Surveys thirty of the most iconic buildings designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the legendary American architecture firm, since its founding in 1936.
This nuanced portrait of Gordon Bunshaft and his work for the architecture firm SOM explores his role in defining the built aesthetic of corporate America.
The first of its kind, Designing Tall Buildings is an accessible reference that guides you through the fundamental principles of designing high-rises. Each chapter focuses on one theme central to tall-building design, giving you a comprehensive overview of the related architecture and structural engineering concepts. Mark P. Sarkisian provides clear definitions of technical terms and introduces important equations, to help you gradually develop your knowledge. Later chapters allow you to explore more complex applications, such as biomimicry. Projects drawn from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill’s vast catalog of built high-rises, many of which Sarkisian designed, demonstrate these concepts. This book advises you to consider the influence of a particular site’s geology, wind conditions, and seismicity. Using this contextual knowledge and analysis, you can determine what types of structural solutions are best suited for a tower on that site. You can then conceptualize and devise efficient structural systems that are not only safe, but also constructible and economical. Sarkisian also addresses the influence of nature in design, urging you to integrate structure and architecture for buildings of superior performance, sustainability, and aesthetic excellence.
A historical and theoretical analysis of corporate architecture in the United States after the Second World War. The Organizational Complex is a historical and theoretical analysis of corporate architecture in the United States after the Second World War. Its title refers to the aesthetic and technological extension of the military-industrial complex, in which architecture, computers, and corporations formed a network of objects, images, and discourses that realigned social relations and transformed the postwar landscape. In-depth case studies of architect Eero Saarinen's work for General Motors, IBM, and Bell Laboratories and analyses of office buildings designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill trace the emergence of a systems-based model of organization in architecture, in which the modular curtain wall acts as both an organizational device and a carrier of the corporate image. Such an image—of the corporation as a flexible, integrated system—is seen to correspond with a "humanization" of corporate life, as corporations decentralize both spatially and administratively. Parallel analyses follow the assimilation of cybernetics into aesthetics in the writings of artist and visual theorist Gyorgy Kepes, as art merges with techno-science in the service of a dynamic new "pattern-seeing." Image and system thus converge in the organizational complex, while top-down power dissolves into networked, pattern-based control. Architecture, as one among many media technologies, supplies the patterns—images of organic integration designed to regulate new and unstable human-machine assemblages.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have been practising architecture for more than sixty years and are amongst the most well-known architectural firms worldwide, with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong and London. They first attracted attention in the 1950s when they created notable corporate buildings such as Lever House in New York, and went on to gain acclaim with their engineering achievements. The technology developed by SOM made buildings such as Sears Tower in Chicago possible - for many years the highest building in the world. This volume presents a selection of those recent projects which are of a particularly high aesthetic and technical standard. Amongst the projects included are: International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport, Jin Mao Building in Shanghai, Hong Kong Convention Center, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Beijing, and Changi Airport in Singapore.
Routine discussions on public space typically omit a gamut of possibilities ripe for critical discussion. This book, the latest in the SOM Thinkersseries, aims to address these questions. Here, Rachel Monroe challenges American preconceptions of the wild, wide-open West by addressing issues of surveillance; the series' first fictional piece, by China Miéville, covers an under-examined area of public space under the guise of detective fiction; a study of public art by Ben Davis sheds light on the myths and stigmas that have accrued to public art, also asking what it can become; Christopher DeWolf shares a sensory navigation trip through a directionless Hong Kong; Michelle Nijhuis writes on the shifting ecologies of national parks; Sarah Fecht explores architecture and social life beyond Earth; while Jaron Lanier meditates on the idea of public space online, linking the prevailing, free-for-all model of the internet with a characteristically American yearning for freedom and repudiation of rules and structure. Also included are examples of public art works by Lawrence Weiner.
The structural engineer responsible for Chicago's John Hancock Center and Sears Tower, Fazlur R. Khan (1929-1982) pioneered structural systems for high-rise design that broadened the palette of building forms and expressions available to design professionals today.
Planning: Buildings for Habitation, Commerce, and Industry focuses on the planning, design, materials, and construction of various structures for habitation. The selection first discusses the planning, construction, and design of houses, flats, and residential hostels. The discussions focus on siting, planning, space conditions, statutory requirements legislation and authorities, heating and water supply, common rooms, and accommodation. The manuscript also takes a look at planning, construction, and design of hotels, motels, and camps for motorists. The book reviews the construction, planning, materials, and design of office buildings and banks, including characteristics of buildings, types of accommodation, furnishing, and materials and equipment. The text also ponders on the design, planning, and construction of department stores, supermarkets, shops, farm and agricultural buildings, factories, airports, and warehouses. The selection is a dependable source of reference for readers and construction planning specialists interested in the planning, design, and construction of buildings.