https://www.architecturalrecord.com/rss/1991-super-size-design en-us Twenty years ago, Rem Koolhaas published a fat doorstop of a book, S, M, L, XL, which included his manifesto on Bigness: “Bigness is ultimate architecture,” he wrote. “Only Bigness instigates the regime of complexity that mobilizes the full intelligence of architecture and its related fields.” 

]]> 1403.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/11197-supersize-it-back-to-super-size-design 1403-shenzhen-bao-an-international-airport-terminal-3-studio-fuksas.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/7973-shenzhen-baoan-international-airport-terminal-3-by-massimiliano-and-doriana-fuksas Shenzhen Bao International Airport A canopy at the terminal’s south end extends to an oval ground-transportation center. As in the departures hall, folded-metal panes form hexagonal openings in the soffit of the canopy.   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport As in the departures hall, folded-metal panes form hexagonal openings in the soffit of the canopy.   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport Although vast, the departures hall is given definition by its undulating ceiling, and scale by freestanding “trees” that supply air and electric light.   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport The new terminal stretches almost a mile, with 63 contact gates and another 15 remote gates accessed by shuttle buses.   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport Hexagonal openings in the interior skin are formed by aluminum panels, some that fold out and others that fold in. To reduce costs, the architect limited the types of panels to create the honeycomb surfaces.   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport The terminal was built as a steel tube on a concrete substructure to help speed construction, so the project could be completed in three years.   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport On the arrivals level, flat ceilings give a different character to the space. (The scope of work for Studio Fuksas included designing stainless-steel counters at the gates and flight-information boards, as well as check-in “islands” and the retail boxes.)   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport Retail “boxes” stand inside the main departures concourse.   Photo © Leonardo Finotti Shenzhen Bao International Airport Image courtesy Studio Fuksas Shenzhen Bao International Airport Image courtesy Studio Fuksas Ole Scheeren is no stranger to megaprojects. As a former partner and director at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), he led the design and construction of the 5.1 million-square-foot CCTV Headquarters in Beijing and was the lead designer of the MahaNakhon Tower in Bangkok, which, when completed in 2016, will be the tallest in the city at 77 stories and 1,030 feet.

]]> 1403-the-interlace-buro-ole-scheeren.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/7974-the-interlace The Interlace The Interlace’s 31 building blocks weave around lush shared courtyards with amenities like a lap pool. The circular podium at the end of the pool will soon become a waterfall feature (Slide 2). Underground parking (not pictured) keeps the courtyards pedestrian-friendly. Openings in the plinth mean that the parking garage is flooded with daylight.   Photo © Iwan Baan The Interlace The Interlace’s 31 building blocks weave around lush shared courtyards with amenities like a lap pool. The circular podium at the end of the pool will soon become a waterfall feature (left). Underground parking (not pictured) keeps the courtyards pedestrian-friendly. Openings in the plinth mean that the parking garage is flooded with daylight.   Photo © Iwan Baan The Interlace Seen from a distance in its entirety, the Interlace’s blocks appear woven together. A 1-kilometer walking and running track winds around and through the property, doubling as the fire-access route.   Photo © Iwan Baan The Interlace The hexagon pattern on the underside of the blocks creates more visual interest if looking up from below, as it is tempting to do. Because the entire building is such a bold, abstract figure, Scheeren mostly kept the lines of the individual blocks clean, fitting balconies, air-conditioning ledges, and windows into the same plane.   Photo © Iwan Baan The Interlace Green roofs and decks are abundant and become an extension of the living spaces.   Photo © Iwan Baan The Interlace The diagram above shows the blocks’ shared cores. Red = two elevators, one stair; blue = two elevators, two stairs; yellow = one elevator, one stair.   Photo © Iwan Baan The Interlace The diagram above shows the blocks’ shared cores. Red = two elevators, one stair; blue = two elevators, two stairs; yellow = one elevator, one stair.   Image courtesy Ole Scheeren © OMA The Interlace The diagram above shows the blocks’ shared cores. Red = two elevators, one stair; blue = two elevators, two stairs; yellow = one elevator, one stair.   Image courtesy Ole Scheeren © OMA The Interlace The diagram above shows the blocks’ shared cores. Red = two elevators, one stair; blue = two elevators, two stairs; yellow = one elevator, one stair.   Image courtesy Ole Scheeren © OMA The Interlace Image courtesy Ole Scheeren © OMA When I went to Rotterdam to see the largest single building in The Netherlands, the eponymous De Rotterdam by OMA, it reminded me of something. But I couldn't put my finger on it. 

]]> 1403-de-rotterdam-office-for-metropolitan-architecture.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/7970-de-rotterdam De Rotterdam Rising from the Wilhelminapier, the 1.74 million-square-foot complex brings together residential, office, and hotel components on top of a plinth that has shared spaces for conferences, restaurants, shops, and recreation.   Photo © Iwan Baan De Rotterdam De Rotterdam acts as the fulcrum for the redevelopment of the Wilhelminapier area, which includes (from bottom to top of photo, left) the Erasmus Bridge by UNStudio and buildings by Renzo Piano, Álvaro Siza, Mecanoo, and KCAP Architects.   Photo © Iwan Baan De Rotterdam OMA designed areas in the building’s plinth, such as the office lobby (left) and vertical circulation for the restaurants (slide 4).   Photo © Iwan Baan De Rotterdam OMA designed areas in the building’s plinth, such as the office lobby (slide 3) and vertical circulation for the restaurants (left).   Photo © Iwan Baan De Rotterdam As it has done in large Asian projects like the CCTV tower in Beijing and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, OMA exposed the building’s structural frame on the inside and used it as an important element in spaces such as the stair hall for restaurants and bars.   Photo © Iwan Baan De Rotterdam Generous balconies on the residential section of the project provide city views from the apartments.   Photo © Iwan Baan De Rotterdam For a special issue of The New York Times Magazine in September 2002, the newspaper’s architecture critic Herbert Muschamp invited a number of architects to propose designs for various sites at Ground Zero in Manhattan. OMA devised a scheme for a mixed-use building with the same program and tripartite organization as De Rotterdam.   Image courtesy OMA De Rotterdam Drawing courtesy OMA De Rotterdam Drawing courtesy OMA De Rotterdam Drawing courtesy OMA De Rotterdam Drawing courtesy OMA goncharj@bnpmedia.com (Joann Gonchar, FAIA) In the realm of supertall skyscrapers, the recently completed Pearl River Tower (PRT) in Guangzhou, China, isn't that tall.

]]> 1403-pearl-river-tower-skidmore-owings-and-merrill.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/7971-pearl-river-tower Pearl River Tower The Pearl River Tower is one of many tall buildings that have recently sprouted in Guangzhou's new business district.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower Currently, three towers are taller than the 1,020-foot PRT, including the immediately adjacent Pinnacle, a 1,181-foot skyscraper that resembles the Empire State Building.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower The building's main entry is on its south side, where projecting louvers create a portico-like space and bounce daylight deep into the lobby.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower Inside the double-story lobby, metal ceiling panels and fritted glass enhance the light and airy effect.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower Mounted on the narrow east and west facades are louvers that incorporate PV panels, which allow the fixed horizontal elements to simultaneously provide shade and generate electricity.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower Mounted on the narrow east and west facades are louvers that incorporate PV panels, which allow the fixed horizontal elements to simultaneously provide shade and generate electricity.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower The office floors benefit from a coordinated set of systems, including a curved double-skin curtain wall with integrated shades, a coved radiant ceiling, and raised-floor displacement ventilation.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower The tower's envelope includes four inlets or ducts, each containing a vertical axis wind turbine.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower The tower's envelope includes four inlets or ducts, each containing a vertical axis wind turbine.   Photo © Tim Griffith Pearl River Tower CFD modeling helped designers shape the ducts to accelerate the speed of the wind rushing through them and therefore increase the electricity-generating potential of the turbines.   Image courtesy SOM Pearl River Tower Image courtesy SOM Pearl River Tower Image courtesy SOM Pearl River Tower Image courtesy SOM Pearl River Tower Image courtesy SOM On a barren patch of desert in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto basin, just 50 miles west of the site where scientists detonated the first nuclear weapon, Foster + Partners took on an extraordinary task: to construct the world’s first private hangar facility for spaceflight.

]]> 1403-spaceport-america.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/6643-snapshot-spaceport-america As founder and chairman of Foster+Partners, Norman Foster has created projects at every scale but may be best known for such innovative tall buildings as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters in Hong Kong (1986), the Swiss Re tower in London, a.k.a. “the Gherkin” (2004), and the Hearst Tower in New York (2006).

]]> 1403-asking-mr-big-norman-foster.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/5846-asking-mr-big Norman Foster Founder and chairman of Foster+Partners, Norman Foster.   Photo © Nigel Young/Foster+Partners Norman Foster Renderings of Apple’s new headquarters, with almost 3 million square feet of floor area and a circumference of nearly one mile. Amenities include a restaurant for more than 2,000 people, cafés, jogging and biking trails, and fruit orchards.   Photo © City of Cupertino Norman Foster Renderings of Apple’s new headquarters, with almost 3 million square feet of floor area and a circumference of nearly one mile. Amenities include a restaurant for more than 2,000 people, cafés, jogging and biking trails, and fruit orchards.   Photo © Nigel Young/Foster+Partners Norman Foster Opened in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Foster’s terminal, at 14 million square feet, is one of the largest buildings in the world. A changing spectrum of traditional Chinese colors—from red to gold—under the roof canopy helps travelers navigate the vast spaces. Fifty million people per year are expected to pass through by 2020.   Photo © Nigel Young/Foster+Partners Norman Foster Opened in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Foster’s terminal, at 14 million square feet, is one of the largest buildings in the world. A changing spectrum of traditional Chinese colors—from red to gold—under the roof canopy helps travelers navigate the vast spaces. Fifty million people per year are expected to pass through by 2020.   Photo © Fu Xing photo Norman Foster The new European headquarters of Bloomberg in the heart of London, currently under construction, is designed in two parts, with a pedestrian arcade that restores the route of a historic street.   Photo courtesy Bloomberg L.P. Norman Foster The 10-story sandstone building features vertical bronze blades on the facade.   Photo courtesy Bloomberg L.P. Norman Foster 425 Park, designed with three setbacks, will be the first new full-block office building on New York’s Park Avenue in 50 years.   Photo © DBOX/Foster+Partners Norman Foster Comcast Innovation and Technology Center in Philadelphia, at 1,121 feet, will be the tallest building in the U.S. outside New York and Chicago and will have street-level urban spaces, and sky gardens for tenants, as does 425 Park.   Photo © DBOX/Foster+Partners The future looms large for seven forthcoming projects around the globe that demonstrate ambition in scale and form.

]]> 1403-big-bigger-biggest.asp Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:30:00 -0400 https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/5847-big-bigger-biggest Big, Bigger, Biggest Weary of the humdrum residential buildings that are rising en masse in urban China, Beijing-based architect Ma Yansong and his team at MAD Architects sought to design a complex that could address demand for affordable housing and yet be iconic. The firm found a solution in an architectural mash-up of a high-rise and a “groundscraper”: the aptly named Fake Hills places a 636-foot tower alongside a rollercoaster form that undulates along a half-mile strip of shore on the South China Sea. Once completed in 2015, the 5.3 million-square-foot structure will include a roof platform for public spaces featuring swimming pools, tennis courts, and gardens.   Photo © MAD Architects Big, Bigger, Biggest Chicago-based firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill designed the Kingdom Tower to claim the title of world's tallest skyscraper. At a height of at least 3,280 feet, it will be taller than two and a half stacked Empire State buildings and at least 568 feet above its soaring older sibling, the Burj Khalifa, designed by Adrian Smith while he was at SOM. The tower is the crown jewel of Kingdom City, a new $20 billion development. To evoke the fronds of desert plants, the aerodynamic, high-efficiency tower rises above the Red Sea on a triangular base. When completed in 2019, the 5.7 million-square-foot building will include offices, a Four Seasons Hotel, luxury apartments, 59 elevators, and a cantilevered saucer-shaped observatory near the top at level 157.   Photo © Jeddah Economic Company/Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture Big, Bigger, Biggest Last October, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill beat out firms including Zaha Hadid, UNStudio, and Sn'hetta to build Kazakhstan’s world exposition, EXPO-2017, in Astana. The 19 million-square-foot site will include 1.3 million square feet of exhibition space and cultural pavilions for more than 100 countries and 7.4 million square feet of residential development, as well as parks, hotels, and retail. The development’s centerpiece, the Kazakhstan Pavilion, is a quarter-millionsquare-foot orb with a specialized skin for mitigating solar glare. While EXPO-2017 lasts only three months, the firm designed the buildings so that, post-show, the main structures can be converted into an office park, and other buildings can be repurposed as well. Construction will begin in April.   Photo © Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture Big, Bigger, Biggest For his upcoming residential project, Bjarke Ingels of the Danish firm BIG took the split-level to the next level'30 levels, in fact. Marina Lofts, a 1.3 million-square-foot three-building complex that will straddle an existing 250-boat marina along the bank of the New River, will contain 856 residential units (starting at a millennial-friendly $1,100 per month), restaurants, and retail. The split structures divided Fort Lauderdale residents: in a controversial move, an 80-year old rain tree, one of the largest specimens in the United States and a local landmark, will be transplanted to a park to make way for construction in late 2014.   Photo © BIG Big, Bigger, Biggest When Shanghai's Pudong district was planned more than two decades ago, it was dotted with clusters of warehouses and factories. Now the region is home to the city's Lujiazui financial district and will boast the world's second-tallest skyscraper when Gensler's Shanghai Tower opens later this year. At 2,073 feet'surpassing its statuesque neighbors, the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center'the tower comprises 5.6 million square feet of offices, gardens, shops, and hotels. The building's 120 degree twist enables it to withstand typhoon-force winds.   Photo © Rogan Coles Big, Bigger, Biggest In August 2013, officials in Melbourne announced Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, along with Australian firm Hassell, as the winners of a competition to revitalize Flinders Street Station, a turn-of-the-century train hub. The station's original 1899 design included an unrealized arched roof with three large vaults. The architects used this scheme as the dominant motif in their entry, creating linear vaulted spaces that align over each track. The 1.2 million-square-foot building will incorporate a cultural center and an amphitheater. The government is conducting a feasibility study for this project.   Photo © Herzog & de Meuron Big, Bigger, Biggest Rafael Viñoly's 432 Park Avenue will be the western hemisphere's tallest residential structure when completed in 2015. Rising nearly 1,400 feet, it will soon be joined by a pack of sky-high glamazons overlooking Central Park, including Norman Foster's 425 Park Avenue and Christian de Portzamparc's One57. Developed by CIM Group, the 96-story building features a gridded facade of 10-by-10 foot windows and will have 30,000 square feet of amenities containing a lounge, restaurant, terraces, and spa.   Photo © DBOX for CIM Group & Macklowe Properties