The Leeza Soho tower in Beijing, China, made the world record to
become the only building that contains the tallest atrium twisting through its
centre.
The 45-storey skyscraper designed by Zaha Hadid, the late founder of
Zaha Hadid Architects before her death in 2016, is located in the Fengtai
business district.
Commissioned by Soho China, the same developer of Galaxy Soho and
Wangjing Soho, the Leeza Soho skyscraper contains a mix of shops and offices
surrounding the mind-boggling atrium.
Beijing's multi-modal urban plan is aimed at accommodating growth
without impacting its existing infrastructure networks in the centre of the
city. The new Fengtai business district plays an integral role to complement
the city’s greater vision, explained Patrik Schumacher who took over Zaha Hadid
Architects firm.
The completed Leeza Soho has 45 floors above ground, and four floors under
ground.
It is positioned on a site adjacent to the precinct’s main railway
station, and straddles an underground subway service tunnel.
Its position over this tunnel led Zaha Hadid Architects to divide the
building in two halves, which resulted in the formation of a giant atrium at
its centre.
This atrium runs the full height of the building, which at 194.15
metres makes it the world's tallest atrium, overtaking the previous record held
by the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai.
As it rises, the Leeza Soho's void twists by 45 degrees to appear as
though the two sides of the tower are moving together in a beautiful dancing
motion.
The dynamic shape of the atrium creates convex openings on either side
of the tower, which allow natural light into the interiors and provide views
out over towards the city from each floor.
The lowest level of the atrium has been designed to act as a public
square for the business district, and is directly linked to the interchange
beside the site.
The two parts of the Leeza Soho are linked internally by elevated
walkways that project across the void from four different levels, while
externally they are fused together by a curtain glass facade.
This glass facade is double insulated, and is made up of a number of
glass panels that are angled to aid ventilation. The intention is to help
maintain a comfortable indoor climate in Beijing's variable weather conditions.
In a bid to enhance the building's environmental performance, the
tower is fitted with heat recovery from exhaust air and high-efficiency pumps,
water-collection facilities, grey water flushing and an insulating green roof
with photovoltaic panels.
There are also 2,680 bicycles parking spaces with lockers and shower
facilities, alongside charging spaces for electric or hybrid cars to encourage
users to travel sustainability.
The design competition to build Tower C at the Shenzhen Bay Super
Headquarters Base, in China has been won by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). Their
multi-dimensional vertical city design consists of two naturally-lit towers
that establish connections to the Shenzhen's urban intersections – namely the
north-south green axis and the east-west urban alley.
The idea is to connect the proposed buildings with the adjacent parks
and plazas, fusing them together into a terraced landscape which extends
upwards between the two towers. Public are able to walk right into the heart of
the building where cultural and leisure facilities are placed. Sweeping bridges
link the towers together. These bridges are also designed as vantage points
that provide panoramic views of the city.
Thanks to the advance 3D modeling tools developed by ZHA, the
architects have better control over the architectural massing, buildings orientations,
and façade-to-floor ratios. The final design stands at nearly 400m, wrapped
with double-insulated curtain glazed walls. The buildings incorporate natural
and hybrid ventilation with environmental control available on each floor.
In line with the district’s smart management systems and the city’s ambition
to increase energy efficiencies and public well-being, external and interior
conditions of the buildings will be constantly monitored, energy consumption
will be adjusted via a smart building system. Other green design features of
the buildings include water-collection and recycling, as well as photovoltaics.
In addition, the aquaponics gardens situated on the terraces will biologically
filter the surrounding atmosphere to reduce pollution.
Once completed, the proposed building will be an important economic
contributor to the Chinese city of Shenzhen, serving Guangdong, Hong Kong and
Macau. The project, which will act as a global technological hub that includes
clusters of corporate headquarters, is planned to accommodate 300,000 employees
every day. In addition to the business facilities, Tower C will also has
multiple venues to host international conferences, exhibitions, and cultural
programs, as well as residential developments.
Dame Zaha Hadid,
the world-renowned architect, whose designs include the London Olympic
aquatic centre, has died aged 65. The British designer, who was born in
Iraq, had a heart attack on Thursday while in hospital in Miami, where
she was being treated for bronchitis.
Hadid’s buildings have been commissioned around the world and she was
the first woman to receive the Royal Institute of British Architects
(RIBA) gold medal.
A lengthy statement released by her company said: “It is with great
sadness that Zaha Hadid Architects have confirmed that Dame Zaha Hadid
DBE died suddenly in Miami in the early hours of this morning.
“She had contracted bronchitis earlier this week and suffered a
sudden heart attack while being treated in hospital. Zaha Hadid was
widely regarded to be the greatest female architect in the world today.”
Speaking from Mexico, Richard Rogers, whose buildings include the
Pompidou Centre and the Millennium Dome, told the Guardian that the news
of Hadid’s death was “really, really terrible”.
“She was a great architect, a wonderful woman and wonderful person,”
Lord Rogers said. “Among architects emerging in the last few decades, no
one had any more impact than she did. She fought her way through as a
woman. She was the first woman to win the Pritzker prize.
“I got involved with her first in Cardiff when the government threw
her off the project in the most disgraceful way. She has had to fight
every inch of the way. It is a great loss.”
Jane Duncan, RIBA’s president, said: “Dame Zaha Hadid was an
inspirational woman, and the kind of architect one can only dream of
being. Visionary and highly experimental, her legacy, despite her young
age, is formidable.
“She leaves behind a body of work from buildings to furniture,
footwear and cars, that delight and astound people all around the world.
The world of architecture has lost a star today.”
The architect Daniel Libeskind said he was devastated by her death. “Her spirit will live on in her work and studio. Our hearts go out,” he said.
“She was an extraordinary role model for women. She was fearless and a
trailblazer – her work was brave and radical. Despite sometimes feeling
misunderstood, she was widely celebrated and rightly so.”
Architect Graham Morrison said: “She was so distinct that there isn’t
anybody like her. She didn’t fit in and I don’t mean that meanly. She
was in a world of her own and she was extraordinary.”
The British culture minister, Ed Vaizey, posted on Twitter, saying he was stunned at the news and praising her “huge contribution to contemporary architecture”.
The London mayor, Boris Johnson, tweeted: “So sad to hear of death of
Zaha Hadid, she was an inspiration and her legacy lives on in wonderful
buildings in Stratford and around the world.”
Hadid, born in Baghdad in 1950, became a revolutionary force in
British architecture even though she struggled to win commissions in the
UK for many years. The Iraqi government described her death as “an
irreplaceable loss to Iraq and the global community”.
She studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before
launching her architectural career in London at the Architectural
Association.
By 1979, she had established her own practice in London – Zaha Hadid
Architects – and gained a reputation across the world for groundbreaking
theoretical works including the Peak in Hong Kong (1983),
Kurfürstendamm 70 in Berlin (1986) and the Cardiff Bay opera house in
Wales (1994).
The first major build commission that earned her international
recognition was the Vitra fire station in Weil Am Rhein, Germany (1993),
but her scheme to build the Cardiff opera house was scrapped in the
1990s and she did not produce a major building in the UK until the
Riverside museum of transport in Glasgow was completed in 2011.
Other notable projects included the Maxxi:
Italian National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome (2009), the London
aquatics centre for the 2012 Olympic Games (2011), the Heydar Aliyev
centre in Baku (2013) and a stadium for the 2022 football World Cup in
Qatar.
Buildings such as the Rosenthal Centre of Contemporary Art in
Cincinnati (2003) and the Guangzhou opera house in China (2010) were
also hailed as architecture that transformed ideas of the future. Other
designs include the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in Kensington Gardens,
west London, and the BMW factory in Leipzig, one of her first designs to
be built.
She became the first female recipient of the Pritzker
architecture prize in 2004 and twice won the UK’s most prestigious
architecture award, the RIBA Stirling prize. Other awards included the
Republic of France’s Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and
Japan’s Praemium Imperiale.
Hadid won acclaim in Scotland for designing the popular Riverside
Museum in Glasgow, known for its distinctive roof structure. Muriel
Gray, chair of the board of governors at the Glasgow School of Art, tweeted a picture of the Riverside museum with the message: “Horrible shocking news that Zaha Hadid, incredible architectural trailblazer has just died. Huge loss to design.”
Hadid was recently awarded the RIBA’s 2016 royal gold medal, the first woman to be awarded the honour in her own right.
Architect Sir Peter Cook wrote in his citation at the time: “In our
current culture of ticking every box, surely Zaha Hadid succeeds, since,
to quote the royal gold medal criteria, she is someone who ‘has made a
significant contribution to the theory or practice of architecture … for
a substantial body of work rather than for work which is currently
fashionable’.
“For three decades now she has ventured where few would dare … Such
self confidence is easily accepted in film-makers and football managers,
but causes some architects to feel uncomfortable. Maybe they’re
secretly jealous of her unquestionable talent. Let’s face it, we might
have awarded the medal to a worthy comfortable character. We didn’t. We
awarded it to Zaha: larger than life, bold as brass and certainly on the
case.”
Speaking in February on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Hadid
said: “I don’t really feel I’m part of the establishment. I’m not
outside, I’m on the kind of edge, I’m dangling there. I quite like it …
I’m not against the establishment per se. I just do what I do and that’s
it.”
Levete,
who co-designed the spaceship-like media centre at Lord’s cricket
ground, described her as “a true and loyal friend … a confidante and
someone I could turn to for advice”.
She said: “She was an absolute inspiration to many and her global impact was really profound.”
Kelly Hoppen, the interior designer who appeared in BBC2’s show Dragons’ Den, tweeted: “Deeply
saddened by the news of Zaha Hadid’s death. She was an iconic architect
who pushed the boundaries to another level xx ZahaHadid”
Angela Brady, a former president of RIBA, described Hadid as “one of our greatest architects of our time”.
She added: “She was a tough architect, which is needed as a woman at
the top of her profession and at the height of her career. She will be
sadly missed as an iconic leader in architecture and as a role model for
women in architecture.”
A spokeswoman for BMW said: “She was an icon in the world of
architecture, groundbreaking in her way to create with a very
distinctive style. On the 10th anniversary of our Leipzig plant’s
central building which she was the architect for , Zaha said that she
felt it gave testament to the plant’s vision. We are glad she felt this
way, too.”
Author Kathy Lette tweeted Hadid’s “beautiful, undulating feminine designs proved that u didn’t need a phallic edifice complex 2 be a brilliant architect”.
Tamara Rojo, English National Ballet director and dancer, tweeted:
“Devastated by the passing of the great Zaha Hadid” with a picture of
“her stunning Opera House in Guangzhou where we performed last year”.
Zaha Hadid’s
design for Sunrise Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, engages with the
city in multiple ways. By exploring potential synergies at different
levels and anchoring itself to the existing urban fabric, it creates a
platform of services that engage with neighbouring developments,
sustaining critical mass and a sense of community. The scheme merges all
programmes into one building, distancing itself from the traditional
tower and podium typology. Through a detailed landscape strategy the
design interweaves tower and ground, extending and connecting the
different parts of the site, integrating the new pedestrian routes and
internal road system, structuring the fabric of the new development.
The building is designed through a series of independent flows that
map the tower and organize different routes for different programmes.
Along these routes the lobby and shared facilities floors work as
communication hubs, like intersections that enable flexible itineraries
and changes between uses. Similarly to the skin, the circulation
materializes as a multi dimensional spatial grid, inclusive of the
program, treating interior and exterior in a seamless way, thus
maximizing the clarity of the scheme and the perception of the different
levels. The design of a clear navigation system for lobbies, atria and
common areas, enables visual communication as well as access through the
cores, ensuring fully accessible environment for all users. The
building’s complex programme is distributed through 66 floors in total, 4
bellow ground and 62 above ground, with an absolute height of 280m. The
ground lobby is the primary hub of the tower, defining 4 different
dedicated lobbies for residential, hotel, offices and general public.
The President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, has reportedly called for an end to the "weird buildings" being built in China, and particularly in the nation's capital, Beijing. In a two hour speech at a literary symposium in Beijing last
week, Mr Xi expressed his views that art should serve the people and be
morally inspiring, identifying architectural projects such as OMA's CCTV Headquarters as the kind of building that should no longer be constructed in Beijing.
With
China's construction boom being one of the most talked about features
of today's architecture scene - and many a Western practice relying on
their extravagant projects to prop up their studios - the Chinese
leader's comments have the potential to affect the landscape of
architectural practice worldwide. But what is behind these sentiments?
The impressive CCTV building by OMA has been nicknamed 'Big Pants' by Beijing's residents. This shows exactly how the Chinese do not appreciate the innovative design of this building which is conceptualized to revolutionize the typology of skyscraper worldwide.
Perhaps the most simple reading of Mr Xi's pronouncement on
architecture is that it is an extension of his mission to crack down on
corruption and extravagance within the Chinese Government, having removed 51 officials from government as of August.
Though high-profile and popular with the international press, CCTV
Headquarters has been criticized for being a number of years late to
complete (it was originally intended to be open for the 2008 Olympics),
and has been nicknamed "Big Pants," by locals thanks to its unusual
shape.
In particular his statement that art should
"inspire minds, warm hearts, cultivate taste and clean up undesirable
work styles" seems to link art with moral purity, and it is this kind of
attention-grabbing extravagance that Mr Xi perhaps wants to avoid,
particularly in state-owned buildings such as CCTV.
Zaha Hadid's Galaxy Soho also come under fire for its impact on Beijing.
Another interpretation, offered by Wolfgang Georg Arlt in Forbes Magazine,
links Xi Jinping's comments to architectural tourism, saying: "Chinese
outbound tourists used to be impressed by futuristic buildings they
encountered in places like Dubai and recently also London,
but with more and more of such projects realised in Beijing... the pull
factor of contemporary architecture for them is diminishing."
Arlt
also notes that the number of foreign tourists visiting Beijing has
steadily declined in recent years, but while he concludes that "maybe
this argument will help to sustain future projects by world-class
architects," it could also have the opposite effect: perhaps Mr Xi
realizes that the draw of "weird architecture" is not strong enough to
sustain China's tourism industry, and therefore not worth the financial
and reputation risks it poses.
However, maybe the strongest interpretation is that Mr Xi's comments on art reflect his tendency towards Chinese nationalism (part of what some people last year rather hastily referred to as Xi Jinping's 'Maoist turn'). The New York Times quotes one section of his speech where
he says that Chinese art should "disseminate contemporary Chinese
values, embody traditional Chinese culture and reflect Chinese people's
aesthetic pursuit." It is not such a stretch to equate his criticisms of
"weird buildings" with either Western architects or even simply a
Western style of design, and his speech has reportedly been met by support on Chinese social media with people saying that "China is not foreigners' test field."
Wang Shu's architecture has been praised for his intelligent combination of Chinese and Modernist elements in his buildings.
Previously it had been thought that Chinese culture was simply not
strong enough to support its building boom without the help of foreign
architects: in early 2012, Mr Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao wrote that "the international culture of the West is strong while we are weak." However, mere months later, the Pritzker Prize was awarded to Wang Shu, the first time it had been awarded to an architect both born and working in China. Furthermore, Wang Shu has been noted for his Critical-Regionalist approach, combining Western modernism with traditional Chinese influences.
Wang Shu is currently being joined by a new generation of Chinese architects such as Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, whose Shanshui City concept is
explicitly inspired by traditional Chinese painting. With this renewed
interest in traditional inspirations for Chinese architecture, perhaps
Mr Xi sees now as the time to take action on Hu Jintao's call to "take
forceful measures to be on guard and respond" to the "ideological
struggle" between Chinese and Western culture.
MAD Architects' Shanshui City inspired by Chinese landscape paintings.
d'Leedon by Zaha Hadid is currently under construction by Capitaland led consortium in Singapore. The master plan derives from seven towers grow from sunken gardens and soar into the sky at a height of 150 meters - each one is articulated as a sequence of petals offering stunning views from each apartment units.
