Residential Tower and Offices | The Woermann Tower | Spain | Herreros Arquitectos

The Woermann Tower is a virtual wood from which to enjoy the utopia of living immersed in a hybrid landscape. The tower will show itself to the city in complete harmony with that idea, a wood of natural and artificial shadows without scale, butv also a telamon that nods in admiration of the landscape it contemplates, and on the ground floor withdraws, providing ground to the pedestrians and, then soaring up with its public facilities to treetop height. With this vegetal and anthropomorphic conception, we aspire to represent the culture of our times. The Woermann Tower sets out to embody the illusions, desires and fantasies of a society that seeks to discover a compromise between nature and development, an intense form of life faithful to the landscape: another beauty..........more

Office Tower Design Ideas | RED Development Office Building | Istanbul | Turkey | Emre Arolat Architects

The project prepared for the Office Building that is to be situated on the Mecidiyeköy-Maslak axis, near the Istinye junction, where Turkey’s foreign capital takes its most visible form, was conditioned by the tension that came out of the density of its environs, and the tight space allocated.
It was the clients wish that the construction would be a prestigious building, just like all the other surrounding structures which meant to be prominent, but instead give the impression of having been developed with no certain rule, plan or order.......Emre Arolat Architects

Office Tower | Kensington Tower | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | PT Group

The Kensington Krystal is essentially an office building with a small amount of retail space. The design concept of the tower is to create a unique landmark by adopting the idea of a dynamic "black crystal", which is very rare and valuable, standing at the marina harbor.

The building form was inspired by the Kensington logo - "K". The rising crystal tower gives an appearance of sharpness, elegance and energy. Its dynamic form commands attention along the waterfront. The tower envelope is carefully crafted to carry through this idea to form a series of harmonic proportions.

This grade A office tower will incorporate all the latest intelligent building features including building Automation System, Office/Communication System like raised floor and high-speed back bone network, Security and Fire Automation Systems etc.

The design won the Architecture Award of the Arabian Property Awards and is shortlisted as Finalists Project in the Future Commercial Category of the World Architecture Festival.....more

C.E.O. OFFICE TOWER Zhong Guan Cun Sciences Park | Beijing, China | Leigh Orange

The 15 storey office building is located in the Technology Park of Zhong Guan Cun, Beijing. The unique building form not only enhances the natural ventilation for street pedestrians, it has quickly become a symbolic icon in the park.....more

Cheesegarter Tower | London | Richard Rogers

British Land yesterday announced the completion of a joint venture agreement with one of North America’s largest commercial real estate investors, Oxford Properties, to develop the 224m-tall building designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners.A source at the Hammermsith-based practice said they were delighted and were in the process of conducting an internal reshuffle to increase the number of staff working on the project from the existing five.The tapering design, which includes a seven-storey landscaped space at the base of the building, is expected to cost around £340 million to build......more

Asymptote Architecture | World Business Center Solomon Tower | Busan, South Korea

LOCATION: Busan, South Korea
SIZE: 240,000 sq. m
DATE: 2007 – Ongoing

Asymptote has been commissioned to build the World Business Center Solomon Tower through an international design competition sponsored by the Municipality of Busan City and the Solomon Group. Asymptote’s groundbreaking design of three separate, tapered towers rising out of a robust and powerful base will be among the tallest buildings in Asia at 550m. The World Busniess Center Solomon Tower was recently awarded the 2008 American Architecture Award by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design

CLIENT: Solomon Group
ARCHITECT:Asymptote Architecture
CONSULTANTS:
LOCAL ARCHITECT: Gansam and Junglim Architects
MEP & STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Arup
FACADE CONSULTANT: Front, Inc.
VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION: Lerch, Bates and Associates Inc
More at Asymtote Architecture

Agbar Tower | Torre Agbar | Barcelona,Spain | Jean Nouvel

More pictures here

The Torre Agbar, or Agbar Tower, is a 21st century skyscraper at Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and built by Dragados. It opened in June 2005 and it was inaugurated officially by the King of Spain on 16 September 2005. The Torre Agbar is located in the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona and is named after its owners, the Agbar Group, a holding company whose interests include the Barcelona water company Aguas de Barcelona.

According to Nouvel, the shape of the Torre Agbar was inspired by the mountains of Montserrat that surround Barcelona, and by the shape of a geyser of water rising into the air. Jean Nouvel, in an interview, described it as having a phallic character. As a result of its unusual shape, the building is known by several nicknames, such as "el supositori" (the suppository), "l'obús" (the shell) and some more scatological ones.[5] It has 30,000 m² (323,000 ft²) of above-ground office space, 3,210 m² (34,500 ft²) of technical service floors with installations and 8,351 m² (90,000 ft²) of services, including an auditorium. The Agbar Tower measures 144.4 m (473.75 ft) in height[7] and consists of 38 storeys, including four underground levels.

Its design combines a number of different architectural concepts, resulting in a striking structure built with reinforced concrete, covered with a facade of glass, and over 4,500 window openings cut out of the structural concrete. The building stands out in Barcelona; it is the third tallest building in Barcelona, only after the Arts Hotel and the Mapfre Tower, both 154 m (505.25 ft).

A unique feature of the building is its nocturnal illumination. It has 4,500 LED luminous devices that allow generation of luminous images in the facade. In addition, it has temperature sensors in the outside of the tower that regulate the opening and closing of the glass blinds of the facade of the building, reducing the consumption of energy for air conditioning. It will house the head office of the Aigües de Barcelona Group (Spanish: "Aguas de Barcelona", English: "Waters of Barcelona").
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_Agbar

Office Tower-Menara Karya,Jakarta,Indonesia | Arquitectonica

Menara Karya
2006

Design: Arquitectonica

Photographs © Ray Sugiharto

Location and Address:
Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said Block X-5 Kav. 1-2, Jakarta, Indonesia 12950

Project Details
Total Area -- Square feet / square meters: 561,880 SF / 52,200 SM
Number of stories: 26 levels above grade
4 levels below grade basement parking
Height -- feet / meters: 415 FT / 126.5 M
Published cost: USD $26,540,000

Program
Office: 378,893 SF / 35,200 SM (semi-gross), 29,700 SM (net)
Parking: 182,988 SF / 17,000 SM
Retail: 12,228 SF / 1,136 SM net leasable
Via

Ist Office Park, Istanbul | GAD

In collaboration with Dara Kirmizitoprak.

The Istanbul Office Park is a design proposal for a 300,000m² mixed use project including commercial, hotel, retail and residential programs.

The solution merges 3 different land parcels to create one continuous site. The organization of the site is arranged by placing the commercial and hotel towers on the four corners. The towers frame the site and allow for a central area for retail and residential programs. The design incorporates 21st Century business and technology needs for existing and emerging new companies, while also providing shopping and living options.

Text and images from:GAD

Office Tower-Sky Blue, White and Gold,St. Petersburg | Langhof

On the banks of the Neva River, near the planned Gazprom Tower, four office buildings with commercial spaces are to be built along the riverbank road. One of them is our design. The basis for our planning is the Master Plan developed by the St. Petersburg architect Evgeny Gerasimov.

The building will be eleven storeys high and will have an exceptional façade. The large windows are offset from one another and wrapped around the building. In this way, all four sides of the building will be of a piece, while the side facing the Neva River is given particular emphasis by the plinth on which the building is raised.

The forms of the building echo the grand historical models standing on the other side of the river and pick up on their design principles, albeit in a more modern language. The window reveals are slightly curved and define the building’s appearance. The façade will be colored brilliant blue, white and gold.

Site: St. Petersburg

Client: SETL-CITY

Use: Office building with commercial spaces
Planning: 2008
Gross floor area: 7.000 m²
Texts and images from:LANGHOF

Upside down Skyscraper | Architensions

• Project Name: Upside down Skyscraper
• Client: Evolo Architecture
• Project Type: Urban scale
• Principal Designer/s: Alessandro Orsini
  
• Design Team: Manuela Priori, Alessandro Mangione
• Date of commencement of project: 2006
• Location of site: Manhattan, New York, USA
• Site Area: City block

Geotube,Dubai | Faulders Studio & BIOS

Click on the image to enlarge

Charles Lee and Jason Chang of Bios Design Collective worked with Thom Faulders and for Faulders Studio in the design of a new project titled Geotube. The geotube is initially designed for the ThyssenKrupp Elevator Architecture Award and recently was accepted by the Bracket on Farming publication.

“GEOtube is a proposal for a new 170 meter tall tower for the city of Dubai. With an open structure and an exposed membrane skin, the vertical planes of the GEOtube tower are continually misted with local salt water via an internal vascular water system.
The result is a continual uniform growth of salt crystal deposits upon its vertically expansive surfaces, providing a highly identifiable architectural icon for the city, a specialized habitat for wildlife that thrives in this specialized environment, and an accessible skin for the harvesting of salt.” Thom Faulders

LA DEFENSE PROJET PHARE, FRANCE, PARIS, 2006 | OMA

La Défense is emblematic of the unreserved openness of the French towards modernity, as well as their current perplexity towards its result.
The La Tour Phare, or the lighthouse tower, competition is representative of this: as the name suggests its function is to act as an icon, yet it will be launched from a base which is almost nonexistent. Another challenge is the division of the site into two sections allowing the passage of the pedestrian walkway Passerelle de l’Arche.


Each of these conditions influenced our design, and results in three different operations:
1. Creation of a base.
2. Reinstallation of rationality.
3. Projecting light outwards towards the city.

1. At the base, the tower emerges from an irregular site defined by a neighboring motorway and a rail link. To minimize the footprint we suspend the façade and the first floors where the passageway pierces through the hall of the building to create an intense urban experience. Instead of charging the ground of La Defense with yet another intention, we reduced the footprint to the absolute essential from which the slab emerges offering perspective sights.

2. The main rectangular volume of the building is devoted to office floors offering maximum efficiency and flexibility: from traditional office configurations to open spaces for contemporary work conditions.

3. One of the weaknesses of the skyscraper is the fact that it hides its most precious organs. At the level of the sky-lobby, we propose to radicalize the status of the skyscraper into a body with organs: four satellites hover around the main volume containing the most public functions of the building making them autonomous. In the heart of the tower this gesture liberates space for a forum with surprising views over Paris. Seen from the French Capital, the profile of the tower will never be seen as just another rational and sober tower.

These three measures allow us to respond to each of the specific questions in this competition without resigning to the irresistible logic of the exceptional, the master piece, the land mark, the contemporary transformations that could not incarnate due to the site, the work, the place.

Project:
La Tour Phare

Status:
Competition November 2006

Client: Unibail

Location:Paris, France

Site:La Défense

Program:165.000 M2; Height 300m
Offices, Sky Lobby, Gym, Restaurant, Retail, Parking
Source: Office for Metropolitan Architects