Each level has its own terrace where a number of crops can be grown privately and communally. Harvests can be shared and sold to supplement incomes. The irregular shape was designed to follow the way the sun moves across the sky to give plants the most amount of sunlight. The substrate not only provides ample grounds for farming, but a natural insulating layer keeping the entire building cool in the summers and warm in the winters. The benefits of vertical farming are two fold. Pests don’t like this kind of structure and runoff is minimized since the entire system is self regulated.

Designer: Greg Chung Whan Park

15) New Orleans Arcology Habitat or NOAH by E. Kevin Schopfer AIA, RIBA & Tangram 3DS; Kittery, ME

NOAH proposes to be a habitat for 40,000 residents who can benefit from the planned residential units, school system, commercial, retail, hotels, casinos, parking, and public works facilities. Its triangle shape is most captivating and literally stands out on the waterfront. Quite a design challenge actually, this place needs to overcome both the physical and psychological damages of recurring severe weather patterns.

14) Eko by 10 Raisons Architects

Critics may pan it for getting inspired by the romantic Eiffel Tower, but the giant Eko looks like a tower with webs on the side. It boasts of 24 floors, 8500 Square meters of Nano Solar, 350 palms, a bar, a library and a big exhibition hall and is proposed as a futuristic housing high-rise for Zaabeel Park, City Center in Dubai.

13) Campus Center for Miami Dade College by Oppenheim Architects

If Polo is the mint with a hole, then the Miami Dade College is a Super Building Campus Center for Miami Dade College is the architectural version of it. The high rise combines apartments, offices, educational facilities, and a lot of space for art exhibition. It’s supposed to get completed in the next two years time, can anyone in Miami confirm this?

12) Guggenheim Hermitage Museum by Zaha Hadid

Conceptualized as a floating structure above the fluid landscape in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum is the renowned firm Zaha Hadid Architects’ brainchild. Featuring glossy, metallic surfaces, this building is a visual treat for true connoisseurs.

11) Klein Bottle House by McBride Charles Ryan

The “Klein Bottle” is a non-orientable surface, i.e., a surface (a two-dimensionaltopological space) with no distinction between the “inside” and “outside” surfaces. By constantly challenging our sense of perception, depth, linear orientation, interior/exterior space and pretty much any notion of what a dwelling should look like, the architects have successfully created a space that is surprisingly inviting and warm.

10) Torre Bicentenario by Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)

Resembling 2 inverted pyramids bridged by a lobby where shuttles and elevators pass thru, the Torre Bicentenario is slated become the tallest building in Latin America. Completion is scheduled for this year to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s Independence. Two voids penetrate the building at its widest point providing ventilation and natural light.

9) Dancing Towers by Zaha Hadid

With the spate of earthquakes hitting our foundations this year, the thought of dancing towers is not so appealing. Keeping aside such fears, these three towers are inter-twinned to share programmatic elements and rotate to maximize the views from the site towards the creek and neighboring developments. Another visual treat that defies common norms.

8 ) Landmark Building of Szervita Square by Zaha Hadid

Another Zaha Hadid gem that looks to mesmerize us with soft curves and defining structure.

7) The Cube at Dubai Sports City

When we see ambitious projects like The Palm and The Cube here, we can totally understand why Dubai went under the real-estate scare recently. Is proposed to be a five-star condo hotel, an eye catcher at the Dubai Sports City.

6) Seoul Commune 2026 by Mass Studies

When you want to cite an example of how to marry nature with tall buildings, please refer the Seoul Commune 2026. It’s the case where you can negate the concrete jungle effect with a little help from Mother Nature!

5) Expocenter Project by Zaha Hadid

Yes Zaha Hadid is a staple at YD, what can we say…phenomenal works do warrant appreciation and here’s another feather in the Hadid cap! The Expocenter Project offers Moscow city a new exposition venue, hotel, and residential development. Tall and long beautifully combined.

4) Millennium Tower World Business Center (WBCB) in Busan by Asymptote

Asymptote won the contract to build this tower based on its ground breaking design of three separate tapered towers rising out of a robust and powerful base. This one can be filed under sculptural beauty.

3) Trump International Hotel and Tower Dubai by Nakheel & Atkins

With Trump attached to any property you can expect sheer extravaganza and nothing else! Likewise this 60-storey building features two asymmetrical halves forming a gateway to the Palm Islands of Jumeirah. The stainless steel, glass and stone faded arch-like structure includes a 300-room five-star hotel, 400 residential apartments, boutique offices, retail, gym and spa, restaurants and of course, access to private beaches.

2) Gateway Building for Ras Al-Khaimah by Snohetta

Like an oasis in the hot arid desert, the Gateway Building for Ras Al-Khaimah greets you with the magic and charm of the Arabs. A gateway to the city Ras Al-Khaimah, expect a Congress Center, Exhibition Halls, Shopping Center, and elite hotels in this complex.

1) Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Centre by Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid Architects does it once again with the spectacular Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center. Fluid lines that transcend and meander through spaces to actually construct a Performing Arts Center! Its been described as a sculptural form that emerges from a linear intersection of pedestrian paths within the cultural district, gradually developing into a growing organism that sprouts a network of successive branches.

Designers: Toni Clariana, Magma Design & Enoc Armengol

At the entrance is the short term parking, and further in longer term for goin on into the buildings for bigger business. There, people can visit the Intercontinental hotel, 101m in height consisting of 28 floors with the presidential suite right up top. Residential houses in this complex take up 16 floors, 60m in height are contained by two apartments 200 and 220m2 in area on every floor. Up top are suites and lofts 400 m2 in area.

In the way these apartments/living spaces have been planned, the people living in them will not be limited by anything but the size they’ve been given. Ownership is blessed with the nearby office center, trade center, and business centers, all accessible at the first level in the parking area.

So. It’s possible that it’s basically an ark. Of course you’ve got to consider that in effect it’ll be just like a tiny city, owing to the fact that you’re gonna need imports and exports, but look, it’s amazing!

Total area: 41408 sq.m
Building area: 13850 sq.m
Author: 2-B-2 Architecture
Architects: Dmitry Burnashov, Andrey Bondarenko

Designer: 2-B-2 Architecture

The roof and positively undulating sides shine with polished white. The whites of the roof and sides make for huge frames for the giant windows. The center oculus helps airflow with it’s polished aluminim grill work. The pavilion soon will be equipped with LED lights for a constantly changing light show, every night!

The LED show will be “an experience that will carry the animation and drama of the day into the evening”, says designer Ben van Berkel.

This building project is made possible by a grant from Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Battery Convervancy as part of the NY400 celebration. Four hundred years of pal’ing around! Good job folks!

UNStudio is: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos with Wouter de Jonge, Christian Veddeler and Kyle Miller, Jan Schellhoff, Wesley Lanckriet, Arndt Willert

Designer: Ben van Berkel of UNStudio

Highlights of the Boa:

• It will be capable of housing 15,000 people distributed in hotels, offices, retail, museums, condominiums, and a new city hall.
• The massing of Boa takes its cue from the built environment of Boston proper and as such exudes a rigorous geometric format. That format is further emphasized by the scaling of the golden rectangle whose proportions are: 1: 1.618.
• Within this golden rectangle, Boa’s design alignments have a unique relationship with the Boston common.
  What appear to be random projections of massing are actually fashioned as a vertical construct of the “common.” These diagonals are held in check by a fixed border as if a rigid urban edge.
• Because of its scale, Boa is positioned perpendicular to the waterfront, preserving view corridors and general development massing.
• Sky gardens will be inserted into the three main towers every 30 floors. These sky gardens provide landscaped glass enclosed atria. In addition to their practical application of additional sunlit units, the “sky gardens” will create a sense of neighborhood presence and support a range of sustainable initiatives.
  Vertical commuting within Boa will be supported by a series of local and express transfer floors.
• Boa is geared to an all pedestrian environment. Accordingly, only select horizontally based areas will be fitted with moving walkways and/or electric train carriers.
• Boa is designed to expand the horizon of sustainability and will seek LEED certification.
• Boa will eliminate the need for cars within the urban structure to create a carbon neutral entity. Some of these elements are secured wind turbines, fresh water recovery and storage systems, passive glazing system, sky garden heating/cooling vents, gray water treatment, solar array banding panels, and harbor based water turbines.
• A massive park system platform (pedestrian only) will be more than double the current green space allocation for the waterfront of Boston.

Boa is a floating city within a city, and is technically feasible, with the method as follows:

The foundation of Boa is a series of poured concrete cells, which are combined to form a buoyant platform. The grid of these cells serves as the foundation for the rigid steel

Superstructure

• Though seemingly counter-intuitive, concrete is in fact a viable and durable floating solution. Oil rigs, barges, and even ships from WWII all employed this use of concrete to create buoyant objects. With new self sealing concrete, and other technologies, such structures can be monitored indefinitely.
• By proportional height, width, length, and weight, this buoyant platform is estimated to 90 feet, with an additional 15 feet of “buffer.” Assuming approximately 30-40 ft current depth in the ocean bed, a “retaining pool” would be sunk into the harbor, giving a waterline to base dimension of 105 feet. This becomes the fixed “pool” in which Boa floats as water seeks its own level.
• Boa is proposed as a three phase master plan. Though capable of program changes and opportunities, the project is geared to a ten year build-out. Because it is built in the harbor, it will have minimum impact on existing functions. Further, Boa is designed not to encroach on existing channels.

Designer: E. Kevin Schopfer, AIA, RIBA

Renderings: Tangram 3DS

And make it hecka sleek.

Visually clean and comfortable. The “esplanade”, aka the big open walking area along the front is framed by a wonderfully gigantic window. Fresh inside and out. Prefabricated concrete walls, raw to contrast the cleanliness of the rest of the space.

And why the name Ginkgo? In honor of the 30 million year old species of trees, the Ginkgo Biloba. To instill in this design a sense of longevity.

Designer: Tiago Miguel A.M.S. Rosado

Designers: Kooho Jung & Hayeon Kelly Choi

Designers: 10 Raisons Architects

It’s what’s called a “light well” – just fab, right? In this outdoor area is the out door pool and frangipani garden. And maybe you could throw a nice set of seats in there and have a little lemonade?

The TV and music appliances are all hidden. Try and find them. They’re in recesses in the wall revealed by the touch of a button or by the flip of the hand: they’re all behind the giant murals. (NOTE: I am not sure why the murals are of people like Mao Zedong – it seems weird to me.)

The entire second floor is one bedroom / study space and bathroom. The rear section of the house has a kitchen space, powder room (ohh lala!), maid’s room, and roof terrace.

Plus! Mezzanine space created to accommodate a guest bedroom in the attic. Jack roof included. Spiral staircase reaches all the way up there.

Architects: Ong & Ong Pte Ltd
Location: 55 Blair Road, Singapore
Interior Furnishing: YPS
House Area: 288 m2
Photographs: Derek Swalwell

NOTE if you’ve got any questions about further details, etc, just ask! I’m sure one of our thousand payed moneys on typewriters would be glad to accommodate you. OR maybe someone from the architecture team could help too. Whichever!

Design Team: Diego Molina, Maria Arango, and Camilo Pelaez