Cheongna City Tower in Incheon, South Korea

Image courtesy of GDS Architects; CG by RayusThe winner of the second phase of an international design competition held by Korean Land Company has been announced. The winner is GDS Architects (principle designer Charles I. Wee) with the design for the Cheongna City Tower (formerly known as Tower Infinity). The Fist Prize, as this phase of the competition is known, will allow GDS to move forward with the project through design development. The tower will be built in Incheon, South Korea, as part of a new town construction. The tower will serve as the gateway to North East Korea near Incheon International Airport.

Image courtesy of GDS Architects; CG by Rayus
The architects give this description of the tower in a recent post by Bustler: “Instead of symbolizing prominence as another of the world's ‘tallest and best’ towers, it sets itself apart by celebrating the global community rather than focusing on itself. The tower subtly demonstrates Korea's rising position in the world by establishing its most powerful presence through diminishing its presence. Korea will have a unique position of having the ‘best’ tower by having an ‘anti tower.’ The tower itself appears to disappear through a unique optical technology. Outdoor promenades connect to Cheongna's water canals and natural park setting. [An] Extensive podium program of retail, children activities, water park, cultural, sports, and ecological activities complete the visitor experience.

Image courtesy of GDS Architects; CG by RayusThe tower will top out at 450 meters, and will include the second highest observation deck in the world.
An earlier post by Bustler claims that the project will be the world's first "invisible tower." The building’s skin will employ optical cameras that capture the views from the opposite wall and project those images on each part of the skin, creating the illusion of an invisible tower.

Image courtesy of GDS Architects; CG by Rayus

Ellsworth Kelly Exhibits at LACMA and Matthew Marks

Ellsworth Kelly, Colors on a Grid, 1976Showing at LACMA from January 22 through April 22, Ellsworth Kelly: Prints and Paintings is the first retrospective examination of Kelly’s exceedingly prolific print practice since 1988. The exhibition includes over 100 prints, the majority from the collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation, and five paintings. The exhibition is organized thematically to explore Kelly’s mastery of key formal motifs: grids, contrast and curves.

The new Matthew Marks Gallery in West Hollywood also recently opened Ellsworth Kelly: Los Angeles, which includes six new two-panel paintings, all of which are being exhibited for the first time. Also on view are a group of 1952-54 collages, including Study for Black and White Panels, and the 1966 painting Black Over White. The facade of the newly constructed building also features an installation of a large Kelly sculpture, creating a striking example of minimalism in a city known more for colored glass. The new Matthew Marks Gallery was designed by Culver City-based architecture firm ZELLNERPLUS.

SOM Wins Competition for Greenland Group's Suzhou Center in Wujiang, China

 

The Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) announced that it has won an international competition to design the Greenland Group Suzhou Center, on Taihu Lake in Wujiang, China, reports Dezeen. The 358-meter supertall tower will top out at 75 stories and will contain a mixed-use program that could comprise a small city--with office, apartments, hotel, and retail uses on site. 

The most striking feature of the exterior design is the 30-story high operable window that spans the hotel and residential floors.

The building also features an atrium in the center of the building that separated the east and west side of the building and functioning as a ventilation channel. According to Luke Leung, SOM Director of Sustainable and MEP Engineering: “The design of the Greenland Group Suzhou Center utilizes an atrium as the ‘lung’ of the building to provide ventilation and will incorporate a series of high efficiency measures with the objective to achieve a 60% savings in energy consumption compared to a conventional US high rise and a 60% reduction in potable water use.”

The building’s expansive lobby is a result of the building a novel approach maximizing the efficiency of the building structure:  “[the] unique split-core configuration of the upper floors increases the efficiency of the building structure. By placing half of the building core program on each side of the lobby and interconnecting them with structural steel braces, the combined core becomes more effective than a typical center core system while also creating a dramatic tall lobby space within.”

SOM also recently announced the opening of a new design studio in Downtown Los Angeles as part of the firm's West Coast practice. Michael Mann, FAIA; Paul Danna, AIA; and Jose Luis Palacios, AIA will lead the new studio--all three come from AECOM but all three also worked for SOM in the past. (All renderings by SOM, via Dezeen)

FXFowle, CO Architects Announce Joint Venture Firm

The Renaissance Tower in Istanbul, rendering courtesy of FXFowleNYC-based architecture company FXFowle and Los Angeles-based CO Architects have announced a joint venture firm that will be known as CO/FXFowle. According to a press release on the new joint venture, the two firms will retain individual identities and operations while pursuing and completing projects together. CO/FXFowle is already one of three firms participating in a competition to design a new building for an educational institution in New York City, according to the same release, although further details about the competition are yet to be announced.

CO Architects has a practice focused mostly in academic, healthcare, and civic projects—including the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, the East Building of the Salk Institute in San Diego, and the Health Sciences Education Building on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. The HSEB was awarded with a citation in the Next LA category of the 2010 AIA| LA design awards.

FXFowle most recently made news as the designer of a 606-foot (44-story) skyscraper in Istanbul,  described as the “eastern gate to the city,” which will be known as the Renaissance Tower. Past projects for FXFowle include Eleven Times Square.

HSEB Arizona rendering courtesy CO Architects

Steven Ehrlich, 2011 Maybeck Award Winner

Zeidler Residence, Aptos, CA (Photograph by Matthew Millman)Steven Ehrlich, FAIA, founding principal of Ehrlich Architects, was awarded the 2011 Maybeck Award late last year by the AIA California Council (AIACC). The Maybeck Award (named in honor of the late Bernard Maybeck) was awarded for the first time in 1992 and has been awarded to such famous architects as Thom Mayne (2007), Frank Gehry (1997), Raymond Kappe (1995), and Joseph Esherick (1992). The Maybeck Award recognizes outstanding individual achievement in architectural design over an extended career.  Ehrlich is the 14th recipient of the Maybeck Award. Ehrlich Architects has won eight National AIA Design Awards and was named 2003 Firm of the Year by the AIACC, under Ehrlich’s leadership.

Ehrlich’s career has evolved a evolved a unique philosophy called Multicultural Modernism, based on Erlich’s conviction that architecture should respond to the specificities of site and local culture. For those interested in waht's next for Ehrlich Architects, recent commissions include: the John M. Roll Federal Courthouse in Yuma, Arizona; a LEED Platinum (pending) Residence Hall for Pomona College; the LEED Platinum (pending) University of California Irvine New Media Arts Center; and numerous single family homes in California, Texas and Dubai. The firm also won the international design competition for the new Federal National Council Parliament complex for the United Arab Emirates in early 2011.

700 Palms Residence, Venice, CA (Photograph by Julius Shulman & Juergen Nogai)

FNC New Parliament Building Complex, Abu Dhabi, UAE (Rendering by bioLINIA)

ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication (Photograph by Bill Timmerman)

675 West Kendall Street Biotech Research Laboratory, Cambridge, MA (Photograph by Ed Wonsek)