This publication is the follow-up to the highly acclaimed book eVolo Skyscrapers. 150 new skyscrapers submitted to the eVolo Skyscraper Competition are categorized and examined. These super-tall structures take into consideration the advances in technology, the exploration of sustainable systems, and the establishment of new urban and architectural methods to solve economic, social, and cultural problems of the contemporary city; including the scarcity of natural resources and infrastructure and the exponential increase of inhabitants, pollution, economic division, and unplanned urban sprawl.
This book presents the best 60 projects of the 2006, 2007, and 2008 Skyscraper Competition. An investigation by architects, students, and designers on the future of the skyscraper. What is the skyscraper in the beginning of the XXI Century? What is the historical and social context of these mega-structures? What is their response towards the urban fabric? Is the modern skyscraper a city in and of itself? Is the human scale lost? Talented architects have entered these competitions to explore, re-think, and speculate on this fascinating architectural genre. Each project includes a full description by the author as well as several illustrations and drawings. In addition, reknown architects were invited to present their thoughts on this fascinating architectural genre.
It has been a tremendous satisfaction to compile this book about the past, present, and future of the skyscraper. No other architectural genre captures our imagination and reflects our cultural and technological achievements like these towers that pierce the sky. We start off with the history and evolution of building high, from the Egyptian pyramids, Gothic cathedrals, and first American skyscrapers to the contemporary reality in Asia and the Middle East. We present two fascinating interviews, the first one with Carol Willis, the founder and director of the Skyscraper Museum in New York City, who explains the true genetics and economics behind the birth and future of the skyscraper. The second one with Italian artist, Giacomo Costa, who shares his vision about the relationship between the natural environment, human activity, and supernatural reality with provocative images of an apocalyptic urban future. Javier Quintana exposes the time gap between new architectural concepts and their built reality like Arne Hosek s City of the Future designed in 1928 and materialized in 1998 by CÃÂ(c)sar Pelli as the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur or Sergei Lopatin s 1925 idea for the Veshenka Tower in Moscow, later observed as the Willis Tower (former Sears Tower) in Chicago in 1974. Another group of essays explore the global influence of Manhattan as a contemporary Babylon to be replicated across the world, or the role of the Italian Futurists, Japanese Metabolists, and Archigram, who influenced generations of architects and designers to push forward the concept of vertical living. In the Opinion section you will find critiques on some of the latest ideas for skyscraper design by some of the most forward-looking architects like the concept of pixilated tectonics in Le Project Triangle in Paris by Herzog & de Meuron and RodÃÂ, vere s Sky Village by MVRDV. On the other hand, Jean Nouvel redefined the Italian loggia towers of the seventeenth century with the Tour Signal in La DÃÂ(c)fense, Paris; while Morphosis Architects explores new programs for vertical density with The Phare Tower. Lastly, Studio SHIFT masterfully integrates their Miyi Tower in Sichuan, China, with the existing landscape. Central to this book are thirty projects from eVolo s 2009 Skyscraper Competition which look into the future of the skyscraper with the use of new technologies, programs, and aesthetic expression. Sustainability, globalization, flexibility, and adaptability are just some of the multi-layered elements explored by some the entries. You will find examples of cities in the sky, horizontal skyscrapers that link various cities, or emergency architecture for disaster zones. Finally, we present the work of Aranda / Lasch, a young New York-based design studio which develops their research on the observation of the patterns of organization in the natural world and its implementation in architecture and design. Their Quasi-Series furniture is designed following the assemblage logic of Quasi-crystals, where a structural pattern does not repeat itself.
Digital And Parametric Architecture explores the development of the latest digital tools including advance modeling software and computer aided design in the production of architecture. It is a journey through the most fascinating projects, digitally designed and fabricated, during the second decade of the 21st century. The book highlights the use of these technologies to explore tectonic operations such as sectioning, folding, contouring, and tessellating. A wide variety of projects that range in scale and location offer an insight into the architecture of the future.
Paradigms in Computing: Making, Machines, and Models for Design Agency in Architecture brings together critical, theoretical, and practical research and design that illustrates the plurality of computing approaches within the broad spectrum of design and mediated practices. It is an interrogation of our primary field of architecture through the lens of computing, and yet one that realizes a productive expanding of our métier’s definition and boundaries. It is a compilation that purposefully promotes architecture’s disciplinary reach and incorporations beyond the design and construction of buildings and cities. The book offers a glimpse into the wide range of positions and experiences that are shaping practice and discourse today. The work included in Paradigms in Computing is evidence that models for enquiry are many and proliferating. As digitalization and computation continue to infuse our processes with new tools and new design environments, some of the trends collected in this book will continue to be central to the production and speculation of architecture, and others will, in retrospect, be recognized as the seeds of new, or perhaps multiple, paradigms. Included are essays and projects, from; Alisa Andrasek, Rachel Armstrong, Philip Beesley, Tom Bessai, Shajay Bhooshan, Brad Cantrel, Matias Del Campo, Pablo Eiroa, Marc Fornes, David Jason Gerber, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Alvin Huang, Jason Kelly Johnson, Simon Kim, Neil Leach, Greg Lynn, Elena and Anna Maria Manferdini, Alex McDowell, Phillippe Morel, Nick Puckett, Casey Reas, Alex Robinson, Jenny Sabin, Jose Sanchez, Patrik Schumacher, Kyle Steinfeld, Satoru Sugihara, Orkan Telhan, Kathy Velikov and Geoffrey Thun, Tom Verebes, Leire Asensio Villoria and David Mah, Jenny Wu, Eric Howeler and Meejin Yoon, and Zaha Hadid Architects.
A gorgeous graphic tour of the inner workings of skyscrapers—from the author of The Works Indispensable and unforgettable, The Heights is the ultimate guide to the way skyscrapers work—from the bases of their foundations to the peaks of their spires. With skyscrapers becoming essential elements of urban life, there has never been a greater need for understanding and embracing these complex structures. Using innovative illustrations to tackle the vast complexity of these buildings, The Heights explores with remarkable insight every aspect of designing, building, and maintaining a modern skyscraper, as well as the individuals who build and maintain these architectural cathedrals. In the process, The Heights provides a remarkable snapshot of urban life at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
This book, via introductions to the 17 projects of Vincent Callebaut Architectures and its research theories, conveys the exploring ideas of Vincent Callebaut, a practitioner of sustainable architecture, who militates continuously for the ecosystemic development of new fertile cities of tomorrow by means of an investigation process mixing the biomorphism, the bionic and the biomimicry to information andc ommunication technologies in order to create new-ecoresponsible lifestyles.
In The Structure of Design, Leslie Earl Robertson recounts a storied career in engineering which has generated among the most innovative and formally daring buildings of the modern era, as well as his extensive collaborations with several titans of the practice: Minoru Yamasaki, Philip Johnson, Max Abramovitz, Romaldo Giurgola, I. M. Pei, Pei Partnership, KPF, Kiyonori Kikutake, and Gunnar Birkerts. Robertson’s large-scale projects with some of the leading sculptors of the day, including Richard Serra and Beverly Pepper, display the range of this engineer’s craft. As a restless student from modest origins, Robertson’s first encounters with engineering were almost accidental, yet he would go on to be lead engineer of the landmark IBM buildings in Pittsburgh and Seattle while still in his early thirties. Immediately thereafter he embarked on what would become his most renowned project, the World Trade Center, to be followed by scores of major buildings around the world. The Structure of Design is a personal and accessible chronicle of the partnerships and problem-solving that have forged classics of modern architecture, and a privileged look at how the key discipline of engineering influences design, as told by a genius and poet of structure.
The Blindspot Initiative: Design Resistance and Alternative Modes of Practice documents the professional work of twenty-one design practices that are expanding their respective fields and hybridizing traditional design outputs through the intersection of other disciplines. The expansion of architectural and design practices toward the domain of robotics, material science, film, simulation, or software, redefine the skillsets required to engage with creative output that challenges the conventions of established domains. All practices curated in this volume, propose an autonomous approach towards design research, resisting the pervasive design competition model that requires free labor and speculative remuneration. The critique of such a model is present throughout this volume, rejecting the wasteful discarding of immaterial labor that is commonplace in the 'winner takes all' paradigm that currently dominates the design marketplace. The hybridization of practice has, in many cases, aided a creative business proposition, one that seeks to engage not only through its final output but also through reconsidering the means of production. By blurring the boundaries between fields, design innovation can become more aware of the systemic interdependencies that often live in our current disciplinary blind spots. The Blindspot Initiative, in its first incarnation as an exhibition in Los Angeles, was the result of a collaboration between Jason King, Biayna Bogosian, Sacha Baumann, and Jose Sanchez, to explore the space of self-financing and self-commissioning of new creative work. From the critique of competitions, The Blindspot Initiative attempts to create an alternative loop between design and resources, one in which the propagation and documentation of new knowledge developed in design research can economically sustain its production, generating a positive feedback loop between innovation and knowledge propagation. Texts by Jenny Wu, Jason Kelly Johnson, David Gerber, Mustafa El-Sayed, and Kate Davies, introduce the designers by offering alternative perspectives on the contributions of the field of robotics, software, film, product design and prototype thinking, to the practice of architecture. Each chapter presents work at the edge of the architectural discipline either coming from inside the discipline or approaching it from the outside. In purposefully attempting to expand the boundary of architectural practice, this volume aims to offer new avenues for students and young designers to expand the imagination of architecture and reject unethical practices that have become commonplace during the first years of practice.
As the ever-changing skylines of cities all over the world show, tall buildings are an increasingly important solution to accommodating growth more sustainably in today’s urban areas. Whether it is residential, a workplace or mixed use, the tower is both a statement of intent and the defining image for the new global city. The Tall Buildings Reference Book addresses all the issues of building tall, from the procurement stage through the design and construction process to new technologies and the building’s contribution to the urban habitat. A case study section highlights the latest, the most innovative, the greenest and the most inspirational tall buildings being constructed today. A team of over fifty experts in all aspects of building tall have contributed to the making of the Tall Buildings Reference Book, creating an unparalleled source of information and inspiration for architects, engineers and developers.
