Skyscrapers: The Latest Architecture and News

In recent years, UNStudio – which has been internationally recognized for its approach to developing dynamic forms – has also grown to focus on sustainability with the intent to decrease C02 emissions. With this in mind, the firm, with consortium DUO², has realized one of the most sustainable large office buildings in Europe for two governmental offices, the Education Executive Agency and the Tax Offices. “The design contains numerous new innovations related to the reduction of materials, lower energy costs and more sustainable working environments. It presents a fully integrated, intelligent design approach towards sustainability,” explained Ben van Berkel.

More images and more about the project after the break.

Designed by Team CLS, headed by award winning UK Architect Darren Chan, other members including Emily Lau (Architecture Graduate) and Jonas Sin (Netherlands Architect), their project, Helios Rehab Sanctuary, innovates in the application of sustainable technologies to create a new and exciting typology. More on this project after the break.

Unknown Fields Architects have shared with us their entry for the eVolo Competition. More images and architect’s description after the break.

Songdo International Business District (IBD) occupies over 1,500 acres of reclaimed land on the West Coast of Incheon, Korea. This waterfront master plan includes a diverse array of programmatic elements and is designed to be a pedestrian friendly city with walkable streets and an urban density that allows for an active street life. Signature features include, the New Songdo City First World Towers, Northeast Asia Trade Tower, the 100-arce Songdo Central Park, and the Songdo City International School.

Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox Location: Incheon, Korea Photographs: H.G. Esch, KPF, Jaesung

For WORKac’s skyscraper design for the Shenzhen Metro Tower, the architects created a new a new kind of mixed density to promote a sustainable and a diverse stacked city. This vertical city holds places places of intense urban interchange that combine infrastructure, mixed uses, and public space. Located at an intersection with a horizontal crossroads of major boulevards, this vertical interchange between the underground metro, ground-level bus station, shopping podium and the offices and hotel above will essentially be linking the metro with the sky. ”We call this tower the Interchange – a vertical city that twists together natural green space with ecological systems, structural and functional efficiency with dramatic new forms and technology, while linking the underground to the sky,” added the architects.

More about the project after the break.

eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. The award seeks to discover young talent, whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.

The first place was awarded to Atelier CMJN (Julien Combes, Gaël Brulé) from France for their ‘LO2P Recycling Skyscraper’ in New Delhi, India. The project is designed as a large-scale wind turbine that filters polluted air with a series of particle collector membranes, elevated greenhouses, and mineralization baths. More images and descriptions of winning entries after the break

The following projects were selected by insulation specialist Saint-Gobain Isover as the eight shortlisted projects for the UK final of the Multi-Comfort House Competition. The competition produced many interesting solutions to the problem of urban development and energy efficient construction for high rise buildings.

Read on for more informations and images from the shortlisted projects.

Architects: Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP Location: Tel Aviv, Israel Project year: 2007 – 2013 Photographs: Courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP & dbox

Atelier Zündel & Cristea architects shared with us their Grenelle Tower in Paris France, which has been commended by the Mipim AR FUTURE awards. At a time when Paris is reviewing its ambitions of ‘greatness’, the richness of the city’s diversity is transposed vertically into towers of shifting density. More images and architect’s description after the break.

There are some buildings that have the power to make one step back and simply enjoy being part of our profession. For us, Steven Holl’s Horizontal Skyscraper does just that. As we’ve been sharing with you, it is a project that gracefully hovers above the Shenzhen landscape, allowing both the ground and the elevated ground plane to be occupied. The project balances the built with the natural as reflecting pools and lush greenery are interspersed with small restaurants and cafes, and as the “sunken cubes” of the main wings of the center – glass volumes offering 360 degree views – strengthen the connection with the landscape.

The building has recently been awarded a 2011 AIA Institute Honor Award for its architectural creativity and contextual thoughtfulness.    The jury commented, “This project skips along from mound to mound and manipulates the landscape – it builds it up and shapes it into a powerful form above the land with inventive manipulation. The building is shading the landscape and letting it breath – integrated sustainability. A reinvented building type with the building floating over the landscape – dancing on the landscape.”

More information, with more photographs from Iwan Baan, after the break.

Archdaily presents another competition entry from the Taiwan Tower Competition in Taichung City by Aedas R&D in collaboration of Thornton Tomasetti and Phaconsult. T he conceptual development for the project came from the geometry of a pebble dropped into the sea, and the shape of the tower was derived from the patterns that emerge on the surface of the water as the concequence. The rippling effect on the water was taken to develop the landscaping around the tower, as well its extrusion into the wrapping skin of the tower.

More on this project after the break.

The Taiwan Conceptual Tower International Competition awarded “The Tower of Droplets” Sir Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham’s London-based Cook Robotham Architecture Bureau (CRAB) won second prize for their entry: “The Tower of Droplets in The Taiwan Conceptual Tower International Competition. Presented here is just one of the 237 entries from 25 countries that were submitted. Crab studio recieved a $65,000 award for their entry for Taichung, Taiwan. The team comprised Jenna Al-Ali, Nuria Blanco, Lorene Faure, and Selma Johannson. Consulting engineer was Michael Kaverne of Buro Happold.

Read on for more on the tower after the break.

M&A Architects has shared with us their Bubble Skyscraper, a study on new typologies for futuristic architecture by the young international studio. A description of the process that lead them to the bubble solution and additional images after the break.