Style of Design

Probably the most impressive thing for someone who visits for the first time cities like New York, Shanghai or Dubai is the ridiculous size of it’s buildings. So to finish this week of Round Up, we bring you previously featured skyscraper on ArchDaily.

Tour La Signal at La Defense, Paris / Ateliers Jean Nouve
The La Defense is a 160 ha business district in the west of Paris, currently under a renewal plan to strengthen its place among the great international business districts. The renewal includes several high rise sustainable towers. One of this towers, the Tour Signal, entered an international closed competition for teams of architects/investors/developers, on which EPAD didn’t impose a site. The Tour Signal will thus endow the business district with a new landmark in 2013. The finalists for this project were (read more…)

Burj Dubai, tallest building in the world
The Burj Dubai (set to be the tallest tower in the world, while the tallest structure as of now), is almost finished. Located in Dubai, it´s the centerpise of a mixed-use development that will include 30,000 homes, 9 hotels, 3 ha of parks, 19 residential towers, a man and a 12ha artificial lake. I decided to Google about the Burj Dubai a little, and i found an interesting interview at Wired with SOM´s structural engineer Bill Baker, telling the story behind the design, the structure and construction (read more…)

56 Leonard Street, New York / Herzog & de Meuron
This 57-story residential in the Tribeca area will house 145 residences, each one with its own unique floor plan and private outdoor space. This typology makes the building look like a stack of houses, away from the traditional skyscraper form. I wonder how the concrete structure works on this building, which was done by consultant firm WSP Cantor Seinuk (who also worked on the Freedom Tower). With this height, it will surely impact the city skyline as you can see on the panoramic above (read more…)

Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower in Dubai / L-A-V-A
LAVA (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture) unveiled the design of the Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower in Dubai, the first project of a series of branded towers, a new concept by PNYG:COMPANY, a company focused on branding. I´ve heard about branded towers such at the Porsche Towers by OMA, but it´s the first time i hear about a building branded after a Formula 1 champion. The design of the 59 storey luxury tower is abstracted from the geometric laws of snowflakes and Formula 1 aerodynamics (read more…)

Jumeirah Gardens / SOM & Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture
The master plan for this project was designed by SOM Chicago, and consists of a mixed-use development that incorporates low, medium, and high-density zones for business, residences, retail, leisure, and recreation – a city within a city, with an estimated cost of US$95 billion. The three main towers were comissioned to Chicago based architects AS+GG (Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill), The most impressive one -and the third tallest tower in the UAE- is 1 Dubai (read more…)

The Burj Dubai by SOM hasn´t been finished yet, but it´s currently the world´s tallest structure. Meanwhile, the Shanghai World Financial Centre by KPF has been opened a few weeks ago, which is (as for now) the tallest building in the world when it comes to roof height with 492m (1,614.2ft). The Taipei 101 in Taiwan is 509.2m (1,670.60ft) if you count the antenna, but its roof is only at 449.2 m (1,473.75 ft).

The building took almost 11 years to be completed, delayed by the Asian Financial Crisis of 97-98 and change on design, but it was finally opened to public on August 30, 2008. You can see an interesting tour of the building on the video posted above.

The observatory on the 100th floor is amazing, with a transparent floor.

Also, I found an interesting documentary by National Geographic on the construction of the World Financial Center, posted it below. Enjoy!

Even though this is obviously a rendering (not the real thing) of a 15-foot (4.5m) high book made for the lobby of the Burj Dubai, as reported by World Architecture News, it is hardly incredulous. It seems appropriate that the tallest building in the world, one inspired by the Emerald City, should have an over-the-top book associated with it.

[Burj Dubai Opus | image source]

According to WAN, “the Burj Dubai Opus will stand tall in the lobby of the tower from its opening next year.” There will also be “limited editions and collector’s item copies, some of which will be auctioned off for charity.” Of course, a plethora of questions come to mind when thinking about a book three times taller than a person. Where does one keep it? How does one open it? How thick is the paper? How is it bound? What’s the point? But more than any question, one has to wonder: Can it even be called a book?

The Burj Dubai by SOM hasn´t been finished yet, but it´s currently the world´s tallest structure. Meanwhile, the Shanghai World Financial Centre by KPF has been opened a few weeks ago, which is (as for now) the tallest building in the world when it comes to roof height with 492m (1,614.2ft). The Taipei 101 in Taiwan is 509.2m (1,670.60ft) if you count the antenna, but its roof is only at 449.2 m (1,473.75 ft).

The building took almost 11 years to be completed, delayed by the Asian Financial Crisis of 97-98 and change on design, but it was finally opened to public on August 30, 2008. You can see an interesting tour of the building on the video posted above.

The observatory on the 100th floor is amazing, with a transparent floor.

Also, I found an interesting documentary by National Geographic on the construction of the World Financial Center, posted it below. Enjoy!

The Burj Dubai by SOM hasn´t been finished yet, but it´s currently the world´s tallest structure. Meanwhile, the Shanghai World Financial Centre by KPF has been opened a few weeks ago, which is (as for now) the tallest building in the world when it comes to roof height with 492m (1,614.2ft). The Taipei 101 in Taiwan is 509.2m (1,670.60ft) if you count the antenna, but its roof is only at 449.2 m (1,473.75 ft).

The building took almost 11 years to be completed, delayed by the Asian Financial Crisis of 97-98 and change on design, but it was finally opened to public on August 30, 2008. You can see an interesting tour of the building on the video posted above.

The observatory on the 100th floor is amazing, with a transparent floor.

Also, I found an interesting documentary by National Geographic on the construction of the World Financial Center, posted it below. Enjoy!