Archinect
anchor

what was he thinking?


moscow - Sir Norman Foster - 27 million square feet- 450 m (1,476')



foster & partners, FT, skyscraper news, & inhabitat

x-seed 4000 on inhibitat

megastructures on archinect and news

 
Dec 26, 07 8:29 pm
b3tadine[sutures]

so 6% of [what] = mutha fucking filthy rich

Dec 26, 07 8:32 pm  · 
 · 

approx $4b, you do the rest on the math...

Dec 26, 07 8:34 pm  · 
 · 
b3tadine[sutures]

i bet there was a lot of high-fiving going around after that contract was signed.

Dec 26, 07 8:43 pm  · 
 · 
holz.box
Dec 26, 07 9:04 pm  · 
 · 
strlt_typ
Dec 26, 07 9:58 pm  · 
 · 
strlt_typ

not 3dh, by the way...

Dec 26, 07 10:02 pm  · 
 · 
fulcrum

I hope they don't repeat this history...

Dec 26, 07 10:33 pm  · 
 · 

Wow,,

All i can say is go post-Soviet Moscow..

Putin is putting you on the map!

Dec 26, 07 10:33 pm  · 
 · 
rodgerT
Dec 27, 07 1:00 am  · 
 · 
simples

fulcrum...that building in north korea immediately came to mind...

this feels so bad to me, yet, i can't pin point why...it's like the old soviets palace of cultures for the new century...architecturally, i am not sure the decision to keep such a simplistic gesture in form is ideal for a creature of this scale...but maybe the whole point is scale...foster has got me scratching my head lately...but then again, what is 7% of $4 billion again...

Dec 27, 07 10:46 am  · 
 · 
evilplatypus

i think the % goes way down when the cost goes way up

Dec 27, 07 10:57 am  · 
 · 

Yeah i mean this thing will be huge....

And from a "green" perspective i am not apeased just because they will add some turbines and a breatheable skin..

Not that i want them to remove those elements...

Just seems unneccesary to me...

Dec 27, 07 10:59 am  · 
 · 
treekiller

its just too big and it looks like something out of a bad sci-fi movie.

ok, if anybody can pull it off, foster can. but it is still obscene and a really bad concept. what happens in the center of tower, 500' away from the exterior? even if there are skylights, there is just to little light to make that a pleasant place...

Dec 27, 07 11:00 am  · 
 · 
n_

7% of $4,000,000 = $280,000,000

Wow.

Dec 27, 07 11:01 am  · 
 · 
evilplatypus

what exactly goes in there, the circus?

Dec 27, 07 11:03 am  · 
 · 
PerCorell

Read the text ;

http://www.wilton.com/wedding/makecake/building/index.cfm

Dec 27, 07 11:54 am  · 
 · 
PerCorell

"Remember, the same principles an architect follows when creating a skyscraper should be followed on your cake. The proper supports, such as dowel rods, cake circles/boards and separator plates, must be used in the right places in order to prevent the whole structure from toppling over."

Dec 27, 07 11:55 am  · 
 · 
treekiller

per that is very funny.



1/2 of the fee will go to the engineers, 1/2 of whats left will be needed for bribes, but that still leaves $70m for Sir Norman.

Dec 27, 07 12:39 pm  · 
 · 
myriam

To be honest, I think the form itself is pretty cool--it's nice to see something actually semi-different for once, and I could see this being actually seductive in real life--but the SIZE is the wrong part! The same form scaled down would be pretty cool, I think.

Dec 27, 07 1:16 pm  · 
 · 
myriam

But then again I find his British Museum addition/canopy to be THE WORST, and everyone seems to love it, so who knows.

Dec 27, 07 1:17 pm  · 
 · 
simples

my goodness...per corell made sense...and it was a very thoughtful/funny post on the topic at hand...congrats per, sincerelly!


myriam...[imho], form and scale go hand in hand...the fluidity and purity of that particular form reinforces that scale, and therefore, has the opposite effect the gesture is going for...[/imho]

and i always thought Foster's british museum atrium wasn't anything special, until i went to visit...i found it to be an incredibly sensible space;

Dec 27, 07 1:28 pm  · 
 · 
myriam

Ha, I went to visit the BM and found it totally thoughtless. HATED it, in pretty much every category : form, function, sensual experience. Ahh well.

In the case of the project above, I feel it can be divorced from its scale--not all forms can, I agree--but in this case as all we see is basically a net-like structural system and the buildings in the background, and we don't know how big those structural members are, we can easily imagine that, say, most of the top (narrowest) part is an uninhabitable crown, and the total habitable part of the building is, say, only maybe 3 or 4 storeys tall. You are still left with a large 1st floor but imagining a few cut-outs in the floorplates to let light filter through, or a staggered floor plate system (a la Seattle Public Library) and you have an interesting form that could make an interesting inhabitable space.

Dec 27, 07 1:54 pm  · 
 · 
Post Nazi

My guess is Sir Norm has a really really small penis.

Dec 27, 07 2:13 pm  · 
 · 
simples

post...and so does the client!

Dec 27, 07 2:16 pm  · 
 · 
treekiller

the client is russian, so they are most likely suffering from alcoholic impotence and cirrhosis.

Dec 27, 07 3:42 pm  · 
 · 
strlt_typ

i like it better upside down...

Dec 27, 07 3:55 pm  · 
 · 
myriam

Actually now that I'm looking at it, the sharpness of the angled sides means that the bottom floor may get a lot of sun (and solar gain) -- looks like it will have a glass roof over most of it?

Yeah, their little enviro "diagram" kind of only points up how this thing probably will not perform very well. Seems like it's just gonna soak up heat gain.

Dec 27, 07 3:58 pm  · 
 · 
treekiller

m- only the perimeter-topl evel will have the pleasure of daylighting- most of the volume within will be dark and dank....

it DOES look better upside down.

Dec 27, 07 4:13 pm  · 
 · 
Apurimac

dear god, was he high?

Dec 27, 07 4:22 pm  · 
 · 
Sarah Hamilton

But its in Russia, so is heat-gain really a problem?

Dec 27, 07 4:34 pm  · 
 · 
treekiller

the russian energy code specs incandescent lights for their 'bonus' heat, so I doubt that heat-gain is a design constraint. cooling will still be an issue, especially if there is any amount of computers/tech equipment like western offices.

Dec 27, 07 4:42 pm  · 
 · 

I am not passing judgment on this yet. I don't think I've quite absorbed the scale yet. I don't have any basis for comparison....I just have a pretty rendering and a sexy diagram. And I do think the diagram is sexy.

Dec 28, 07 1:32 am  · 
 · 

as much as i don't like most of norm's work, you have to remember that he'll have a top team of engineers and consultants working on the design. it isn't merely a bunch of flash renderings and diagrams he's pulled out his arse. the project isn't nice to look at, but in all likeliness will not fall down or cook it's inhabitants.

Dec 28, 07 7:59 am  · 
 · 
holz.box

emily, please pass judgement. it's past due for judgement.... that diagram is straight out of the 60s, a la g.z. brown...

and yes, arup will once again rise to the top and make this another top notch project, similar to this beauty (structurally speaking)...

Dec 29, 07 12:07 am  · 
 · 

So wait, you guys are saying that radical sustainable megastructure architecture shouldn't be built? What year is this again?

I think the people inside this thing will be fine, if you look at that section, there seems to be some kind of huge inverted solar reflector that bounces natural light inside; and the built space is hung from the 3DH, so there are lots of gaps for light to get through, bounced off of 'wintergardens', too, so everybody gets some green, right? It could be great, nobody's done anything like it on this scale, so let's find out!

Really, how else are we going to rehearse a trip to Mars? Not to mention all the sustainable tech this thing will help normalize if it gets built. ... and that's a prety big 'if', I'd give about 50/50 odds, even with Sir Norman's track record. But hey, he gets paid either way, right?

(disclaimer: I am currently drunk)

Dec 29, 07 8:19 am  · 
 · 
PerCorell

Structural speaking I guess one don't need to be drunk to find this far more exiting than the above ;



But I guess the top will be more like Schuchow's geostatic towers.
-----I don't wonder why rusians was attracted to this attitude, it would fit perfect with what was projected by the early constructivists. In fact there are many way more revolusinary structures to be found there.

Dec 29, 07 8:52 am  · 
 · 
PerCorell

Guy's whats wrong here --- what are those reflections in the waters of above graphics ; do nayone with me, think there are an out of scale reflection of a huge building there -- is this the guy who render the thing's choice for a blur reflection pattern , a Jpg or what ever, Realy -- if a building reflect like that , it is a huge structure, or is this a graphics failiour ? -- Look at the rivers.

Dec 30, 07 1:15 pm  · 
 · 

per- that is a photo of a model. the model is inside a room with stuff on the wall. the reflections are the 'water' is of the stuff on the wall and not of huge buildings. you should also notice the seams between pieces of the base further identifying the image above as being a model.

Dec 30, 07 3:35 pm  · 
 · 
liberty bell

Great drunk post, 765!

Dec 30, 07 3:38 pm  · 
 · 

Ha, thanks, lb! I was relieved it still made sense the next day!

Dec 30, 07 5:46 pm  · 
 · 
PerCorell

Thank's Barry Now I know It wasn't me who focused to much on the liquid. Realy I thought it to be a rendering.

Dec 30, 07 9:01 pm  · 
 · 

OH NO!! I'm smelling another case of (bad) history repeatin':


Palace of Soviets - final project by Boris Iofan, 1934

Wiki: The Palace of Soviets (Russian: Дворец Советов, Dvorets Sovetov) was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. [...] If built, it would have become the world's tallest structure.


Starchitects of the old skool in full effect: Le Corbusier's entry for the Palace of Soviets

I wonder if they'll drop a giant Putin sculpture on the tip of the 'crystal'...

By the way: the building was never finished, the foundation turned into the world's largest open-air swimming pool, later removed in 1991, and the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour rebuilt in 1995-2000.



Good luck, Norman!

Jan 2, 08 8:16 pm  · 
 · 
treekiller

was it the palace of the soviets or one of hitler's meglomaniac towers that could never be build because of bad soil conditions?

hope they have a good geotechnical engineer!

Jan 2, 08 10:43 pm  · 
 · 
Apurimac

Hitler's beriln TK, although i wouldn't put it past the PotS.

Rem's little essay on the PotS swimming pool is brilliant.

Jan 2, 08 10:53 pm  · 
 · 

It was the Palace of the Soviets. The site is right by the river - which the Foster tower is going to be, too - with very moist soil. The original foundation of the PotS could have never supported a 415m high structure.

Jan 2, 08 10:57 pm  · 
 · 
myriam

bummer, i would have loved the world's largest open-air swimming pool...

Jan 3, 08 12:42 am  · 
 · 

it sounded like a kind of wonderful hell in rem's word picture of it (the swimming pool). amazing for its insanity and the absurdity of the experience, but questionable as place for humans...

as for norman's building...i have no idea. a rendering and a diagram aren't enough for me. looks alright, but then so did ken livingstone's new city pad and look how that turned out...at the vey least it is interesting...but from where i sit it looks like las vegas...simultaneously amazing and boring. not something to think too much about...will keep an open mind til it is built or more is seen.

as an aside, i find it curious that PLOT was not treaed equally with contempt for their lego project, which is not so dissimilar from this one - the light access strategies are very similar and both are too big for comfort...jus a thought.

Jan 3, 08 2:39 am  · 
 · 
sameolddoctor

the project looks workable. Actually i am sure Foster's office and excellent engineering record will make it work.

On the other hand, wtf is up with that rendering? It looks like a bad scan from an old megastructures book, complete with the magenta shift.

Jan 3, 08 3:31 am  · 
 · 
citrus.grey

This raises a potentially interesting question, some of the greatest cities have a sense of never being quite formed, aggregating over centuries, layering and evolving with politics, culture, technology etc. and this creates a really interesting (and beautiful) depth to the experiences and lives they can contain. The shadow of millions of people in a single place seems to resist such simplistic gestures and that's one of the things that makes great cities great.

What's it like to live in a city (this is nearly a city) which is quite literally a single gesture, a single expression from a solitary designer? And beyond that, this will at some point be finished, they’ll cut a ribbon and the city is “done”. Can we live in places that are finished?

Should be interesting to see how a large group of people choose to occupy this thing over the course of decades.

Jan 3, 08 3:53 am  · 
 · 
mdler

sign me up....

Jan 3, 08 12:51 pm  · 
 · 

Block this user


Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?

Archinect


This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.

  • ×Search in: