a couple weeks ago i attended the tall buildings conference at IIT entitled "Thinking Outside the Box: Tapered, Tilted, Twisted". i think i got suckered into it by the key names in the program- DANIEL LIBESKIND, JEANNE GANG, KEN YEANG, ZAHA HADID. haha and after zaha's name there was something written really small- "parter". nonetheless, it was a good lineup. and get this-- only $20 for students! what a steal, how can i pass it up?

so i walk in, register, and am handed the conference booklet with this on the cover:



these are projects in milan fiera- libeskind, hadid, and isozaki. i looked at it, mouth opened, and immediately thought of a project that i had JUST finished in my 3dstudiomax class..



their buildings look like my friggin sponges! which made me realize something about all these twisted towers.. if you take off the bend or twist modifier in 3ds what do you get? yeah, a glass and steel box. its a bit disturbing.. and i normally enjoy libeskind's work, but come on.. he doesnt even resolve the problem of fire stairs in this project (the one thats bent over).



his building looks like a tired person slumped over with a stick shoved down their back. when he had it up on the screen i just wanted to photoshop the firestair core out of there.

also in the exhibit they had was a matrix of building floor plate geometries. it was basically a chart that allows you to pick and choose shapes for the bottom and top floors- so.. voiilllaaa!!! another twisted tower! how NOT amazing. it's like a technological craze saying "hey! look what i can do with glass and steel!" i mean yes, it's great how far we've come with construction and building technology, but it's gotten to the point where it seems like its an unspoken competition between starchitects on whose building can limbo best.

and i dont want to generalize the entire conference because i did really enjoy jeanne gang's presentation on aqua tower and also mad studio's little talk on their project in mississauga. but man.. with those other twisted projects..enough is enough. soon we'll take aerial photographs of dubai and china and just see a land of corkscrews and drill bits.

but in the end, i have to admit.. i get starchitectstruck pretty easily. my studiomates and i couldnt resist getting a picture with libeskind.

kinda.



thanks to chrissy- the lovely girl with the hat- for this picture.

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