2024-12-22T02:07:22-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/134127656/a-brief-history-of-twisted-apartment-buildings Julia Ingalls 2015-08-13T13:41:00-04:00 >2015-08-15T16:49:33-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/9v/9v0kkn3q3e8gw1l0.JPG?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>This 21st century trend started with Sweden's 2005 Turning Torso building, then quickly was adapted and modified by Frank Gehry for what became 2011's 8 Spruce Street in Manhattan. Now the twisted apartment building seems to have become its own typology, to judge by recent proposed works by both&nbsp;Urban Agency and <a href="http://archinect.com/firms/cover/65588/sou-fujimoto-architects" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sou&nbsp;</a><a href="http://archinect.com/firms/cover/65588/sou-fujimoto-architects" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Fujimoto</a>:</p><p><img title="" alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/co/co8hkx25ia0awdl3.jpg"></p><p>&uarr;&nbsp;<em>Urban Agency's code-savvy twisting apartment building.</em></p><p><img title="" alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/xi/xiv69l8g4okqiudy.jpg"></p><p><em>&uarr; Sou Fujimoto's Abre Blanc apartment building.</em></p><p>Urban Agency's apartment building twists not just for an aesthetic thrill, but as a way to legally increase the total floor space by 40 percent by artfully shimmying through France's planning laws. Sou Fujimoto's unfurling, frond-like patios on Abre Blanc are thoughtfully designed purposefully to suit the structure's surrounding Mediterranean climate by embracing an outdoor lifestyle. <a href="http://archinect.com/firms/cover/1276712/mad" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">MAD</a>'s "<a href="http://archinect.com/firms/release/1276712/mad-s-absolute-towers-tops-out/1276731" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marilyn Monroe"</a>&nbsp;2010-2012 Absolute World towers in Mississauga, ON took a more curvaceous and populist approach, as the final design was voted on&nbsp;by the Canadian public aft...</p>