Skyscrapers

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• Architects

  Erno Goldfinger

• Location

  London, England

• Architect

  Erno Goldfinger

• References

  www.galinsky.com, www.housingprototypes.org, www.open2.net, www.modernarchitecturelondon.com

• Project Year

  1972

MVRDV have released images of their ambitious design for the Taipei Twin Towers, set to revitalize the central station area of the Taiwanese capital. The two towers are characterized by a “pile of blocks” that create a vertical urban neighborhood, complete with interactive media facades.

The site is currently occupied by the city’s main station, containing railway, airport lines, metro networks, and underused parks and plazas. Under the MVRDV scheme, the two towers will be built over the top of the station, offering retail, offices, two cinemas, two hotels, and the unification and redevelopment of surrounding plazas.

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Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) has announced the completion of the third-tallest building in Shenzhen. The China Resources Headquarters, a 400-meter-tall commercial office tower, stitches together retail, residential, and office functions surrounded by 2,000 square meters of public space.

The tower, inspired by the shape of winter bamboo shoots, seeks to “invigorate Shenzhen’s urban fabric while providing one of the country’s premier companies with a visual icon symbolizing its historic growth and prominent stature.”

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Foster + Partners has released details of their proposed China Merchants Bank HQ in Shenzhen. The soaring 350-meter tower, intended to house the bank’s 13,000-strong workforce, will be complemented by a sister tower 180 meters in height, containing a luxury hotel and mixed-use office, cultural, and retail spaces.

The taller office tower is comprised of large-span column-free floorplates supported by offset cores at either side. A glazed façade has been shaped to avoid downdrafts, thus making the surrounding open spaces on the ground floor more comfortable for the public. 

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Zaha Hadid Architects have received the go-ahead for their Vauxhall Cross Island towers, a duo of skyscrapers sited adjacent to Vauxhall Station. The scheme, which was publicly announced nearly a year ago (19 January 2018), would be the first project undertaken by the office in the UK for a private client.

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Mud City, the Windy City, the City of the Big Shoulders... If there is one thing we are certain of, it is that Chicago is the birthplace of exceptionally tall buildings.

To celebrate the city's ongoing innovations in soaring skyscrapers, Orbitz has illustrated 20 of Chicago’s most iconic sky-high architecture.

View the republished content from Orbitz' list complete with an interactive timeline of Chicago's tallest buildings.

The CTBUH has released its Year in Review, charting the year’s tall building developments around the world. 2018 saw a record-breaking 18 supertall buildings (over 300 meters tall) built across the world, and 143 buildings of over 200 meters in height completed.

To quantify the extent to which architecture reached to the sky throughout the year, the CTBUH estimate that if each tall building completed in 2018 was laid end to end, it would exceed the entire length of the island of Manhattan; some 13 miles (21.6 kilometers).

Blossoming alongside the iconic Gherkin building, Foster + Partners' Tulip Tower has been planning to join London's skyline since they released their proposal earlier in November. However, construction of the1,000-foot tower has been halted until officials can determine its impact on aircraft radar systems at London City airport, six miles away. Featuring mobile gondolas in the form of three-meter wide glass spheres intended for visitor rides on an elliptical journey around the tower, the proposed viewing platform is potentially highly problematic.

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Either as singular outcroppings or as part of a bustling center, skyscrapers are neck-craning icons across major city centers in the world. A modern trope of extreme success and wealth, the skyscraper has become an architectural symbol for vibrant urban hubs and commercial powerhouses dominating cities like New York, Dubai, and Singapore.

While skyscrapers are omnipresent, 2018 introduced new approaches, technologies, and locations to the high-rise typology. From variations in materiality to form, designs for towers have started to address aspects beyond simply efficiency and height, proposing new ways for the repetitive form to bring unique qualities to city skylines. Below, a few examples of proposals and trends from 2018 that showcase the innovative ideas at work: 

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EID Architecture was selected earlier this year as one of the two finalists in an international competition to design a 518 meter-tall tower in Fuzhou, China. Located on a prominent riverfront site in Fuzhou, Shimao North Riverfront Tower was made to be the centerpiece of a new business district within the city. The tower's design explores what supertall building means today. In contrast to many form-driven towers, Shimao Fuzhou aims to integrate architecture and structure to create an iconic and futuristic landmark with remarkable efficiency.

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Arquitectonica has revealed new renderings of its proposal for a 53-story tower of cantilevered pools in Downtown Los Angeles. The skyscraper could be built under two different scenarios, where either the building becomes primarily residential units or a hotel and condominiums. The City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning published a draft Environmental Impact Report with further details on the 784-foot tower. Arquitectonica's tower is one of multiple developments underway around Pershing Square.

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Manhattan is known for its iconic skyline, brimming with skyscrapers, high rises, and some of the most impressive architecture in the world. But it wasn’t always that way; it took hundreds of years for New York City to become the structurally diverse, world-famous city that it is today.

The design for the tallest residential building in the world has been unveiled, situated in New York City. “Central Park Tower” by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill architecture will stand at 1,550 feet (472 meters). The firm’s Jeddah tower in Saudi Arabia is also currently under construction, on track to be the world’s tallest tower.

The Four Seasons Hotel & Private Residences One Dalton Street, Boston’s tallest residential building, has reached its full height of 742 feet, forming a significant presence on the Boston skyline. Designed by Henry N. Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, in collaboration with Cambridge Seven Architects, the 61-story scheme features 160 residences, a five-star hotel, and an adjacent park.

Cobb’s design for One Dalton comes 40 years after he designed another noted Boston landmark, the John Hancock Tower.

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