Celcom HQ by Hijjas Kasturi Architects

Hijjas Kasturi Architects has designed some of the most iconic buildings throughout Malaysia. The Celcom HQ is no exception. Located in Petaling Jaya, the building's futuristic appearance makes it almost impossible to be missed when you are around the area.

The meticulously crafted folding facade is not only beautiful but environmentally friendly as well. It is designed to reduce heat absorption and therefore reduce the energy load of the building significantly.

Petalz Residences

A Malaysian Green Building Index certified apartment building, Petalz Residences on Old Klang Road is not only a meticulously designed architecture but an energy efficient one at that.

The common theme is to marry up high rise living with nature in creating a harmonious eco system.

The building stands out in this otherwise typical Malaysian suburb.

Two towers surround a communal rooftop facilities.

A flower inspired canopy connects the buildings.

Beautifully designed facade treatment breaks up the otherwise bulky buiding.

Vertical Gardens Tower

Oasia Hotel designed by WOHA Architects is a vertical garden that truly stands out from its immediate neighbourhood. By having planting climbing throughout the structure, it managed to have 1,000% more plant life than could have existed on the original plot of land. The architects wish to bring back nature into the concrete jungle.

A Giant Air Purifier That Also Looks Great

The first time I looked at this photo, I thought to myself: “What a great rendering job!” Upon closer look at more photos, I then realized that this is an actual building that is built! The uniqueness of this building no doubt is its twisting form. It is a rather unusual form to be adopted for an apartment building. The form is not designed purely for aesthetic reasons but there are logical driving force behind it.

The architect designed this form to achieve 4 main objectives:

• To integrate the North / South pyramidal profile of the Building Volume defined with the urban setbacks stipulated by the Municipality of Taipei.

• As the suspended open-air gardens is not included in the floor area ratio, a dramatic cascades of these gardens is achieved since the planted balconies surface area can exceed the limit of the required 10%.

• Provide panoramic views of Taipei skyline to each inhabitants. Taipei 101 tower cab be seen from this building.

• Provide privacy to each apartment by avoiding direct vision axes. As the tower moves up every floor is rotated by 4.5 degrees clockwise to a total of 90 degrees. The tower looks different when viewed from different angles.

« Tao Zhu Yin Yuan » tower is self-sufficient energy wise. The “Tao Zhu Yin Yuan” tower is also inspired by the structure of double helix DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) which symbolises source of life, dynamism and twinning. Every double helix is represented in the project by two housing units forming a full level.

To achieve its Anti-Global Warming and Carbon-Absorbing Ecosystem objectives, Tao Zhu Yin Yuan covers its open spaces with trees, planting approximately 23,000 trees, shrubs and plants on the ground floor garden, the balconies and terraces of each household. It is estimated that the annual carbon absorption of this project could reach up to 130 tons with a green coverage of 246%, which is nearly 5 times higher than required by local regulation. Professional botanists carefully selected and planted multiple species of trees with better carbon absorption capabilities to improve the air quality. The growing plants on balconies provide oxygen, moisture environment, also mitigate the noise from surroundings. In addition, the tower integrates natural ventilation chimneys filtering the air inside the central core, rainwater recycle, wireless monitor control of LED lighting, fiber optic connection, light guide system and solar/wind power to achieve energy saving and carbon reduction. The double skin façade at the central core of the building extracts air at ground level by heating it in a specially adapted glass greenhouse at the base before letting the air pass through a series of filters and releasing clean air at the top. The heating at the base of the tower is done using solar energy. Think of the tower as a giant air purifier smacked right in the centre of a big city!

Solar panels is designed to integrate into the aesthetic of the roof.

Besides protecting the environment, the design team of this project also has to consider earthquake resistant. The structural design is inspired by the body of a skier in the design. The central core of the tower is the human body. The 5‐meter truss structure above 21F are the two arms. The megacolumns on the two sides are the ski poles. A suspended structural system and a Vierendeel truss system (a set of beams for every two floors) transfer all the weight via the arms (beams) to the body (central core) and then down to the foundation. The result is a one‐of‐a‐kind structural design that combines the science of mechanics and the art of aesthetics.

Tao Zhu Yin Yuan is a building that co-exists with the environment. The tower is a huge carbon absorbing Vertical Forest which sets the benchmark for designing eco-friendly buildings in urban environment. This tower no doubt has successfully put Taiwan on the map in terms of fighting global warming. It is a perfect example of action speaks louder than words. Let’s hope that more architects worldwide can learn a valuable lesson from this project.

第一次看这照片时，我对自己说：“现在的电脑可以画到如此逼真啊！” 但仔细查看其他照片后，才意识到原来这是一栋真正已建俊的建筑！这座建筑的独特性无疑是其扭曲的形状。对公寓楼设计来讲这是一种非常不寻常的建筑。

«桃竹银苑»塔的设计灵感取自于双螺旋DNA（脱氧核糖核酸）结构，双螺旋DNA象征着生命，活力和孪生的来源。

为了实现对抗全球暖化和碳吸收生态系统的目标，《桃竹银苑》用树木覆盖其空间，在底层花园，每个家庭的阳台和露台上种植了约23,000棵树木，灌木和植物。据估计，该项目的年碳吸收量可达130吨，绿色覆盖率为246％，比当地法规要求高近5倍。专业的植物学家精心挑选并种植了多种具有更好碳吸收能力的树木，以改善空气质量。阳台上生长的植物不但提供氧气，也减少了周围环境的噪音。此外，该塔还集成了自然通风烟囱，可过滤中心核心内的空气，回收雨水，无线监控LED照明，光纤连接，光导系统和太阳能/风能，以实现节能和减碳。建筑物中央核心的双层外立面通过在底部经过特殊改装的玻璃温室中加热空气来抽取地面空气，然后让空气通过一系列过滤器并在顶部释放干净的空气。塔底的加热系统利用太阳能。

除了保护环境，该项目的设计团队还必须考虑到抗震性。结构设计的灵感来自滑雪者的身体。塔的中心核心是人体。21楼上方的5米长的桁架结构是两条臂。两侧的巨型柱是滑雪杆。悬挂的结构系统和Vierendeel桁架系统（每两层一组横梁）将所有重量通过手臂（梁）传递到身体（中央核心），然后向下传递到基础。出来的效果是独一无二的结构设计，将科学和美学艺术融为一体。

桃竹银苑是一座与环境共存的建筑。该塔是一个巨大的碳吸收性垂直森林，为设计城市环境中的环保建筑树立了基准。无可否认的，这座塔成功地将台湾置于应对全球变暖的位置。这是行动胜于雄辩的完美例子。希望世界各地有更多的建筑师可以从该项目中学习到宝贵的一课以便在世界各地设计更多环保建筑。

Eden Singapore Apartments

As the name implies, one can expect to experience the hanging gardens of Eden living in this apartment designed by Heatherwick Studio. The ripple configuration of the shell shaped planters is particularly dramatic seeing from the street level.

Source: Archdaily

Solving Beijing's Smog Problems

The Chinese capital of Beijing is notorious for it air pollution problems. Fortunately technology has caught up and what it seems to be the potential solution if implemented on a big scale.

The idea is actually quite simple, build a giant vacuum cleaner!

Super-futuristic Hong Kong Skyscraper

Towering edifices that incorporate agriculture — farmscrapers, if you will — make for solid gold in the eye-popping conceptual design imagery department. Wild and wonderful in concept, these plant-studded structures present a somewhat sobering glimpse into a land-starved future where there’s nowhere for commercial food production to go but up. 

When it comes to multitasking, an aggressively idiosyncratic conceptual skyscraper from Mexico City-based Studio Cachoua Torres Camilletti (CTC) blows other visionary vertical farming proposals out of the water and then some. The World Architecture Festival-shortlisted proposal, simply titled “Hong Kong Skyscraper,” incorporates housing, commerce, cultural programming, public transit, rainwater harvesting, renewable energy production, and fish farming into a giant, plant-clad package that looms precariously above the Hong Kong skyline. 

Front and center, however, is Hong Kong Skyscraper’s futuristic presentation of the terraced paddy field, a staple of rice cultivation that's been a familiar sight in mountainous areas of China and Southeast Asia for thousands of years. 

Rice terraces have an important semiotic and symbolic significance in the culture of countries such as China and the Philippines, and they are cultivated by the need to sow seeds vertically. Throughout history, they have been carved by hand into mountains high above the sea as emphasized contours with built-in irrigation systems. In addition to the formal beauty of these spaces, they are a living example of the respectful change of nature by humans, who do not pose any environmental aggression, and are ultimately both respectful of nature and of man. Studio CTC finds such richness of the meanings and interactions that it was decided that rice should be the crop of choice for the skyscraper.

A grain-centric “urban agriculture system” modeled after the traditional rice paddy can be found atop the larger of the bisected building’s dual rooftops (the other is home to a helipad). As you can see, the volume — designed as an attempt to “envision what a tower should be in the future era” while “letting go of many ingrained preconceptions about the way buildings should be designed” — is not-so-neatly split down the middle; the two halves are connected/supported by a network of angled struts along with several transparent bridges that will accommodate rail and bus traffic.

 

Writing for CityLab, John Metcalfe notes that it would appear the two halves of the "extremely mixed-use" skyscraper, each dripping with vegetation, are posed to “attack each other” in the renderings. It’s a fantastic observation — the larger tower with the rice paddy up top truly appears to be hunched over and ready to lunge at its less top-heavy counterpart — and if this was Tokyo, not Hong Kong, one could easily surmise that Studio CTC has birthed sustainable architecture’s very own dueling daikaiju.  Just don't forget to eat up before running for your life .... 

 

Source: mnn

Will The Next Tallest Building In The World Be Built In China?

Billionaire Zhang Yue grabbed international headlines with his ambitious plan to build the world’s tallest building from pre-fabricated units.

But when his 9-billion yuan (HK$11.5 billion) vision for the 838-metre tall Sky City in Changsha in Hunan province stalled in 2013 amid concerns from regulators, Zhang began to fade from view.

Now he is back in the spotlight following the recent construction of a building dubbed Small Sky City, more than 200 metres tall, in an eyebrow-raising 19 days.

Questioned by reporters at the Boao Forum for Asia last month, Zhang, 55, insisted the ‘big’ Sky City was not a lost cause, despite the local government’s suspension of the project amid controversy over its safety, environmental impact and source of funding.

“[Construction] shouldn’t be far away. We’ll start soon and complete soon,” said Zhang, who is estimated by the Hurun Global Rich List to share a personal fortune of 7.9 billion yuan (HK$11.5 billion) with his wife.

As the president of Broad Group, a company that began life building air conditioners, Zhang was once considered one of the leading entrepreneurs in mainland China. And even now, despite the problems surrounding the would-be world’s tallest building, the keen environmentalist has a style of talking big.

He said the high-profile, energy-saving project had received “too much attention, which scared the officials”, as he explained why at present the project was little more than a big hole in a village in suburban Changsha, where his company is based.

Plans for the building are nothing if not eye-catching.

Not only would it be 10 metres higher than the world’s current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, it would host everything from apartments, offices and restaurants, to supermarket stores and even schools so that its residents could live, work and play in its confines without the need to battle – or add to – the pollution outside.

At the Boao Forum Zhang demonstrated an air-quality reading machine and passed out business cards that were an environmentally-friendly half-size, as he urged businesspeople and officials to change to greener lifestyles.

Sky City dwarfs the surrounding tall buildings.

Zhang claims to have embraced such change himself.

While in 1997 he became the mainland’s first private business owner to have a private jet, Zhang ditched both his personal planes in 2008 and now drives only Smart and electric cars.

He says he made the decision after finding that a flight from Changsha to Beijing emitted eight tonnes of carbon dioxide. It would take eight trees 60 years to absorb such an amount, he said.

“When the plane took off, I would look out of the window and think [about] the trees,” he said.

However, media reports covering the ground-breaking ceremony of Sky City in July 2013 showed Zhang arriving at the site in a US-made Bell Helicopter.

He co-founded Broad in 1992 with his brother Zhang Jian. The company specialises in four areas: air conditioners, air purifiers, sustainable buildings, and combined cooling, heating and power units. Air conditioners are the company’s biggest source of profit so far.

An article posted on Broad’s website in 2011 was ridiculed for boasting that Beijing’s Zhongnanhai, the central government compound in the centre of the city, had started using its air purifiers and ventilation systems.

This was mocked by internet users who commented that even the air in China’s centre of power was now specially supplied.

Zhang now takes a low-key approach, telling the South China Morning Post: “We have millions of customers and Zhongnanhai is one of the smallest ones.”

Zhang places his greatest hopes for his future business on prefab buildings, which can be constructed speedily block by block using steel modules built off site.

So far, the market appears unconvinced. Broad has six franchises and most of the more than 30 buildings it has constructed were for its own use. Only five or six were built for commercial orders, Zhang said.

“I don’t like making things showy. I’m not willing to build houses according to others’ will. I like them to be upright and foursquare,” he explained. “So there’s often disagreement [with potential clients].”

Modular construction is popular in China and the rest of the world, but Broad was different because of its unusually high-level of factory production, he said.

“About 90 per cent of our payroll goes to workers in factories. Usually it’s 20 to 30 per cent, like in the US and Japan.”

Zhang was reported to have proposed co-operation with Feng Lun, chairman of the leading real estate developer Vantone, who had been promoting a similar venture named GREAT (Green, Relational, Economical, All-Encompassing, Technology) City, but no deal could be made.

“Zhang Yue hails from Hunan. Hunan people won’t stop until they make things extreme,” Feng was quoted as saying by the China Economic Weekly.

“I believe [Sky City] can be handled in terms of technology, but I don’t think the conditions are mature enough regarding economic and social management,” said Feng.

Zhang graduated from a teaching school in Chenzhou in Hunan, before starting work as an art teacher in his hometown more than three decades ago.

He quit the job in 1984 and dabbled in various businesses including selling camera films and motorbikes, decorating, and even ran a café.

In 1992, he and his brother Zhang Jian started making non-electric air conditioners in Changsha. At a time when electricity was in acute shortage the business boomed.

However, the brothers split in the late 1990s as Zhang Jian proposed to diversify the company’s business by merging with Japan’s Mitsubishi, something that crossed Zhang Yue’s principle of “no diversification, no debt and no public listing”.

This prompted Zhang Jian to start his own company, Broad Homes, which has grown into a leading player in precast concrete construction. Years later, Zhang Yue broke his own principle by introducing franchising for his company, Broad Group.

Broad Group’s earnings are unclear. Its spokeswoman Zhu Linfang said that as it was not a public-listed company it was not obliged to disclose the information.

But Zhang has been quoted as saying that the company made about 6 billion yuan in 2012, of which more than 2 billion yuan came from air conditioners.

Most might be happy with such an amount, but it is small change when compared to a city in the sky and a 9-billion yuan dream.

Source: South China Morning Post

China's Futuristic Farmscrapers

Architects are often turned to when people search for a potential answer to our future cities and lifestyle. People like Leonardo da Vinci, Buckminster Fuller, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright had all attempted to paint a picture of what our future might look like on their canvases.

Usually grand scheme are conceptualized whenever there is an undeerlying social problems that are waiting to be resolved. Shenzhen in China is one such city that is currently plagued by over crowded population, increasing pollution and chaotic uncontrolled development.

Asian Cairns, a masterplan featuring sustainable ‘farmscrapers’ or horticultural towers is the solution from Belgian-born, Paris-based architect Vincent Callebaut which he believes would solve all these issues. His concept is nothing new which is basically to incorporate sustainable design strategy into a highly sophisticated high tech building. 

Callebaut and his team are famous for their fancy building design such as their scheme for 1000 passive houses in Haiti and a twisting tower block for Taipei, Agora Garden.

Their proposed towers for Shenzhen has drawn inspiration for its design from cairns, those small piles of stones hikers like to make to mark their mountain trails. Each ‘pebble’ like module is constructed of steel rings and represents an ‘eco quarter’ with hanging gardens. These quarters are held in place by the building’s central spinal column. A conventional-looking block peaks out of each tower’s summit to house the planned apartments and offices. Wind turbines perched on the pebbles’ ledges to generate power for the building to be self sustainable.

Perhaps the architect's idealistic intention is best described through his words: “The Asian Cairns project synthesises our architectural philosophy that transforms cities into ecosystems, quarters into forests and buildings into mature trees, changing thus each constraint into opportunity and each waste into renewable natural resources!”

As I mentioned before, the concept is nothing new but its form is mind boggling and thought provoking if even just one of these towers is managed to be constructed in the near future.

Solaris Singapore

Solaris designed by Dr. Ken Yeang has won multiple accolades for its integrated eco design such as top honours at the Skyrise Greenery Awards held by the Singapore Institute of Architects and National Parks Singapore and its top achievement of being awarded the BCA Green Mark Platinum Award. It also managed to clinch a Green Good Design Award for Architecture in 2010.

We could easily understand why Solaris managed to clinch so many awards once we study the green design features within the building. Solaris is a vast business space complex that is fully sustainable with a continuous spiral landscaped terrace that winds its way up to lush roof gardens, a green corridor with central courtyards, and a unique solar shaft that helps create a daylit and naturally ventilated atrium. The 15-storey building is also fitted with sun shading devices to reduce solar heat gain 

However, the greatest green feature of this building has got to be its rainwater harvesting strategy to minimise water consumption. On rainy days, water will take 3 days before it completely travel from the top of the building down to the water bank at basement. As the water flowing downwards like a waterfall from the hill, the plants along the spiral landscape areas are irrigated naturally. When there isn’t any rain, stored rainwater would then be pumped from the water tank to the irrigation copper pipes installed all over the landscaped area to water the plants. This is indeed a brilliant idea of recycling rainwater instead of letting it flowed away into the ocean.

This state-of-the-art facility is an integral part of the renowned Fusionopolis cluster which is designed to house MNCs from the info-communications, media, science and engineering R&D industries.

Conceptual Perspective

Spiral landscape

India Tower

FXFowle Architects’ India Tower, to be built in South Mumbai to house a new Park Hyatt Hotel will be India's answer towards green architecture. Its designers claim that India Tower will be the greenest skyscraper in the entire country with rainwater harvesting, green materials, and a possible US LEED Gold rating.

Coincidentally reminisces Tianjin’s ‘Pile of Boxes’, the 60 story, 301 meter tower is divided into different modules, each slightly rotated to the next. Each module manifests a change in function of the tower namely a hotel, high rise residential units, a retail component and so on. Among its green features include shaded windows, natural ventilation, ideal site orientation, rainwater harvesting and eco-friendly building materials.

Imperial Tower

The Imperial Tower designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture will be Mumbai’s tallest building, a slender 116-story, 400-meter residential skyscraper. Sky gardens of the tower are designed to "dampen" wind force around the tower helping the structure to stand strong against any lateral movements. 

The skyscraper is designed to incorporate environmentally friendly features such as rainwater harvesting, gray water recycling and exterior cladding that can limit solar heat gain. The design also includes the possibility of the apartments’ kitchens and bathrooms to be prefabricated by a local factory.

Another Hanging Gardens of Singapore