Work begins on architects’ cracked Denver residential tower
globalconstructionreview.com
globalconstructionreview.com
"The “crack” in the façade, which covers 10 storeys, is a reference to Colorado’s dramatic mountain scenery." So it's designed to look like it has this crazy crack in it. I wonder what that'll look like in real life, the renders are... interesting.
I figured this was another building that's in danger of falling like San Francisco’s slowly cracking up Millennium Tower.
https://www.archdaily.com/778003/the-intersection-of-art-and...
> … An order was written up and turned into one of the service desks and sent to the warehouse in a plastic tube "shot" through a pneumatic line. The tube was opened by an order picker who read the catalog numbers on the order slip which told the picker where the merchandise was located in the warehouse. It was picked, the slip was attached to the product, it was sent down a roller belt where a carbon copy of the order slip was given to a cashier who paiged the shopper to the register. The transaction was completed and the customer took the receipt to the pick up area and received their product when they were ready to leave the store. Seems like alot of work, but the entire process was done in less than five minutes time. …
[1] https://www.core77.com/posts/81735/BnHs-Innovative-Overhead-...
There was a Best right down the street and it was my favorite store as a kid to explore, but it was in a generic strip mall. Spent a lot of time there playing the Sega Genesis display.
https://www.archdaily.com/346374/can-we-please-stop-drawing-...
https://99percentinvisible.org/article/renderings-vs-reality...
Probably has something to do with being a rainy tropical island, of course.
That being said, they could always use massive lights to keep the trees alive...
Denver averages 60 inches per year (~150 cm).
https://global.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/download/2099-a-ne...
The weight of the soil and water isn't negligible, but it's not that bad. Most plants will grow happily in a tiny fraction of their root volume in nature, as long as precise irrigation delivers water (or fertilizer solution) just as it's needed. The practical root volume is probably chosen mostly based on the longest expected fault in the irrigation system.
The tiny root system also provides a very weak attachment to the building. Bosco Verticale strapped each tree to a vertical steel cable, plus various additional restraints.
That being said, it will be interesting to see how well the greenery in the "crack" will hold up to the extremely dry climate, as well as the extreme temperature swings in the area. I'm assuming they will use native species, which are amazingly hardy. Ponderosa pines and other tree species (Colorado Blue Spruce, etc) are known world-wide in the bonsai community for their extreme hardiness. I can drive 5 minutes west from my house and find excellent yamadori without walking more than 5 minutes from where I parked my car. Based on my experience with the extreme winds we get, especially on exposed, elevated building facades, I don't think anything other than native species will survive.
I'm really looking forward to seeing this, although it's not clear I'll be able to get into the building, lol.
The big reason green roofs are not very common is because dirt, particularly wet dirt, gets really heavy, as do any sizeable plants.
Is it simply a cost issue? Everyone is just trying to maximize "livable area" at the expense of not making the structure itself more livable?
I had some ideas in similar thrust to yours, I think it's worth following up on.
One of the cooler things you could do is space the floor plates so that you give people berths in a building. They then install walls and possibly a subfloor and run utilities. If they want to leave the space open they can, if they want to cut it up into rooms they can.
Trees are heavy. Assuming a fairly mature tree with a 10-inch diameter trunk and around 20 feet of height, the wood alone weighs around 800 pounds, and that's before you consider the soil that the tree sits in (100 lbs per cubic foot, so at least a ton for the whole planter) or the water that it needs (100 gallons per week ~800 pounds)
Not sure what the value to residents in shaded mid-floor outdoor space, vs having sun-filled decks in places that make structural sense. Mid floor parks are just an aesthetic embellishment for people outside the building.
I wonder if they do worst case renderings too or if they just focus entirely on their art project.
https://www.brandveiligmetstaal.nl/upload/Image/projecten/pr...
cubes are not the strongest form (rhombic dodecahedrons are better) but it’s not the weakest form either, you start playing with acute and obtuse angles you might come up with something fragile. best to stick with right angles.
I turn my nose up at rectangular buildings as much as the next guy (my house, at least, is an octagon) but we’ve become very skilled at building rectangles that don’t leak / collapse.
What's it going to look it in 10/20 years. I feel the "inspired by nature" bit is non-sense. There's better ways of "surrounding yourself by nature" that is more functional and not as gimmicky.
A building like this is a shtick. "Cool" for about 5 minutes. It will not age gracefully. The people behind this project confuse architecture with sculpture.
Basically, anything before modernism, before WW1 is generally good. Or really, anything before cars. The rise of car culture and the decline of architecture are directly correlated.
I personally had a hard time articulating why I found contemporary architecture so revolting, it was just a feeling. Then I found videos by Leon Krier (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFiYL8AvvnY), or Nathan Lewis's blog series on the topic (https://newworldeconomics.com/category/traditional-city-post...), and everything suddenly just clicked.
It's a good thing there's more than one building in the world. Everyone should be able to live, work, and design spaces they like, within the local scale (so no 80 floor highrises next to houses if they don't want it, but props to the houses if they do want the highrise). That means you might end up with a glass box next to a pre-WW1 stone box. That's a good thing -- there's no reason a long-passed generation should have the final say in architecture at the expense of the present.
When the only assessment we can make about a creative work, e.g. a building (but fine arts just as well), is that it looks "cool", or "interesting", or "contemporary", or "futuristic", what that really means is that we are hesitant to say it looks "beautiful", "attractive", "timeless". Strong assessments like the latter are axiomatic and require a confidence in your aesthetic sensibilities. That these sensibilities are globally shared, that you are empathetic enough to step outside of your own head and look at it as an older person, as a child, as somebody who won't be born until a century from now.
Modern spectacle architecture (like that Bangkok tower) today does not inspire that confidence. It defies being called beautiful, because innately we experience it as not that. It might look "cool", or futuristic, but that's about it. A building like that is infantile branding, it looks like a tetris-game because the kind of people who design and finance this are childish, confusing technological prowess with worth and beauty.
Once upon a time, that all-glass skyscraper was "cool" and stood out, even among the other skyscrapers. Now, we don't blink twice at such towers being stood up.
My point being that architecture as a field and as an art form both progress forward in society. Right now buildings like the MahaNakhon stand out. In the future, they may just be the first instances of the next "timeless" trend.
Also, there's plenty of beauty to find in the MahaNakhon, especially at night... And I'll talk for myself in saying that I find beauty in the execution of technological prowess. The same way I see beauty in well-laid masonry or tile design. They're just using different material.