Arranha-céus: The Latest Architecture and News

Photographer Paul Clemence has shared with us a series of new photographs of a nearly completed 130 William development by Adjaye Associates. The firm’s first residential tower in the USA, topping out in the spring of last year at 800 feet, is located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York.

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Last April, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced plans to introduce a bill that would ban the construction of new all-glass buildings. Part of a larger effort to reduce citywide greenhouse emissions by 30 percent, other initiatives included using clean energy to power city operations, mandatory organics recycling, and reducing single-use plastic and processed meat purchases. The announcement came on the heels of the city council passing the Climate Mobilization Act, a sweeping response to the Paris Climate Agreement that included required green roofs on new constructions and emissions reductions on existing buildings.

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture has unveiled new images for the competition of the South HeXi Yuzui Financial District, the foundation for a new world-class, waterfront business district. The 500-meter-tall tower, part of the development will become the new focal point for the district, attracting businesses and tourism from China and the international market.

Centered over Central Park in Midtown Manhattan, 111 West 57th Street, the second tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere has topped out at 1,428 feet. Designed by SHoP Architects with interior architecture by Studio Sofield, the tower is considered the most slender skyscraper in the world.

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Rocco Design Architects created a vertical church, on a challenging site in Wan Chai District, Hong Kong. The Wesleyan House Methodist Church, with its 11,000m² program, sits on a tight 800m² plot, making it inevitable to go up and generate a skyscraper structure.

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The 528 meters CITIC Tower, was inaugurated, standing tall as Beijing’s highest building to date. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), the supertall innovative architecture remains culturally appropriate, drawing inspiration from the “zun”, a ritual vessel originating in Bronze Age China.

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Canadian company Henson Developments has released plans to build the world's tallest passive house in Vancouver's West End neighborhood. The 60-story project and rezoning application is being reviewed by the City of Vancouver before it goes to city council for a public hearing. Aiming to earn Passive House certification, the tower was formed to break away from traditional Passive House design approaches.

Bee Breeders have announced the winners of the SKYHIVE Skyscraper Challenge. The purpose of the competition was to allow architects, design students, engineers, and artists from all over the world to generate design ideas for iconic high rise buildings in cities around the globe. As part of this design series, participants were encouraged to incorporate new technologies, materials, forms, spatial organizations, and construction systems in their designs for a skyscraper.

Developers Cbus and Nielson Properties have released a shortlist for the design of a $600 million office tower in Brisbane’s North Quay. Four local and international architectural teams have been selected to create proposals for the commercial tower that will accommodate 50,000 square meters of office space. The developers aim to establish an innovative workplace of the future that will represent the new world of work.

Designer Honglin Li has created a proposal for a waste-to-energy skyscraper in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Called FILTRATION, the project was awarded Honorable Mention in the 2019 eVolo Skyscraper Competition. The modular, prefabricated megastructure contains several Material Recovery Facilities and Water Treatment Plants to recycle the floating garbage and clean seawater while taking on the world energy crisis.

Canadian architecture practice Henriquez Partners has designed a series of ten towers for a new suburban development in Vancouver. The mixed-use project was made for developer Westbank to create a new 4.5 million-square-foot residential community for the city. Dubbed Oakridge, the towers will include housing, office and retail as a contemporary architecture for the Pacific Northwest.

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JDS Architects have won the competition to design a new residential tower and mixed-use development in France. Located in Rennes, the project will include new buildings on the Blériot-Féval site to generate an inclusive neighborhood within the Eurorennes development. As the master plan's geographic centerpiece, the new Féval Tower will offer 188 new apartments to the city.

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As an entry to the 2019 Evolo Skyscraper Competition, JCPOA Tower was designed to combine cryptocurrency mining with a water park. Created by Ilia Attarpour, Dadbeh Mohebbi Gilani, and Ramtin Taherian, the project considered the US economic sanctions on Iran and the geopolitical crisis around the country's currency devaluation and near economic collapse. The designers proposed a cryptocurrency mining tower under the cover of its secondary water park function. The skyscraper explores how sanctions can be manipulated as a way out of crisis.

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odD+ Architects have designed a residential tower with exterior gardens in Ecuador. Inspired by the architecture of classical cloisters in downtown Quito, the tower reinterprets the courtyard through the building facade. The exposed building face is meant to reconnect residents to the surrounding old town fabric. Dubbed Common Garden, the project frames unique views of the city through 12 floors of gardens and arcades.

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Perkins + Will have revealed a new design for the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper in Vancouver. Called Canada Earth Tower, the mass timber project is designed along the city’s Central Broadway corridor. Bruce Langereis, president of Delta Land Development, unveiled the company’s proposal to transform a 1.3-acre lot at 1745 West 8th Avenue with a project that could rise up to 40 floors. Canada Earth Tower aims to become a new precedent and benchmark for green building construction.

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Quito-based odD+ Architects have designed a residential skyscraper inspired by sunflowers for Ecuador. Taking cues from the rhythmic formations of the plant's seeds and petals, the tower is a direct response to the increasing urbanization of Quito. Aiming to address development patterns that threaten the natural landscape and its endemic species, the project was made to be a vertical ecosystem for the city.

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MAD Architects have revealed a new vision for New York City skyscrapers with a sinuous slender tower near the Empire State Building. Dubbed ‘East 34th’, the project was designed with a dark-colored glass facade that was made to fade into the atmosphere. Located adjacent to one of New York's most iconic structures, the project rethinks the city's rectilinear towers and sharp edges to create a new form for the Manhattan high-rise.

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