Here’s Francois Blanciak Architects proposal for the TyssenKrupp Elevator Award to develop an iconic tall emblem structure for Zaabeel Park in Dubai.
This is one of the 926 proposals submitted for the competition.
Seen at designboom. More images and architect’s description after the break.
The tower is conceived as virtually reversible, its top and bottom parts having similar circular characteristics. In sharp contrast with the surrounding office buildings, the circulation core here is not the focus of the plan but an element around which the program of the tower oscillates. The lower part of the project contains a children’s library on level 1, and a series of 3 conference rooms on level 2.
As a reference to islamic architecture, a shaded arcade surrounds the ground level courtyard that leads to the entrance of the children’s library. Hosting an art gallery and designed as a prolongation of the movement induced by the rest of the building, the generously cantilevered top-level viewing platform offers a 270° panoramic view of the most scenic part of the dubai skyline.
Structurally, the tower is engineered as a continuous steel cage which transmits the load to the deep central foundations of the circulation core. As the two opposite horizontal parts of the tower are basically symmetrical, the weight of the podium is used to balance and stabilize the cantilever of the viewing platform.
this is an insult to architecture. what to they think with? honestly.
looks like a hug branding iron…wtf
well, it’s in dubai anyway. no 1 cares whether they have architecture.
Pretty dull, no?
I’m a little concerned with the widespread over-use of that simple photoshop technique Color Halftone. It’s used here to, seemingly, hint at the surface representation of the underlying structural matrix (a la CCTV). In another posting today the same technique is used to superimpose a bamboo forest onto glass panels.
Both are fine, the structural one is far more troublesome than the other to me, but both are also simply photoshop button pushing…and I think that’s a little troubling.
We’ve all been led, specifically by the stunning work of Herzog & DeMeuron to desire these graphic/architectural fusions. HdeM graphic fusions go through stage after stage of refinement and study (given their notoriously rigorous aesthetic requirements). But rarely (maybe the Tenerife waterfront aside) do they allow a simple photoshop trick to be the final result; and even in that case, the technique is reinvested into the design process to produce a mutually reinforcing design.
Having used this graphic procedure in my own practice, I realize how easy it is to do…and how surficially good it looks. I also understand how expensive and time consuming it is to really take the initial results and refine them to become more of a component of the development of the overall design, and to be more generative. However I also see how quickly it drifts into visual cliche. If a designer doesn’t invest the time and energy to turn these simple photoshop techniques into something more fundamental to the concept undergirding a design it’s use immediately becomes no more interesting than those postmodern, or deconstructivist (guh!) cliches that are so much fun to for us to deride.
Here in China, I see frequent similar thoughtless re-applications of such project specific elements as the slashing windows of the Berlin Holocaust museum, or torqued diamond steel grid of the CCTV tower. Almost never are these reapplications anything but an expensive and glorified wallpaper. And nearly always they telegraph the underlying laziness of that stage of the design process.
I just hope this is possible, or better yet…..safe. I can’t lie about being very impressed if this can be pulled off. I would give this one a chance out of all the ridiculous feats that are going on in Dubai. This is actually something worth wasting money on.
that is all.
peter peter pumpkin eater.
That is good insight Peter, I have to agree.
As for the Tower, when I first saw it I thought it represented some sort of Islamic or Arabian symbol. Something that the people of the middle east would identify with. If this was the case the project would seem a lot better justified to me. If not well… nice try.
This sucks.
Peter, you are right for some case (Berlin Holocaust museum), but not for CCTV tower, Herzog & DeMeuron or more avant garde projects (read HONEYCOMB TUBE ARCHITECTURE-The spatial potentialities of hexagons) because there are not really a photoshop trick, but a real research into non-standardisation of winodow fabrication.
A lot of architect are too lazy to understand that it is beyond a photoshop trick, some would just copy the trick, others would just laugh about it, like a lot here.
this building looks like the old school mosquito repellent you have in your room. SO IMPRACTICAL.they have to spend a lot more for the top impractical portion of this building. the skin of the building , that has gradient change in its hexagon or dont know what shape, is a copy.Go and check out, MAD architects has done it before, a lot more ppl has done it before. no originality, lol perhaps its ugly shape. architects these days tend to take peoples design idea, induce it into their design and say its their design. Worse, they dont even modify it. think of a new skin for your building of your own copy cat. this is a disgrace. dont even pubish this kinda work , cause its not worth to read.
Photoshop – Proof you CAN polish a turd.
Dubai is the graveyard of architectue. Architecture was never meant to be a circus, clownshow, freakshow, sad, very sad…
Dubai is an amazing city with amazing architecture! What are all these hater comments about? We in the U.S. should be so lucky to have as many cutting edge buildings planned and in the process of being built. These comments in general have the air of being motivated by envy and jealousy.
Wow. Cool. This is ingenious. Especially the section.
Com’n Guys~ The skin of these buildings are just a T-shirt on person.
I do not think the designers of this tower care much of the skin. What he paid attention to is the iconic shape of it and the spatial feelings of the shape. The skin is just a beautiful wallpaper on the volume. You know, money is alway not a problem for those dubai clients, haha.
You can understand it like this: She has sexy legs and she picked a pretty fishnet stocking designed by others.
This should not be here.
This is not Architecture.
A cul-de-sac in every sense. Yet another consignment of meaningless trophy-type … thingy.
I think some giant has lost his cuff-link???
so fugly it hurts.
Looks like a huge bone!! Too bad to have it in Dubai, along with other ugly buildings,.
My soul is quietly weeping…
The question nowadays is NOT “can we do it???” BUT “do we need it???” I mean: we’re so fu…..ing far away from what those great pioneer of the concrete might have thought with such great new technology in their hands. I hope somebody will raise up his head and think one of these days.
Great points, Peter, though I understand that the patterning of the diagrid on the CCTV is in fact a direct diagram of the forces operating on the building. It is an operating structural response to the loading conditions.
To expand on your points, I think that your concern regarding this frivolously overused and undisciplined technique is echoed in a great deal of the criticism I read about Rhino, Maya, Generative Components, Grasshopper…all the various computer and parametric-driven design procedures that pervade the scene right now. What’s interesting, I think, is that this concern for misapplication of a tool or idea-du-jour is really nothing new…that one can find lesser derivations (this project, for example) of well-pioneered and deeply considered works (HdeM’s de Young Museum in SF, for example). This has been true for all time, really. I think that the larger criticism lies not necessarily in the specific technique that is misapplied as in the failure of mediocre designers to understand or synthesize them.
I also think there is plenty of room for lesser designers to utilize the ideas and explorations of the greats. I’m no Herzog or de Meuron, certainly no Peter Zumthor, yet I aspire to properly apply or emulate their approaches in my own work. I would, however, cautiously avoid overstepping my boundaries, and strive to keep my aspirations within the realm of my ability. The risk in today’s educational environment is that every young designer is taught that he or she may well become the next Zaha Hadid.
I think the Client deserves this kind of “architecture”. Money well spent…
ybabuf? это крутейшая говнина!!!!!!
take a look at the winners and laugh:
http://www.e-architect.co.uk/awards/thyssenkrupp_elevator_award.htm
Davide, I agree with you completely. I’ve been finding more and more that the simplest and best way to weed out the crap from the real architecture is merely to ask the question “why?” If that can be answered meaningfully in one sentence, then I think you have a piece of architecture. I imagine the response to the question for this thing would be a long pause and a befuddled expression.
Oh, and BTW “because you can” does not qualify as a response in my book.
Peter writes:
“We’ve all been led, specifically by the stunning work of Herzog & DeMeuron to desire these graphic/architectural fusions. HdeM graphic fusions go through stage after stage of refinement and study (given their notoriously rigorous aesthetic requirements). But rarely (maybe the Tenerife waterfront aside) do they allow a simple photoshop trick to be the final result; and even in that case, the technique is reinvested into the design process to produce a mutually reinforcing design.”
Actually in some cases HdM has handed over Photoshop files to subcontractors, and the subs have done all the work that you are referring to as ‘technique’.
Sorry, making something big does not make it monumental or great. Really, not a very good object even if small, would make a bad sculpture at any scale and as for a building well… I think most everyone agrees.
Ultra Man, I think we agree on this point. In no way was I suggesting that HDeM were just button pushing, much the opposite. Also, as for CCTV I’m aware of where from, how, and the role of those at Arup had in the generation. I should have been clearer, i wasn’t trying to imply they were just making a graphic doodle. There’s a great interview in Domus with Rory McGowan, of Arup-China, specifically about the genesis and challenges of that facade.
O+C, actually I didn’t know that specifically about HDeM, but I don’t begrudge them for it. I don’t think one should consider the subcontractors somehow less invested or complicit in the design process…any quick look at an el croquis presentation of one of their project seems to imply that there’s more going on then just chucking a half-idea to some disinterested sub.