Rethinking Facades for a New Skyscraper Vernacular
Dr. Antony Wood CTBUH Executive Director Facades+, New York, April 2015
Tall Buildings and Place: The Shortfall of Tall?
Historically – a connection with place? 1896. Fisher Building, Chicago, Burnham & Co
1930. Chrysler Building, New York, William van Alen
Shortfall 1: The Commercial Design Approach
1958. Seagram Building, New York, Mies van der Rohe & Philip Johnson
Shortfall 2: The Iconic Sculptural Design Approach
2007. RAK Financial City, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, Rakeen
The Extreme Iconic-Sculptural Design Approach: A Tall Building Menagerie?
Canary Wharf / Docklands Development; early 1980’s – to date
Tall building-scape, Jakarta
Tall building-scape, Seoul
New Paradigms in High Rise Design: A New Vernacular for the Skyscraper? 10 Design Principles
Design Principle 1: Tall Buildings should relate to the physical characteristics of place
The Leadenhall Building, London Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 2014
Design Principle 2: Tall Buildings should relate to the environmental characteristics of place • Light • Wind • Air
• Sun • Rain
Pearl River Tower, Guangzhou Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 2013
Solar Thermal Tower, Chicago Thomas Denny & Bradley Weston, Illinois Institute of Technology, 2007
Solar Power Station, Seville 2009
Harnessing Wind in Tall Buildings?
P = 0.5 pV3 T
where P = Turbine Wind Power, p = air density, V = Wind Velocity, T= Time
Bahrain World Trade Center, Manama Atkins, 2008
Strata, London BFLS, 2010
Pearl River Tower, Guangzhou Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 2013
Wind Farm Adam Chambers & Alex Dale-Jones, University of Nottingham, 2007
Natural Ventilation
CTBUH Technical Guide Natural Ventilation in High-Rise Office Buildings, 2012
The Benefits of Natural Ventilation
• Improves the energy performance of a building, savings through reduced operating energy & embodied carbon in MEP plant • Improves indoor air quality • Higher employee productivity through higher quality internal environment • The potential for night-time ventilation to cool down the building structure • However, currently only HYBRID ventilation systems…….
The Chicago Aquifer Steven Henry & Hannah Cho, Illinois Institute of Technology, 2007
Design Principle 3:Tall Buildings should relate to the cultural characteristics of place
Literal Cultural Symbolism
Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 1999
Taipei 101, Taipei C.Y. Lee & Partners Architects/Planners, 2004
Gyeongju Tower, Gyeongju 2007
Abstract Cultural Symbolism Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur Cesar Pelli Associates, 1997
Menara Dayabumi, Kuala Lumpur BEP Architects, 1984
Doha Tower, Doha Ateliers Jean Nouvel, 2012
Swadeshi Tower (Textile Tower), Mumbai Nishant Modi & Hiren Patel, Illinois Institute of Technology, 2009
Design Principle 4: Tall Buildings should vary with height – in form, texture, scale (and program) – not be just vertical extrusions of an efficient floor plan
Aqua, Chicago Studio Gang Architects; Loewenberg Architects, 2009
BUMPS in Beijing, Beijing SAKO Architects, 2011
Absolute Towers, Mississauga MAD, 2012
SkyBox Eva Young, University of Nottingham, 2003
The environment changes with height too! Burj Khalifa: 6-8 degrees Celsius dierence in external air temperature at top of tower, compared to bottom
Burj Khalifa, Dubai Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 2010
Design Principle 5: Tall Buildings should maximize layers of usage on all systems and materials
CTBUH 2014 Innovation Award Winner
NBF Osaki Building, Tokyo Nikken Sekkei, 2011 Piping referred to as “BioSkin”, alongside building acts as façade, but also collects rain water, which greatly helps to cool the building
Al Bahar Towers, Abu Dhabi Aedas, 2012 Smart faรงade opens and closes automatically, reacting to the direction of the sun
Challenging traditional functions……………
2006. “Sports Tower”
Design Principle 6: Tall Buildings should provide significant communal, open, recreational space
Commerzbank Tower, Frankfurt Foster + Partners, 1997
Sapphire Tower, Turkey Tabanlioglu Architects, 2010
Shanghai Tower, Shanghai Gensler, 2015
Design Principle 7: Tall Buildings should introduce more faรงade opacity (and variation / texture) in skin/ envelope
National Commercial Bank, Jeddah Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 1984
O14, Dubai Reiser + Umemoto, 2009
Tree House Residence Hall, Boston ADD Inc, 2012
Design Principle 8: Tall Buildings should embrace organic vegetation as an essential part of the material palette
CTBUH Technical Guide Green Walls in High-Rise Buildings, 2014
The Purpose and Benefits of Natural Ventilation
Benefits: Building Scale • Improvement of Thermal Envelope • Solar Shading – impacts on Building Energy Efficiency • Internal Air Quality, Air Filtration and Oxygenation • Health/Productivity Benefits • Possible Agricultural Produce
Benefits: Urban Scale • Reduction of the Urban Heat Island Effect • Improvement of External Air Quality • Sequestering of Carbon (& Pollution) • Aesthetic Appeal • Providing Biodiversity and Creating Natural Animal Habitats • Urban Noise Absorption
CTBUH 2014 Best Tall Building Asia & Australasia Award Winner One Central Park, Sydney Ateliers Jean Nouvel, 2014
Design Principle 9: Introduce physical, circulatory and programmatic connections – skybridges
Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur Cesar Pelli & Associates, 1998
Metropolis Erich Kettelhut, still from Fritz Lang’s film, 1927
The Cosmopolis of the Future Harry Petit, from King’s Views of New York. 1908
The Fifth Element Luc Besson, still from the film, 1997
Linked Hybrid, Beijing Steven Holl Architects, 2009
Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Moshe Safdie and Associates, 2010
Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort
The Pinnacle @ Duxton, Singapore ARC Studio, 2009
The Interlace, Singapore OMA / Ole Scheeren, 2013
The Interlace, Singapore OMA / Ole Scheeren, 2013
Design Principle 10: We need to challenge the conventional functions inside tall buildings and bring ALL aspects of the city up into the Sky
Abeno Harukas, Osaka Takenaka Corporation, 2014
Building Functions: Office Hotel Retail Observatory Gardens Art Museum School Hospital
High-Rise Educational Facilities
MODE GAKUEN Cocoon Tower, Tokyo Tange Associates, 2008
MODE GAKUEN Spiral Towers, Nagoya NIKKEN SEKKEI, 2008
Vertical Farm Paul Foster & Darran Oxley, University of Nottingham, 2006
The Future of Vertical Farming: Faรงade Farms?
Jinao Tower, Nanjing Skidmore Owings & Merrill, 2014
What is needed? . . . . A new regulatory, political & financial model for urban development . . . .
Consider a Low Rise Urban Scenario Current Population: 1 million
Ground plane = all urban ‘infrastructure’; physical, spatial, circulation, recreational, communal, etc
Population Growth & Urbanization: Driving the 1 million to 10 million inhabitants: where do they go?
Horizontal Growth of the City = Unsustainable
Vertical Growth = Concentrated Land & Resource Use = More Sustainable?
Overburden of the ground plane / infrastructure, and disconnected icons?
Overburden of the ground plane / infrastructure, and disconnected icons?
The Tall Building as a Piece of the City flipped Vertically……
……..including the Infrastructure
Replication of the Ground Plane & Connectivity of Infrastructure
Towards Sustainable Vertical Urbanism‌
The Future of Sustainable Cities?