Construction is shortly to get underway on British firm, Atkins, competition winning proposal for a new development in the Binhai New area of the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
Nicknamed "the pile of boxes" by the local Chinese population, the TEDA project was a competition narrowed down with six finalists from leading architecture companies including Chicago firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Atkins, who worked alongside Shenzen based Chinese architect KY Cheung, came up with a Koolhaas-esque winning design that consists of three towers, each made up of a series of blocks of eight floors that are stacked on top of each other just like the nickname.
Subtly rotating from the one directly below it should add a slightly chaotic look to the traditional glass slab. They will offer a mixture of office, residential, retail plus a five star hotel plus landscaping inbetween.
There will also be sky-gardens spiralling up one corner of each section of the tower of the towers animating the buildings with human activity. During the day they will prove highly visible due to the transparent nature of the cladding and almost beacon-like at night thanks to illumination within.
The buildings will be clad in glass curtain walling and are crowned with mesh-like blocks that house a partly exposed core and wind turbines providing green electricity. Taking the environmental element further the designs also use a groundwater based heating/cooling system.
The tallest tower will be 80 floors and 356 metres in height whilst the shorter blocks will be 200 metres and 100 metres tall respectively. Currently, the tallest skyscraper in Tianjin is only 238 metres high although the local TV tower reaches 415 metres.
Costing 4 billion yuan it is expected to be completed in 2009 - typically quick fashion for a building of such size in a country that doesn't hang around in their current great leap forward for modernisation.
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/news.php?ref=827
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