Archinect - News

One of Helmut Jahn's final designs distinguishes itself on the Chicago skyline

2024-11-05T12:05:00-05:00

Critics are coming out in favor of a distinctive new residential apartment tower from Jahn after the building opened at the south end of Michigan Avenue in Chicago in June. The 1000M project is a new high-rise accommodation meant to anchor the historic thoroughfare with 73 total stories and 738 units.

Image credit: Tom Rossiter

Helmut Jahn is credited with leading its revised design from 2015 until his death in 2021, joined by a team that included Philip Castillo, Lynda Dossey, Peter Hayes, and Lucie Rigaldies.

Image credit: Tom Rossiter

Residents enjoy access to its ground-floor lobbies from both the street level and a stately porte-cochere located on the western axis. The manipulation of air rights for this project allowed the design's floor plates to gradually expand at the northeast or southeast corners from a rectangular base into a more softened parallelogram form.

Image credit: Tom Rossiter

A seven-level parking structure with 325 spaces services the building, which is draped...

Foster + Partners to design 54-story mixed-use skyscraper in Miami

2024-08-27T16:38:00-04:00

Plans for a 54-story mixed-use tower from Foster + Partners in Miami are coming into focus with the release of new concept renderings depicting a new headquarters for the hedge fund Citadel. The tower will reportedly include 212 hotel rooms at its uppermost levels, preceded by a 34-floor office component and supporting retail spaces. Local outlets have reported its planned height is 1,032 feet, which would make it the second tallest building in Miami behind the forthcoming Waldorf Astoria Hotel and Residences from Carlos Ott.

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

Nigel Dancey, the Head of Studio at Foster + Partners, describes their design: “The tower’s tapered form unifies its various functions, enhances structural efficiency, and creates an elegant marker on the Miami skyline. An environmentally responsive facade draws on Florida’s vernacular architecture, with a louvred shading system to create a comfortable internal environment, while maximising views out from this amazing location.”...

This is what Hudson Yards West will look like, according to developers

2024-03-15T13:25:00-04:00

Details of the planned Wynn New York City resort scheme from Related Companies and the Oxford Properties Group have been released, along with new renderings and further details about the final Phase 2 building segment at Hudson Yards.

The three-tower scheme chosen from the set of alternative proposals that was released in February calls for a 1,189-foot hotel with 1,750 rooms to be placed at the northernmost edge of the site opposite a 1,366-foot office building and across a plaza area from the x-shape third residential tower, which stands at 1,172-feet will include 1,507 units. A 5.6-acre park will complete the master plan, along with a 750-seat public school and 12,250 square feet of ground-level retail.

Rendering courtesy of Related Companies and Wynn Resorts

Included in this proposal are plans for a gaming component that could potentially earn one of three coveted casino licenses up-for-grabs in the Downstate region (which includes New York City) for $500 million apiece in 2025...

Design proposal for Miami's new tallest tower by BMA Architects submitted

2024-01-26T16:58:00-05:00

Plans for what would be the tallest tower in Miami have been put forth by a local developer seeking permission for a new high-rise building in the Brickell commercial district designed by BMA Architects.

Their proposal for a tower at 190 Southwest Street is advancing under the tentative name Calle 8. At 870 feet above sea level, it would surpass the Panorama Tower (also in Brickell) and the Aston Martin Residences Downtown for the record-setting tallest structure in Miami and the state of Florida.

Image courtesy BMA Architects

The mixed-use design is for 65 total stories. Developers are aiming for 464 residential units and considering several options, including a concert hall, for the ground-level space that’s sheathed in a perforated metal screen according to renderings that appeared in Florida YIMBY along with news of the height variance increase update to its permitting application.

Image courtesy BMA Architects

A cantilevered void with outdoor pool deck feature at the tower's mi...

An animated high-rise reminisces about its life in the city in "The Secret Diary of a High Rise"

2024-01-05T15:48:00-05:00

A new animated short film titled The Secret Diary of a High Rise by UK-based animator and artist Stephen Ong uniquely depicts the life of a high-rise building told from the perspective of the building itself.

We follow the experience of the high-rise via its narration, by Sasha Goguel, as it reminisces about its life in the city, including an early romantic love affair with another high-rise and the growth and transformation it experiences as years pass.

The short culminates in a get-together between our protagonist and their friends, who catch up on their own journeys, from new functions to rehabilitation.

Warm, vivid colors create an exciting urban, nightlife atmosphere, which is complimented by the film’s jazzy soundtrack, composed by Jon Hugo Ungar. The Secret Diary of a High Rise has been screened at several British animation festivals.

UNStudio's edgy Eclipse office design opens in Düsseldorf

2023-11-16T14:56:00-05:00

UNStudio has completed work on a new office building for the German operation of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Düsseldorf.

Their vision for a new ‘vertical work campus‘ concept was realized with support from the local firm HPP Architekten. The firms say their main intent for the Eclipse project was to “foster interaction and to inspire creativity by providing an inspirational and attractive work environment for today’s talent.” The 196-foot-tall building includes 290,600 square feet of office space for around 1,200 workplaces across a total of 16 stories.

Image: © H.G. Esch

The design of Eclipse resolves space on a difficult site by positioning a triangular volume above a two-story podium. Its 360-degree facade orients to the neighboring Hilton Hotel at its south elevation while the northern-facing side is established parallel to Kennedydamm, the main motor vehicle thoroughfare leading to the center of the city.

Image: © H.G. Esch

The form and fenestration of the tower give it a uni...

A 50-story housing proposal is shaking up planning officials in San Francisco

2023-04-19T18:07:00-04:00

A proposed new high-rise development in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district is standing out over its disputed manipulation of statewide density laws.

The LA Times is reporting on CH Planning‘s unlikely new proposal, which could add a Solomon Cordwell Buenz-designed 50-story tower to the neighborhood via provisions in California’s Density Bonus Law — a regulation they say allows for permitted deviations from local building restrictions to provide options for affordable housing.

“It simply defies logic that a building in a 100-foot height district seeking a 50% bonus could somehow rise to 560 feet,” Daniel Sider, chief of staff for San Francisco’s Planning Department said in a rebuke published by the newspaper. “While we agree that this site is ripe for housing, and we hope to work with the developer to achieve that, there is no provision in state or local law to permit the downtown-style building that’s been proposed.”

“The proposed project is flat out inconsistent with local zoni...

Foster + Partners tapped to design supertall 350 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan

2023-01-17T18:08:00-05:00

Ken Griffin’s empire will occupy more than half of the office space at a new Manhattan skyscraper at 350 Park Ave., which is expected to be completed in 2032. [...] Citadel confirmed plans to construct a tower at 350 Park Ave., a 1.7 million-square-foot (158,000 square-meter) building that would replace three properties in that area. The firm has been working with developers Vornado Realty Trust and Rudin Management Co.

Citadel's fund is managed by billionaire philanthropist Kenneth Griffin, whose 2018 donation to West Palm Beach, Florida's Norton Museum of Art earned him a special named wing also designed by Foster + Partners' New York office.

If approved, the new 1,350-foot supertall 350 Park Avenue tower will piggyback off the just-opened 425 Park Avenue and 50 Hudson Yards developments as well as the forthcoming J.P. Morgan Chase headquarters and 15 Penn Plaza designs to become the firm's seventh tall building project in Manhattan. Expectations are for construction to be completed by the end of 2032.

Toronto’s race to the top gets a new 105-story contender

2022-11-14T18:58:00-05:00

In the quest to build the tallest skyscraper in Canada, developer Pinnacle International appears to be inching ahead, with a new proposal that would see the second tower at the foot of Yonge Street reach over 100 storeys. Pinnacle submitted an application late last month with the city, seeking to allow 12- and 10-storey increases to the already approved 80- and 95-storey towers in its development at the site of the current Toronto Star building.

Hariri Pontarini Architects’ amended design for the already-underway SkyTower could become Toronto’s first triple-digit-story supertall, equaling the height of the CN Tower’s observation deck. Anson Kwook, a VP of marketing for the developer said it would also add a “piece of artwork” to the city’s skyline.

Previously on Archinect: Construction kicks off on SkyTower, Canada's tallest residential tower

Toronto’s planning division has been flooded with proposed tall building designs since the beginning of last year, including designs for Studio Gang’s first Canadian venture; the forthcoming 55 Yonge mixed-use development by PARTISANS and Quadrangle; Frank Gehry’s revised King Street West apartments; and a proposed 31-story mass timber structure from local studio ICON Architects that would topple Milwaukee’s Ascent Tower for the world record use of that material upon its speculative completion in 2027.

Dattner debuts a record-setting new 26-story passive house high-rise in the Bronx

2022-11-14T12:35:00-05:00

Dattner Architects recently celebrated the opening of a new 26-story affordable housing project in New York City it says sets a new standard for the application of one of the building industry’s most sustainable techniques in the design of high-rise apartment structures.

Located in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, it has 277 total units with a host of on-site community services and is considered the largest passive house building in North America.

According to a city press release, the $178 million new structure at 425 Grand Concourse is meant specifically for the formerly homeless and those earning between less than 30% and 130% of the median income in an area in which 22% of all residents are considered food insecure.

Image courtesy Dattner Architects

“Our administration is focused on creating affordable housing for New Yorkers that doesn’t just help those who move in but enhances the entire community, and 425 Grand Concourse does exactly that,” NYC Mayor Eric Adams said dur...

J. MAYER H. unveils ZIPPER - RKM 740, a new hybrid healthcare-residential tower in Düsseldorf

2022-10-14T15:49:00-04:00

J. MAYER H. has shared photos of their new ZIPPER - RKM 740 Tower project in Düsseldorf. Overlooking the Rhine on the former campus of the Dominikus hospital, the new high-rise development includes residences and healthcare facilities inside a 22,000-square-meter (237,000-square-foot) structure whose synergy they say serves as a “prototype of a hospital for the future.”

Photo: David Franck

The facade’s perforated metal curtain provides the zipper reference through a series of gradual openings that can be flexibly adapted. The arrangement of the facade also works to provide shade and wind protection to the structure, whose program is split into two 6- and 14-story volumes defining both the medical functions and housing component, respectively.

Photo: David Franck

Per the architects: “The dynamic, organic shapes of the building rise like clouds of mist towards a thin volume at the top. It seems to grow in horiz...

New York selects six Empire Building Challenge partners to boost the state's energy efficiency

2022-10-10T09:00:00-04:00

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has just announced the addition of six new strategic partners to the $50 million Empire Building Challenge in aims of enhancing the state’s stock of energy-efficient buildings.

The newly-added partners will be tasked with developing "highly repeatable" solutions to reducing carbon emissions in the heating and hot water systems of roughly 5.6 million square feet of high-rise buildings statewide that are included in the Challenge.

Brookfield Properties and Tishman Speyer lead the groups included in the program’s expansion, which now covers some 125 million square feet of commercial and multifamily properties and over 1,500 units of housing. The new interests selected by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) include:

Amalgamated Housing Corporation, who will team with EN-POWER GROUP and Egg Geo on Tower I & Tower II, 3965 - 3975 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx.
Boston Properties, who pairs with Jaros, Baum, & Bolles Consulting...

Australian architects propose improbably narrow 'skyscratcher'

2021-02-01T15:07:00-05:00

With a street frontage of just six metres, the Pencil Tower Hotel is barely wider than a terraced house. [...] Planning documents for the $35.6 million hotel, which are on exhibition until February 2, describe the “improbably narrow” tower as a “skyscratcher” because it is too thin to be regarded as a skyscraper [...].

The proposal for a 33-story new hotel tower in Sydney's Central Business District is catching attention for its ambitiously skinny proportions: designed by Sydney-based Durbach Block Jaggers Architects to stand 110 meters (361 feet) tall, the structure will occupy a narrow site that is only six meters (less than 20 feet) wide.

"Our proposal embraces this extraordinary attenuated quality, proposing a ‘column’ tower on a low scale podium," states the architects' project description. "The tower simulates the compression and extension of a column, through a continuous abstraction of the elements of a column: base, shaft and capital."

2020 Tall Buildings Report: pandemic contributes to decline in completions

2021-01-18T13:43:00-05:00

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has published its latest annual web report, Tall Buildings in 2020, with plenty of facts and figures on the state of the skyscraper construction industry during a year full of pandemic-related uncertainty.

With 106 completions of buildings 200 meters and taller in 2020, the number constitutes a 20-percent decline compared to 133 completions in 2019.

Completions Timeline. Illustration courtesy of CTBUH.

While the two tallest buildings completed in 2020 are in New York City (Central Park Tower and One Vanderbilt), the United States ranks with 10 completed tall buildings only a distant third in both total number of completions as well as sum of heights compared to China (56 completions) and the United Arab Emirates (12 completions, all in Dubai).

The ten tallest buildings completed in 2020 are:

Central Park Tower, New York City, United States,
98 floors, 472 m / 1,550 ft
Design Architect: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
One Vanderbi...

Construction kicks off on SkyTower, Canada's tallest residential tower

2020-09-15T13:20:00-04:00

Work has officially begun on what will soon be a 312.5 metre-high (1025 foot) skyscraper in Toronto, the tallest residential condominium tower ever built in the country. SkyTower, from Pinnacle International, is part of a multi-tower development that’s now under construction at 1 Yonge Street — the iconic Toronto address is also the inspiration behind the project’s namesake, Pinnacle One Yonge.

SkyTower, designed by Toronto firm Hariri Pontarini Architects in collaboration with Vancouver-based Pinnacle International, is set to become the city's second-tallest building overall behind the iconic CN Tower.

Rendering courtesy of Pinnacle International.

The building is the second of three towers at Toronto's massive multi-tower development Pinnacle One Yonge. The 65-story The Prestige next door is already under construction.

The case against skyscrapers

2020-07-15T13:46:00-04:00

[...] tall buildings are still sold on the basis that they are good for the environment. Mostly the argument is about density – if you pile a lot of homes or workplaces high on one spot, it is said, then you can use land and public transport more efficiently. There’s some truth in this, but you can also achieve high levels of density without going above 10 or 12 storeys.

The Observer's Rowan Moore dissects a list of the usual arguments in favor of ever taller buildings around the world and concludes that not much of it passes the reality test of urgent climate crisis, resource scarcity, wealth distribution, city planning, global pandemic, and ultimately, good design.

Rowan writes: "It has been deemed acceptable – by the building regulations, by architects, by the professional media – to rip untold tonnes of matter from the earth and to pump similar tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, in order to produce magical architectural devices that might, if all their wizardry were to function as promised, pay back some of their carbon debt some time in the next century. By when it might be too late."

Residential high-rise slated for L.A.'s Westside for first time in 40 years

2020-05-01T13:35:00-04:00

A Gensler-designed 34-story residential tower currently under construction on Los Angeles's Westside is poised to become the area's first residential high-rise in nearly 40 years.

Located west of the 405 Freeway, the 376-unit tower is being spearheaded by developers Douglas Emmett and includes a 40,000-square-foot ground-level privately owned and managed pocket park designed by SWA Group.

The proposed tower (center). Images courtesy of Los Angeles Department of City Planning.

Urbanize.la reports that the project construction recently went vertical on the site of the future tower, which is located adjacent to the Barrington Plaza highrises, one of which caught fire earlier this year.

Renderings depicting the project's ground-level pocket park. Images courtesy of Los Angeles Department of City Planning.

The under-construction tower will include a mix of studio, one, and two-bedroom units, as well as 19 affordable housing units.

Renderings for the tower depict a glass-wrapped tower st...

These are 'The 50 Most Influential Tall Buildings of the Last 50 Years'

2019-10-23T16:00:00-04:00

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has published a list of "The 50 Most Influential Tall Buildings of the Last 50 Years" ahead of its 10th World Congress happening in Chicago next week. Celebrating the organization’s 50th anniversary this year, the high-profile roundup places special focus on the accelerated new phase of innovation that has been happening in skyscraper construction since the late 1960s.

"Across these examples, we see the arrival and departure of the distinct International and Post-Modern styles, as well as the overlapping parametricism and contextualism that dominates the contemporary scene," declares the CTBUH announcement.

Image courtesy CTBUH.

"We see the transition from symbols of North American corporate power to broadcasting devices for the arrival of entire cities and countries on the global stage. The importance of environmental sustainability takes on as important a role as cultural and economic longevity."

Besides the obvious picks (Burj Khal...

What makes a city vertical?

2019-07-18T13:38:00-04:00

Which is the world's most vertical city? You might think of Hong Kong, given its famous skyscraper skyline, but by different measures of verticality other cities come out on top

"According to building data research company Emporis," writes Matthew Keegan for the Guardian Cities series, "Seoul in South Korea has more high-rise buildings, with 16,359. Emporis defines a high-rise as a building at least 35m, or 12 storeys tall. In second place is Moscow, Russia, with 12,317 high-rises, followed by Hong Kong in third place, with 7,913."

New York City signals intent to close more 'zoning loopholes’

2019-07-16T08:30:00-04:00

The city recently enacted stricter zoning regulations to curb excessive mechanical spaces in residential buildings, the first in a series of steps geared toward eliminating zoning ambiguities exploited by developers. [...] Now, elected officials and preservationists are pushing the city to enact stern oversight on additional types of voids and other perceived zoning loopholes.

"Many neighborhood advocates felt the void amendment did not go far enough, and called for the change to recognize unenclosed voids—such as Rafael Viñoly Architects’ disputed 'condo on stilts' on the Upper East Side—as mechanical," writes Caroline Spivack for Curbed NY.

"They charge that such open-air voids should count toward a building’s floor area ratio. Meanwhile, elected officials urged the city to study how some developers 'gerrymander' zoning lots by slicing off slivers to avoid triggering certain regulations."

In May, the New York City Council passed a zoning amendment that will limit real estate developers' ability to inflate the overall height of new skyscrapers through targeted over-sizing of "mechanical void spaces" in order to drive up the price of units higher up in the building.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York has also signaled its support of new legislation addressing this issue.

NYC's super-tall mechanical void loophole is no more

2019-06-03T13:52:00-04:00

The City Council voted to close a zoning loophole that has allowed developers to boost building heights with excessive mechanical spaces—but it’s only the first step in addressing the issue, say lawmakers.

The zoning amendment will limit the city's notoriously over-sized mechanical spaces to 25-feet in height before additional space begins to eat into a project's allowable buildable area. New York City lawmakers are pushing to close other loopholes, as well, including rules impacting the use unenclosed voids in tall buildings to gain additional height and the agglomeration of "gerrymandered" lots to take unfair advantage of favorable zoning rules for certain parcels.

Curbed quotes Council member Ben Kallos of the Midtown East and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan as saying, “We are taking a significant step towards stopping developers from getting around zoning to give billionaires views instead of building the affordable housing New Yorkers need. This is only a start and we need to go much further.”

Brooklyn gets its first set of 'stacked boxes' OMA towers

2019-03-07T15:39:00-05:00

Two new OMA-designed residential towers at Greenpoint Landing, Brooklyn were unveiled this morning by Brookfield Properties and Park Tower Group, the developers behind the endeavor. The towers, in conjunction with a lower seven-story building, will offer 745 housing units and are expected to accelerate the transformation of the post-industrial waterfront into a thriving residential community.

"By extending Eagle Street and Dupont Street, the towers will expand the existing public waterfront esplanade, creating a total of 2.5-acres of continuous public open space along the shoreline, and will add 8,600 sf of ground-floor retail to the neighborhood," explains OMA's project description.

TADDAAAA: Architecture!

"We have designed two towers—a ziggurat and its inverse—carefully calibrated to one another," said Jason Long, OMA Partner-in-Charge, about the twin tower ensemble's design which will include 30% affordable housing units. "Defined by t...

Moshe Safdie's Chongqing megadevelopment—featuring the world's highest, tower-spanning sky bridge—reaches structural completion

2019-02-25T14:37:00-05:00

It has been exactly one year since the enormous eight-tower Raffles City Chongqing development announced that it set the world record for the highest sky bridge linking the most number of towers when it successfully hoisted the three middle segments of the ensemble's signature '9th horizontal skyscraper' into place.

Raffles City Chongqing - Aerial view of The Crystal sky bridge. Video via CapitaLand on YouTube.

Like a Marina Bay Sands on steroids, 'The Crystal' sky bridge—also designed by Safdie Architects—measures 300 meters in length, 32.5 meters in width, 26.5 meters in height, and links six of the eight skyscrapers 250 meters high up in the Chongqing sky.

The two 350-meter high supertall skyscrapers are now Chongqing’s tallest buildings and among the tallest towers in China. Image: CapitaLand.

"Upon Raffles City Chongqing’s structural completion, we are now focusing on the interior fit-out works, including transplanting trees to enliven The Crystal sky bridge, which will feature t...

Ceiling heights in tall towers should be capped at 12 feet, argues New York state lawmaker

2019-02-21T16:25:00-05:00

A state lawmaker is gunning for more aggressive restrictions on the vast mechanical voids developers often abuse to boost their buildings’ heights as a “more robust” solution to the de Blasio administration’s recent zoning amendment. [...] Current zoning exempts mechanical voids from a building’s floor-area ratio (FAR)—a given property’s square footage—and puts no height limits on those spaces.

"Luxury developers often exploit this loophole in residential towers to hike up the price for apartments on higher floors," explains Curbed NY one reasoning behind the newly introduced bill by New York State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal.

Form follows finance: NYC's pencil towers for the ultrawealthy

2019-02-07T14:28:00-05:00

Any visitor to New York over the past few years will have witnessed this curious new breed of pencil-thin tower. Poking up above the Manhattan skyline like etiolated beanpoles, they seem to defy the laws of both gravity and commercial sense. They stand like naked elevator shafts awaiting their floors, raw extrusions of capital piled up until it hits the clouds.

In his latest long-form piece, The Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright shows how the advent of the new 'pencil tower' building type is rapidly transforming New York City's skyline, digs in the history of zoning laws, and explains how "air rights" allow (an abundance of) cash to buy a piece of the Manhattan sky.

Photo: Maciek Lulko/Flickr

"Like leggy plants given too much fertiliser, these buildings are a symptom of a city irrigated with too much money," writes Wainwright. "The world’s population of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, a super-elite with assets of at least $30m, has now mushroomed beyond 250,000 people, all in need of somewhere to store their wealth. More than a third of them are based in North America, while those from riskier economic climes favour New York real estate as one of the safest places to park their cash."

One Vanderbilt rises to supertall status in Midtown Manhattan

2019-02-06T15:30:00-05:00

One Vanderbilt is officially the latest skyscraper in New York City to claim supertall status. Located at 41 East 42nd Street in Midtown East, the imminently 1,401-foot tall office building already soars above Grand Central Station, and new steel columns continue to sprout along the perimeter and core, having now punctured the 1,000-foot mark.

By passing the 300 m/984.3 ft mark, KPF-designed One Vanderbilt is now officially recognized as a supertall structure.

Rendering of the completed 58-story tower. Image: KPF.

The tower in Manhattan's Midtown East—vis-à-vis Grand Central Terminal and the Metlife Building it recently surpassed in height—is expected to top out later this year, likely in mid summer, and be completed in 2020.

Dubai's ruler leaves his mark on new supertall tower, Burj Jumeira

2019-02-06T13:58:00-05:00

Across Dubai myriad construction projects are underway in the lead up to World Expo 2020. But it turns out there's always room for one more. State-owned investment firm Dubai Holding has released details of a huge post-expo construction mega-project, which will include a 1,804 feet (550-meter) high tower -- taller than One World Trade Center in New York. The tower, called Burj Jumeira, is situated in the Al Sufouh area of Dubai close to the Burj Al Arab.

Image: Dubai Holding

It's been a few weeks since the last announcement of another megaproject in Dubai, so here's finally a new one: Burj Jumeira is envisioned to become an oval-shaped, 1,804 ft/550 m supertall skyscraper with a flamboyant facade that is covered in a digital display, enabling it to light up like its taller city neighbor, the Burj Khalifa.

Image: Dubai Holding

And if you ever wondered what the thumbprint of Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, looks like, well, the base of the tower is literally covered with it.

Image: Dubai Holding

Construction will begin immediately, with the first phase of the development to be delivered in 2023.

First Look at Steinberg Hart-designed Invicta, Towers Win AIA Silicon Valley People’s Choice Award

2018-10-30T19:41:00-04:00

Standing as a symbol of the innovation and inclusiveness of the tech industry, Invicta, a mixed-use development, is set to redefine the public face of San Jose. The three tower development, which is designed by California-based Steinberg Hart and developed by Knowhere Holdings, was recently honored by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Silicon Valley with the 2018 People’s Choice Award for is striking design.

courtesy Steinberg Hart

Serving as a gateway into the SoFA (South of First Area) Arts District, the project will redevelop the block bordered by South 1st and 2nd Streets, Williams Street and Reed Street. Known as a cultural and entertainment center for downtown San Jose, SoFA is home to numerous institutions, art galleries, and theatre companies, as well as several city festivals and events. Acting as a catalyst for expansion to the area, the design integrates public space within multiple residential towers. To activate the surrounding neighborho...

New two-tower development at Chicago Spire site could dominate the city skyline

2018-05-16T14:05:00-04:00

The long-awaited vision for the 2.2-acre site along the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, unveiled in the first community meeting for the project, is toned down a bit from the 2,000-foot-tall Spire plan that stirred emotions but never advanced beyond a 76-foot-deep foundation hole. The design, by One World Trade Center architect David Childs, includes a south tower rising 1,100 feet and an 850-foot north tower.

Ever since work on Santiago Calatrava's 2,000-foot-tall Chicago Spire came to a halt in 2008 due to financial troubles, the city was left with a gaping hole in the ground rather than the nation's tallest building.

Rendering: Related Midwest.

A new proposal by Related Midwest for a pair of towers at 400 Lake Shore Drive, designed by architect David Childs with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, could rehabilitate the site.

SOM's new Hangzhou Wangchao Center features an impressive curved silhouette

2018-04-09T15:52:00-04:00

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill just revealed designs for a new mixed-use skyscraper in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, a rapidly growing metropolis with a population of nearly 10 million and host of the Asian Games in 2022.

The 280-meter-tall, 54-story Hangzhou Wangchao Center makes a strong first impression with its curved facade lines—merging the engineering feat of eight flowing mega-columns with architectural formal expression.

Completion is scheduled for 2021.

Here's more information about the tower from SOM:

"The Hangzhou Wangchao Center will serve as a gateway to the newly planned Qianjang Century Town in Hangzhou. It will add 125,000 square meters of office, hotel, and retail programming to the rapidly expanding region. The tower is directly adjacent to one of the city’s new subway stations, and is accessible from a major roadway."

"The tower's expressive silhouette is the result of an integrated
architectural and engineering solut...

Archinect - News

One of Helmut Jahn's final designs distinguishes itself on the Chicago skyline

Foster + Partners to design 54-story mixed-use skyscraper in Miami

This is what Hudson Yards West will look like, according to developers

Design proposal for Miami's new tallest tower by BMA Architects submitted

An animated high-rise reminisces about its life in the city in "The Secret Diary of a High Rise"

UNStudio's edgy Eclipse office design opens in Düsseldorf

A 50-story housing proposal is shaking up planning officials in San Francisco

Foster + Partners tapped to design supertall 350 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan

Toronto’s race to the top gets a new 105-story contender

Dattner debuts a record-setting new 26-story passive house high-rise in the Bronx

J. MAYER H. unveils ​ZIPPER - RKM 740, a new hybrid healthcare-residential tower in Düsseldorf

New York selects six Empire Building Challenge partners to boost the state's energy efficiency

Australian architects propose improbably narrow 'skyscratcher'

2020 Tall Buildings Report: pandemic contributes to decline in completions

Construction kicks off on SkyTower, Canada's tallest residential tower

The case against skyscrapers

Residential high-rise slated for L.A.'s Westside for first time in 40 years

These are 'The 50 Most Influential Tall Buildings of the Last 50 Years'

What makes a city vertical?

New York City signals intent to close more 'zoning loopholes’

NYC's super-tall mechanical void loophole is no more

Brooklyn gets its first set of 'stacked boxes' OMA towers

Moshe Safdie's Chongqing megadevelopment—featuring the world's highest, tower-spanning sky bridge—reaches structural completion

Ceiling heights in tall towers should be capped at 12 feet, argues New York state lawmaker

Form follows finance: NYC's pencil towers for the ultrawealthy

One Vanderbilt rises to supertall status in Midtown Manhattan

Dubai's ruler leaves his mark on new supertall tower, Burj Jumeira

First Look at Steinberg Hart-designed Invicta, Towers Win AIA Silicon Valley People’s Choice Award

New two-tower development at Chicago Spire site could dominate the city skyline

SOM's new Hangzhou Wangchao Center features an impressive curved silhouette

J. MAYER H. unveils ZIPPER - RKM 740, a new hybrid healthcare-residential tower in Düsseldorf