Construction projects are grinding to a halt as financing runs dry elsewhere in the world, but in China’s biggest city, they’re still going strong.
Today, Shanghai is scheduled to officially begin work on what will become its tallest skyscraper — a 2,073-foot building in the city’s Lujiazui financial center that will tower over the current highest building, the recently completed 1,614-foot Shanghai World Financial Center.
Though China’s economy is slowing and exporters are feeling the pinch, the sinuous glass building, to be called the Shanghai Tower, is one of a slew of government-funded projects that authorities are using to stimulate growth and create jobs.
The versatile Chilean group Supersudaka designed this unusual house located in Talca, Chile.
The process was so unsteady, that all possible architectural design resources available where exercised to cope with the challenge of this house in the Chilean Central Valley.
Everything was in constant change: the program, the surface, building permits, the contractors, even the view !
Made with a metallic structure covered entirely with wood and glass, the house has been in constant change resulting a mix, a bastardized design with a patio and roof terrace.
Istanbul is developing and turning very cosmopolitan at a fast rate. A proof of this is the Istanbul Sapphire which is a 261-meter skyscraper. It will be completed in late 2009 and will then be the tallest residential building in all of Europe.
The skyscraper has been under construction for three years and recently reached full height. There will be 174 private residences divided between 64 floors. The other features of this towering building include a shopping center, fitness center and spa, restaurants and includes vertical gardens and a viewing terrace.
The total cost of the project is currently $200 million and around 40 percent of the whole project has been sold.
Above Amsterdam’s new “Marketplace for Furnishings” floats a restaurant designed by London’s Virgile & Stone. The copper restaurant sits on top of concrete columns and is accessed by to two bridges on the second floor.
The municipality of Rødovre, an independent municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark, announced yesterday MVRDV and co-architect ADEPT winner of the design competition of the Rødovre Skyscraper. The 116 meter tall tower accommodates apartments, a hotel, retail and offices. A public park and a plaza are also part of the privately funded scheme.
The new skyscraper with a total surface of 21,688 sq meters will be located at Roskildevej, a major artery East of the centre of Copenhagen. The skyscraper is shaped to reflect Copenhagen’s historical spire and present day high-rise blending in the skyline of the city, it further combines the two distinctive typologies of Rødovre, the single family home and the skyscraper in a vertical village. Consideration of these local characteristics leads to Copenhagen’s first contemporary high-rise.
Responding to unstable markets the design is based on a flexible grid, allowing alteration of the program by re-designating units. These ‘pixels’ are each 60m2 square and arranged around the central core of the building, which for flexibility consists of three bundled cores allowing separate access to the different program segments.
On the lower floors the volume is slim to create space for the surrounding public plaza with retail and restaurants; the lower part of the high rise consists of offices, the middle part leans north in order to create a variety of sky gardens that are terraced along the south side. This creates a stacked neighbourhood, a Sky Village. From this south orientation the apartments are benefitting. The top of the building will be occupied by a hotel enjoying the view towards Copenhagen city centre. The constellation of the pixels allows flexibility in function; the building can be transformed by market forces, however at this moment it is foreseen to include 970 sq m retail, 15,800 sq m offices, 3,650 sq m housing and 2,000 sq m hotel and a basement of 13,600 sq m containing parking and storage.
Flexibility for adaptation is one of the best sustainable characteristics of a building. Besides this the Sky Village will also integrate the latest technologies according to the progressive Danish environmental standards. Furthermore the plans include a greywater circuit, the use of 40% recycled concrete in the foundation and a variety of energy producing devices on the façade.
