Archinect - News

"Sky City" gets approval, to be tallest building in the world, with contruction schedule now estimated at 7 months

2013-05-23T17:13:00-04:00

Last week, Broad Group announced it has received approval from the Chinese government and will break ground on the project next month, though according to Quartz's Lily Kuo, Broad Sustainable Building has pushed the building's schedule to a more modest seven months.

Anywhere but Here: Deserted Banking Empire turned Skyscraper Slum

2013-05-13T14:04:00-04:00

It was built for stockbrokers and bankers in their thousand dollar suits to make million dollar deals, but for nearly two decades it has held the less impressive title of the world’s tallest squat. Welcome to the Centro Financiero Confinanzas, more commonly known as the Torre David (the Tower of David) in Caracas, Venezuela, an unfinished skyscraper which has now been colonised by an ad hoc community of over 700 families.

Winner of 2013 Mock Firms International Skyscraper Competition

2013-05-06T16:54:00-04:00

Winners have been announced recently at the fifth annual Mock Firms International Skyscraper Competition, organized by Chicago Architecture Today. [...] The top title of International Skyscraper and Mock Firm Champion (a combination of architectural and marketing efforts) was awarded to the team AZAHAR Architecture composed of five architecture students and one professor from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain.

Mumbai's tallest skyscraper designed to "confuse the wind"

2013-05-03T14:48:00-04:00

Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture has unveiled plans for Imperial Tower, which would become Mumbai's tallest building and surely one of the world's most slender skyscrapers, should it come to be built. The 116-story, 400-m (1,300-ft) tall residential skyscraper has a distinctive curved shape, which AS+GG says has been designed to "confuse the wind."

Creating Energy from Noise Pollution

2013-03-26T01:10:00-04:00

Soundscrapers could soon turn urban noise pollution into usable energy to power cities. An honourable mention-winning entry in the 2013 eVolo Skyscraper Competition, dubbed Soundscraper, looked into ways to convert the ambient noise in urban centres into a renewable energy form. Noise pollution is currently a negative element of urban life but it could soon be valued and put to good use.

Poor-Quality Chinese Concrete Could Lead to Skyscraper Collapses

2013-03-21T18:53:00-04:00

The Ping’an Finance Center is planned to top out at 660m, making it not only China’s tallest building but the second-tallest building in the world after the Burj Dubai. 80m has been built so far, but construction has been halted in the wake of the revelation from Shenzhen’s Housing and Construction Bureau that substandard sea sand concrete had been used in its construction.

JAHN-Designed Japan Post Tower to Open in Tokyo

2013-03-13T13:53:00-04:00

Tokyo has a new skyscraper: the Japan Post Tower, a 38-story high-rise building designed by Helmut Jahn's Chicago firm in collaboration with Mitsubishi Jishu Sekkei, will hold its official grand opening for all commercial space Friday, March 21, 2013.

eVolo 2013 Skyscraper Competition Winners

2013-03-12T20:42:00-04:00

Our friends at eVolo Magazine just announced the winners of the 2013 Skyscraper Competition. The annual award, established in 2006, recognizes design visions that rethink the conventions of vertical living and the use of technology, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations. [...] The winners were selected for their creativity, ingenuity, and understanding of dynamic and adaptive vertical communities.

To commemorate the award, eVolo published a collector’s edition of its highly acclaimed book eVolo Skyscrapers. The book is a two-volume, 1300-page set with the best 300 projects received since 2006. Only 150 copies are available worldwide.

United Bank of Addis Ababa Entry by Söhne & Partner Architekten and BET Architects

2013-02-26T19:29:00-05:00

Viennese practice Söhne & Partner Architekten has shared with us their competition entry for the new United Bank building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The tower design with the dragon-scale facade was conceived in collaboration with Ethiopian firm BET Architects.

Massive mixed-use project in Hollywood clears a hurdle

2013-02-20T16:47:00-05:00

A proposal for two skyscrapers that would flank the Capitol Records tower in Hollywood gained the approval of the city's planning department Tuesday despite push-back from dozens of disgruntled residents. The Millennium Hollywood plans are the most ambitious in a string of revitalization projects in the area, including the W Hotel and the Hollywood & Highland Center. The $664-million mixed-use development could include more than 1 million square feet of apartment, office and retail space.

Previously: First Plans Released For Huge Towers Next to Capitol Records

Selldorf Architects Designs 54-Story Faceted-Facade Tower Near WTC

2013-02-05T13:01:00-05:00

Reaching 637 feet, the tower features a faceted facade filled with 428 residential units. Last month the creative team at Selldorf posted a video showing the louvered façade system, a "second skin" controlled by each individual dweller, and described thusly: "Cloaking the façade, a system of operable terracotta louvers animates the building with its changing configurations and reflectivity."

Selldorf Architects unveiled a prismatic tower design for a site just south of the World Trade Center at 22 Thames Street. The 54-story building would replace a 10-story brick structure that sold last year. The first five floors would hold retail and residential amenities, which would be topped by two floors for "performing arts," and the tower rising 637-feet above that.

Herzog & de Meuron to build one of London's tallest residential towers

2013-01-24T19:48:00-05:00

The Swiss practice is one of three that have been commissioned by Canary Wharf Group to design the first phase of the Wood Wharf development. Allies & Morrison has been appointed to design two new office buildings which will sit either side of the western end of the high street. The offices, aimed at IT services and new media companies, will sit above two storeys of retail.

Toronto Leading Western World in Tall Building Construction

2013-01-07T23:48:00-05:00

Canada’s biggest city is getting even bigger, with a pace-setting number of skyscrapers set to join the city skyline. According to a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) report dubbed “Canada Rising,” Toronto is leading the western world in terms of new buildings 150 metres or taller currently under construction.

Chilean Skyscraper Overshadows The City

2013-01-07T00:30:00-05:00

The skyline of Chile’s capital city, Santiago, has a new addition with the Gran Torre skyscraper casting a two-kilometre shadow across the historic city. The 70-storey residential building stands more than 300 metres tall, making it the tallest building in South America. The five-ton steel structure cost an estimated one billion dollars to build and tenants are expected to move into the building next March.

Zaha Hadid to design Miami tower

2012-12-19T13:08:00-05:00

Hadid’s tower will be built at the site that is now occupied by the BP Station at 1000 Biscayne Boulevard, directly across from Museum Park. The selection of Hadid was confirmed Monday by the investment group behind 1000 Biscayne Tower, which is managed by local developers Gregg Covin and Louis Birdman.

MAD completes the Absolute Towers in Mississauga

2012-12-14T13:53:00-05:00

Encountered on the street, they are enigmatic and shifting, even voluptuous. They appear carefully controlled, but their underlying geometry is far from obvious. Driving or walking by causes the towers' profiles to change continuously, and it would require significant mental acrobatics to map the relationship between profiles and construct a complete mental model of the building. From a closer vantage point, the geometric enigma remains, but a feature at another scale begins to dominate.

Gehry’s 8 Spruce Street Wins Emporis Skyscraper Award

2012-12-12T14:45:00-05:00

The ten winners of the 2011 Emporis Skyscraper Award have been announced with New York City's 8 Spruce Street tower taking home the top place. The winners were chosen from over 220 skyscrapers completed in 2011. Now in its 12th year, the award program rewards ten skyscrapers completed in the previous calendar year.

Could Australia’s Tallest Skyscraper Be the Fastest to Build?

2012-11-30T14:58:00-05:00

While becoming the tallest in architectural terms will always garner attention, taller building often harbour some of the lengthiest development periods. With a rise in the prominence of prefabrication, however, large is no longer necessarily equated with lengthy.

Will This Be The World’s Greenest Skyscraper?

2012-11-30T01:03:00-05:00

Holistic sustainability is a notion too often forgotten in a global industry heavily focused delivering on green ideals. While the notion of green building is an umbrella under which all things related to environmentally responsible construction and design efforts are categorized, the green sector actually falls under the broad-reaching holistic sustainability model.

First Plans Released For Huge Towers Next to Capitol Records

2012-11-01T13:39:00-04:00

The new buildings will be designed by Gary Handel Architects and Roschen Van Cleve Architects, but these renderings, like the rest of it, are conceptual. Landscape starchitect James Corner Field Operations (of New York's High Line and Santa Monica's Civic Center Parks) will design "extensive open space, street-level plazas, and enhanced pedestrian circulation encompassing approximately 25 percent of the entire site."

View more from the Millennium Hollywood website.

UPDATE: Massive mixed-use project in Hollywood clears a hurdle

Largest skyscraper on West Coast, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, approved for San Francisco Transbay Transit Center

2012-10-19T14:04:00-04:00

A 1,070-foot tower that will become the largest skyscraper on the West Coast received its final approvals from the Planning Commission on Thursday.

Clarke also showed the Planning Commission the actual metal and glass that will be used on the exterior of the building. He explained that the skin of the building has been augmented to add metalwork that will grow deeper and denser at the bottom of the tower. Clarke said adding the metal to the glass exterior will give the building a light texture that will glow in an ambient way.

The metalwork also was used to make the building safer for birds and to help control the flow of water down the structure.

Some people speaking about the project decried the tower as being too large and criticized its design.

NOTE: image has been update per Mark Hogan's tip in the comments

AS+GG Wins Competition for Qintai Center in Wuhan, China

2012-10-02T17:42:00-04:00

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture has just won another competition for a skyscraper in Asia: earlier today, the Chicago firm was announced as the winner of the international competition to design Qintai Center, a 248-meter (814-feet) tall, high-performance corporate headquarters tower and related podium structure in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.

Artist Chris Burden's Quasi-Legal Skyscraper Rises Again

2012-10-02T00:06:00-04:00

Burden's Small Skyscraper (Quasi-Legal Skyscraper), was intended to be "a modern day log cabin" that "two guys with a donkey could put up, and when the neighbor calls the building inspector, the guys can take it down again," he told LA Weekly back in 2003. Burden's loophole (it's now closed) eventually led to the design of an aluminum-framed structure built in 2003 with the help of Linda Taalman and Alan Koch of Taalman Koch Architecture.

The 10 Weirdest Details of NYC's Proposed 'Super Skyscraper'

2012-09-19T14:44:00-04:00

Displaced residents will be able to move into the new apartments "as if they had just won first prize in a lottery." The plans also include "Super-Galactic" residences, which will tempt celebrities including (but not limited to) royal families from Europe, CEOs, and "the wealthy."

Goettsch Partners Designs New Bank Tower in Abu Dhabi

2012-09-07T17:56:00-04:00

Chicago architecture firm Goettsch Partners has designed the flagship commercial development for UAE-based Al Hilal Bank in the heart of Abu Dhabi’s Al Maryah Island, formerly known as Sowwah Island.

UNStudio Designs New UIC Building ‘V on Shenton’ in Singapore

2012-08-03T20:40:00-04:00

We have received images of Ben van Berkel / UNStudio's design for the new UIC building, ‘V on Shenton’, in the heart of Singapore’s Central Business District. The office/residential twin tower concept is scheduled for completion in 2016.

Sky City: World’s tallest building, to be built in 90 days

2012-06-15T18:48:00-04:00

It took Dubai more than five years to build the 828-meter Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building (for the moment, anyway). But Chinese architects and engineers reckon they need a mere 90 days to leave the Emiratis in the dust. At least, that's what they've claimed.

BSB is renowned for its eye-opening construction efficiency. Its portfolio includes assembling a 15-story building in six days in June 2010, and erecting a 30-story hotel in 360 hours in December 2011.

The key to achieving such stunning speed is an innovative construction technique developed by BSB.

Most of the company’s buildings are pieced together with prefabricated components from its factory. In this case, 95 percent of Sky City will be completed before breaking ground.

BSB explained to Xinhua that its goal of building Sky City is not to erect a new landmark in China, but to develop and put into use a “medium-cost, super-saving utility building and to promote a futuristic urban lifestyle.”

AS+GG Designs Dancing Dragons Complex for Seoul’s Yongsan District

2012-05-10T17:51:00-04:00

Chicago-based firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture just released its design for Dancing Dragons, a pair of landmark supertall mixed-use towers for the new Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea. The buildings, which include residential, “officetel” and retail elements, consist of slender, sharply angled mini-towers cantilevered around a central core.

The AS+GG towers will find themselves in close proximity to MVRDV's highly controversial The Cloud towers.

Yabao Hi-Tech Enterprises Headquarter Park by 10 Design

2012-05-01T13:58:00-04:00

International architectural practice 10 Design has shared with us their concept of a headquarter park for pharmaceutical company Yabao in Shenzhen, China. Construction of this massive project already commenced last October and is well underway.

One World Trade Center to become NYC's tallest building...today!

2012-04-30T13:28:00-04:00

More than a decade after a terrorist attack brought down New York's twin towers, their under-construction replacement will become the city's tallest building on Monday. The placement of a column of the 100th floor will bring the colossal new steel structure of One World Trade Center tower to a height of 1,271 feet – surpassing the frame of the Empire State Building, which is currently New York's tallest skyscraper, by 21 feet.