat sprawl by filling in the very mines whose wealth supported sprawl’s explosion in the area.

The hilly matrix that shields Suspension City has roads woven into its grid, connecting it to the surrounding existing development, and also large holes to expose the city below to sunlight. The city descends as deep as 70 meters in some places. Read the rest of this entry »

Amsterdam-based architectural firm UNStudio unveiled the design for the Urban Library of the Future and Centre for New Media in Gent, Belgium. The new complex creates a dynamic, flexible and open knowledge environment, with an open landscape, alternative circulation routes, several meeting areas and a public plaza. The building is fluid in form, accommodating to its surroundings and incorporates expansive sightlines. The internal organisation of the building is based on an open central void, around which the circulation takes place. This void enhances the spatial experience, creates clear orientation through the building and fulfills a bridging function between the city and the Municipal Library. The structure of the building makes it possible to introduce (green) roof terraces whilst also ensuring low levels of direct sunlight penetration. Read the rest of this entry »