Designed by Goettsch Partners, the Sowwah Square project now competes as one of four regional winners for 2013 Best Tall Building Worldwide.

We are very pleased to see Sowwah Square recognized at such a high international level. The CTBUH has done a great job to recognize a wide range of achievements in tall buildings that can provide lessons worldwide. We are humbled to have one of our projects associated with this distinguished group.

James Goettsch, FAIA, chairman and CEO of GP

© Mubadala Real Estate & Infrastructure

© Mubadala Real Estate & Infrastructure

© Lester Ali

© Lester Ali

© Lester Ali

© Mubadala Real Estate & Infrastructure

+ Description from Goettsch Partners

The five-building Sowwah Square complex in Abu Dhabi has won the 2013 Best Tall Building Award for the Middle East & Africa region, as conferred by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). The project now competes as one of four regional winners for the 2013 Best Tall Building Worldwide, to be awarded in November. Designed by architecture firm Goettsch Partners (GP) and developed by Mubadala Real Estate & Infrastructure, Sowwah Square is located on Al Maryah Island and defines the new downtown anchor for Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, the emirate's long-term urban framework plan.

Comprising four office towers and the headquarters building for the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, the complex strives to create a signature image for downtown while also promoting a public presence and emphasizing sustainability. The initial building program heights were relatively modest, and their combined footprint occupied a majority of the site. In order to provide a more distinguished skyline profile and relieve the streetscape, the buildings were raised 27 meters. The resulting design frames slender pairs of 31- and 37-story towers around a stock exchange building that sits on distinctive piers. At plaza level, the buildings sparingly touch the site, and indoor and outdoor spaces seamlessly blend to create a large, landscaped, pedestrian-friendly environment. In addition, the complex integrates a two-level, 33,000-square-meter high-end shopping center and structured parking for 5,000 cars. The project emphasized a sustainable design approach throughout. Select initiatives include ventilated, double-skin facades; active and passive solar shading; and active lighting controls that balance natural and artificial light. As a result, the complex became the first in Abu Dhabi to be pre-certified LEED-CS Gold.

"We are very pleased to see Sowwah Square recognized at such a high international level," said James Goettsch, FAIA, chairman and CEO of GP. "The CTBUH has done a great job to recognize a wide range of achievements in tall buildings that can provide lessons worldwide. We are humbled to have one of our projects associated with this distinguished group."

The CTBUH Best Tall Building Awards are an independent review of new projects, judged by a panel of industry executives. Projects are recognized for making an extraordinary contribution to the advancement of tall buildings and the urban environment, and for achieving sustainability at the broadest level. Regional winners are selected in four categories: Americas, Asia & Australasia, Europe, and Middle East & Africa. An overall winner for the 2013 Best Tall Building Worldwide will be named at the CTBUH 12th Annual Awards Ceremony and Dinner, held at the Illinois Institute of Technology, November 7, in the iconic Crown Hall, designed by famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

BIG unveils its design for the new Telus Sky Landmark Tower in Galgary, Canada.

Downtown Calgary has developed as a typical North American city center with a cluster of corporate towers surrounded by a periphery of low density surburban homes. The Telus Sky is an attempt to create a lively mixture of living and working at the intersection of lightrail and arterial roads in the heart of the center, to help create a more varied and walkable city center for Calgary.

Bjarke Ingels, BIG founder

courtesy BIG

courtesy BIG

courtesy BIG

courtesy BIG

courtesy BIG

+ Architect’s statement from BIG

Just in time for the Calgary Stampede, BIG presented its design for a new architectural landmark for one of Canada’s leading telecommunication companies TELUS in Calgary's downtown core. The 750,000 square foot tower creates a dynamic community by blending urban living and working seamlessly.

Located at 7th Avenue block, BIG's design for the mixed-use tower will reshape the area into one of the most technologically innovative and environmentally-friendly sites in North America. In BIG's design the program -incorporating office, residential and retail space- accommodates the transformation from working to living as the tower takes off from the ground to reach the sky.

Bjarke Ingels explains: "Downtown Calgary has developed as a typical North American city center with a cluster of corporate towers surrounded by a periphery of low density surburban homes. The Telus Sky is an attempt to create a lively mixture of living and working at the intersection of lightrail and arterial roads in the heart of the center, to help create a more varied and walkable city center for Calgary."

The large floor plates for workplaces recede to achieve the slender dimensions of residential floor depths. The texture of the façade in a similar fashion evolves from a smooth glass façade enclosing the work space to a 3 dimensional composition of apartments and balconies. The resultant silhouette expresses the unification of the two programs in a single gesture – in rational straight lines composed to form a feminine figure.

"The TELUS team is tremendously proud of our longstanding history in Alberta and thrilled to announce the development of TELUS Sky, which will stand as a lasting symbol of our passionate commitment to the Calgary community, our customers, our team members and to the province of Alberta," said Darren Entwistle, TELUS President and CEO. "Our new development is a powerful contribution to Calgary's economic strength, culture and social vitality. Notably, TELUS Sky will inject millions of dollars into the community and create hundreds of local jobs while showcasing TELUS’ advanced communications technologies and environmental innovation in a way never before seen in Calgary. Moreover, TELUS Sky will enrich the city's vibrant arts culture by offering inspiring public spaces that will exhibit works of art by local artists, thus creating a truly amazing destination for our team members, the community and indeed all Albertans."

TELUS Sky, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2017, will be a LEED Platinum signature development. For this project BIG will collaborate with the Canadian architecture firm Dialog, along with partners developer Westbank Corp with whom BIG is already collaborating upon the Beach & Howe Tower in Vancouver and real estate investment trust Allied Properties.

+ BIG Team Credit List:

Creative Director: Bjarke Ingels, Partner-in-charge: Thomas Christoffersen
Project Leader: Iannis Kandyliaris, Project manager: Chris White, Team: Carolien Schippers, Choonghyo Lee, Maya Shopova, Brian Rome, Dennis Harvey, Ivy Hume, Manon Gicquel, Michael Zhang, Barbora Srpkova, Isshin Morimoto, Ho Kyung Lee, David Spittler

+ All images and drawings courtesy BIG

LAVA director Chris Bosse’s CLOUD CITY is in CUSP EXHIBITION AT CASULA POWERHOUSE, SYDNEY UNTIL 1 SEPTEMBER 2013. CUSP is an exhibition exploring the potential of design in our lives, 12 Australian designers  ‘generate ideas that could change the way we inhabit the world.’

The future is not about what buildings look like, but how they perform, interact and how they connect with each other. Think of a coral reef, where thousands of species thrive in coexistence of each other and the elements, air, water and sun. The reef is like the city of the future.

Chris Bosse of LAVA

courtesy LAVA, photo by Brett Boardman

courtesy LAVA, photo by Brett Boardman

courtesy LAVA, photo by Brett Boardman

courtesy LAVA, photo by Brett Boardman

+ Project statement from LAVA

Chris Bosse is one of twelve Australian designers exhibiting in CUSP: Designing into the Next Decade at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney, 6 July 1 September 2013 and then travelling Australiawide.

Exploring the potential of design in our lives, the 'CUSP designers generate ideas that could change the way we inhabit the world'.

Bosse, director of LAVA, says: 'a cusp is a breakthrough, a breaking with the past. Sometimes you have to break with the past to be ready for the future. What is the society we live in today and how should we respond? What is architecture in the 21st century?'

Cloud City: An urban ecosystem is a sculptural rendition of Bosse's vision of a future city ? a soaring, stretched membrane-cloud anchored to the 'city' on the gallery floor by highrise towers that have been re-skinned and revitalised.

'The future is not about what buildings look like, but how they perform, interact and how they connect with each other. Think of a coral reef, where thousands of species thrive in coexistence of each other and the elements, air, water and sun. The reef is like the city of the future.'

'Our installation asks: can cities of the future be organisms that respond and adapt to their environment?'

The networked city is a connected, inter-dependent organism where buildings are not singular structural entities (designed, serviced and accessed as isolated units), but part of large networked system.

A distributed cloud communicates, shares smart building technology and joint infrastructure, connectivity and data transfer allowing transport, housing and urban infrastructure to adapt in response.

Bosse replaces outdated passive building facades of the skyscraper with high performance smart translucent cocoons that create their own microclimate, generate energy, collect rainwater and improve the distribution of natural daylight. By reskinning these inefficient buildings the past is transformed into 'super-abled' buildings.

Other Australian designers featured in CUSP are George Khut, Anupama Kundoo, Healthabitat, Leah Heiss, MATERIALBYPRODUCT, Greg More, Florian Mueller, Stephen Mushin, Alison Page, Super Critical Mass, and Mari Velonaki.

Following the Casula show the CUSP exhibition visits Launceston, Adelaide, Dubbo, Port Macquarie, Brisbane and Mornington Peninsula from 2013-2015.

+ All images courtesy LAVA \ photo by Brett Boardman

3XN wins university building in Stuttgart, Germany. 3XN's vision to create an open, inspiring and social learning environment for a new technical faculty wins competition with 25 entries.

Transparency and communication have been key concepts… which is designed as a “vertical campus” to support the university’s goals of self-awareness, innovation, functionality and profitability.

3XN

courtesy 3XN

courtesy 3XN

courtesy 3XN

courtesy 3XN

courtesy 3XN

courtesy 3XN

+ Project description from 3XN

It is the ambition that the new building for the technical faculty of the German university Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (DHBW) is to be a lighthouse project for academic learning – an innovative and productive learning environment in which students, teachers and industry representatives can meet.

Transparency and communication have been key concepts in 3XN’s winning project, which is designed as a “vertical campus” to support the university’s goals of self-awareness, innovation, functionality and profitability. The future-oriented faculty building symbiotically gathers a number of institutions that until now have been scattered around Stuttgart.

The building is located close to Stuttgart city centre in an area characterized by a variety of universities and educational institutions, residential buildings and green spaces, giving potential for the building to support a rich and active urban life. The building enhances this potential by leaving room for new urban spaces in the form of three squares, which e.g. will allow the university café to have an outdoor dining area.

The pentagonal building has an open and transparent facade divided into a number of horizontal bands, which have been split thus marking the main entrances and producing cantilevers and both open and covered terrace. This feature gives the building identity and a sculptural expression.

The central atrium in the building's core has a number of functions: it is a social meeting place, which also ease orientation and wayfinding for the building's users and visitors. Along with the spiral staircase that goes all the way to the top floor, the atrium further creates vertical communication between all levels and functions.

An important element for social interaction is the “bridge” – a connecting element for all three main entrances, which because of its central location also can be used as a general passage.

The room division of the individual floors is designed in order to ensure that each room has as many applications as possible and can be used across the various disciplines being taught. Several spaces facing the atrium have been left open to ensure informal and social meeting spaces.

+ Project facts

Address: Hegelstraße, 70174 Stuttgart, Germany
Client: The Federal State of Baden-Württemberg, Vermögen und Bau, Amt Schwäbisch Gmünd
Function: University building
Gross Floor Area: 25,000 m2 / Net floor Area: 15,000 m2
Capacity: 2,500 students
Budget: 57,000,000€

+ All images and drawings courtesy 3XN