James Law’s Cybertecture Egg for Mumbai

Buildings are no longer about concrete, steel and glass… many incorporate cutting-edge technologies, sustainable materials and design principles based on forward-thinking models of social interaction and the ‘human experience’ of space.

This project is a Cybertecture office building that brings together Iconic Architecture, Environmental Design, Intelligent Systems, and New Engineering to create the most innovative building for the city of Mumbai and for India in the 21st Century. The building is comissioned by Vijay Associates (Wadhwa) Developers, a group known for delivering creations par excellence.

The concept for this building is inspired by planet earth. A sustainable ecosystem is derived from an integrated and seamless Cybertecture that evolves to provide the building’s inhabitants with the very best space to work in.

The form of the architecture is one that symbolizes with optimism about the future and of the 21st Century. The symbolic planet form is stretched to accommodate the available footprint and optimize space for 13 levels of premium offices. This Egg is further orientated and skewed at an angle to create both a strong visual language as well as to alleviate the solar gain of the building. By using this Egg shape, compared to a conventional building, this building has approximately 10-20% less surface area. The architecture is sleek and computer designed, with engineering that creates a building of extremely high quality and geometric sophistication.

This building will act like a  jewel for the new Central Business District of Mumbai, and a worthy neighbor to the esteemed neighboring buildings of the district. Within the building, an innovative structure derived from the skin of the egg creates up to 30m spans of column-less floors. Innovative Cybertecture Technologies within the buildings system empower people to communicate and work in a better way.

DETAILS
Location: India
District: Mumbai
Use: Office
Site Area: ~6676 sq.m.
Bldg. Area: ~4025 sq.m.
Gross Floor Area: ~32000 sq.m.
Bldg. Coverage Ratio: ~60%
Gross Floor Ratio: ~80%
Bldg. Scale: Stories above Ground : 14 Levels
Stories below Ground : 3 Levels
Structure: Reinforced Concrete and Steel Structure
Max. Height: ~62m
Landscape Area: ~2800 sq.m.
Parking Lot: ~450 Lots
Exterior Finish: Curtain Wall

>

Related articles by Zemanta

• ‘Spaceship’ school
• Melding Media Spawns Fragmented Communications Landscape

BMW GINA: Soft-bodied Concept Car

BMW has announced and is showcasing a new concept car at the BMW Museum. The car’s name, GINA, is an acronym that stands for “Geometry In ‘N’ Adaptations”. The acronym reflects the cars ability to alter the form and ‘character’ of its skin in ‘n’ number of ways.

Instead of metal or fiberglass, the body of the car is made of a flexible fabric that is stretched over a movable wire-mesh frame. The fabric is made of a polyurethane-coated Lycra. Prioritizing context and creativity over dogma, GINA challenges our notions of what automotive aesthetics and structures can and should be. The new body material results in lower total vehicular mass, improved fuel efficiency and production that requires less total energy inputs (less mining, metal refining, etc.)

Additionally, the skin material offers BMW designers, engineers and car owners new opportunities for individual expression. With simple mechanics, the shape of the car can be altered to add, for example, a rear spoiler or fins. Taking a cue from Philips, BMW could explore LED lighting embedded into the skin of the car. Car owners could personalize the colors and patterns of their cars exterior using energy efficient LED lighting. Video, text messages and photographs could replace the custom paint jobs and decals of the past.

Certainly the concept raises many questions. What about security (from theft) and safety (in collisions)? These question will certainly be pursued by BMW engineers and their partners. With such an inspiring degree of courages, vision and creativity I believe they are up to the challenge.

(Thanks to Callan Anderson for the tip!)

Liquid Architecture in the Desert

Dubai has once again demonstrated an unsurpassed capacity for engaging leading-edge, UltraFuturistic possibilities. This elegant, liquid, dune-shaped design by Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher is planned for an opera house and cultural center in the Seven Pearls district of the city. The development, including an opera house, performing arts school, playhouse, art gallery, and themed hotel, will be built on an island in Dubai Creek next to the mainland. A road will connect the center to Greater Dubai.

TrendHunter reports: “All the facilities will be grand: the opera house will have a seating capacity of 2,500, the playhouse will have a seating capacity of 800, the arts gallery is a full size exhibition facility with 5,000 m2 of exhibition space, while the hotel will have a 6 star setting.”

The form, emerging fluidly from the desert landscape, evokes a sense of timeless integrity and harmony. Howard Roark and Ayn Rand may even approve, presuming an honest use of construction materials. Zaha Hadid Architects describes the project as follows:

“The proposal houses all of the facilities within a single striking structure. The gentle winding form evokes images of mountains or sand dunes. Rising out of the ground, this form is both a part of the landscape yet very much a distinct element in the skyline. The surrounding landscape forms build up to the main building. These constitute open park spaces as well as ancillary functions such as the parking facilities and the monorail station, which are either tucked under or integrated into the landscape forms.”

UltraFuture Update

It has been far too long since my last post. There have been many exciting developments as we continue to grow our UltraFuture advisory board and prepare for the upcoming UltraFuture Expo in December.

Late last month I attended the “Keys to the Kingdom” Venture Capital Summit in Shanghai. This was a two-day conference hosted at the Shui On’s impressive Knowledge Innovation Community, (which deserves a blog entry of its own.) At the conference, over 200 successful Chinese and US venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and leaders from government and universities came together as a community to uncover new business opportunities and explore strategies for increasing cross-pacific partnerships and collaboration. The event was organized by the Bay Area Council and the Yangtze Council. UltraFuture advisors in attendance included Brad Warrington of Pico, Maggie Xiao of Red Herring Magazine and Skip Whitney, a founding member of the Bay Area Council China Committee and Principal with GVA Matthews. Read more