PHOENIX OBSERVATION TOWER USA – DESIGN BY BIG ARCHITECTURE
PHOENIX
OBSERVATION TOWER USA – DESIGN BY BIG ARCHITECTURE
Located
in downtown Phoenix, the 70,000 sf Observation Tower shall add a significant
structure to the Phoenix skyline from which to enjoy the city’s spectacular
views of the surrounding mountain ranges and dramatic sunsets. Phoenix-based
developer Novawest, commissioned the team to create a destination event to
provide tourists and citizens of Phoenix alike the chance to enjoy the unique
features of the Valley of the Sun.
“This
is the right place and the right time for a signature project for downtown Phoenix
and we knew the design needed to be something extraordinary. BIG has delivered
something exceptional, blending form and function in a way that will change the
local skyline forever and will give visitors a once-in-a-lifetime
experience.” Brian Stowell, Novawest.
The
future observation tower is conceived as a tall core of reinforced concrete
with an open-air spiral sphere at its top, resembling a metaphorical pin firmly
marking a location on a map. The spiraling sphere contains flexible exhibition,
retail and recreational spaces which are accessed via three glass elevators
that connect the base with the summit and offer panoramic views of the city and
the tower’s ,programs as visitors ascend or descend.
Walking
downwards from the top through a continuous spiral promenade, the visitors of
the observation tower experience all of the building’s programs in a constant
motion, while enjoying dynamic 360 degree views of the city of Phoenix and the
Arizonian landscape.
“Like
the monsoons, the haboobs and the mountains of the surrounding Arizonian
landscape, the Pin becomes a point of reference and a mechanism to set the
landscape in motion through the movement of the spectator. Like the Guggenheim
museum of New York offers visitors a unique art experience descending around
its central void, the motion at the Pin is turned inside-out allowing visitors
to contemplate the surrounding city and landscape of Phoenix. Like a heavenly
body hovering above the city the Pin will allow visitors to descend from pole
to pole in a dynamic three dimensional experience seemingly suspended in
midair.“
Bjarke
Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.
The
spiral layout combines the different programmatic elements and the circulation
into a continuous dynamic twirling space which is proportioned according to the
movement of the visitors, producing a unique viewing experience of the
surroundings. Instead of a constant width, the spiraling promenade starts from
zero at the point of arrival, reaches its maximum width at the middle, and
shrinks back to zero at the point of departure.
Separation
between the programmatic elements within the sphere happens not through
physical vertical barrier-walls, but softly through the slope and the height
difference to preserve a total continuity and create a flexible space for
exhibitions and events.
Once
the visitors reach the middle of the sphere, they can choose to either conclude
their journey by taking the elevator back to the ground, or continue to the
restaurant levels at the lower hemisphere. The motion resembles a journey
through the center of a planet, and a travel from the north to the south pole.
The
base of the tower will serve as a public plaza offering shade, water features
and a small amount of retail together with a subterranean queuing area. The
tower will serve as a working model of sustainable energy practices,
incorporating a blend of solar and other technologies.
http://www.archdaily.com/310374/phoenix-observation-tower-big/
You may
visit Bjarke Ingels’s projects of Kistefos Museum and Lego Visiter Center in my
blog to click below links.
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2015/10/kistefos-museum-design-by-bjarke-ingels.html
BIG IDEAS
Information Driven Design
BIG’s design process always starts by identifying the
key criteria of a project: What is the biggest problem – what is the greatest
potential? Rather than arbitrary aesthetic or stylistic prejudice, all
decisions are based on project specific information - Information Driven
Design.
Our effort as architects is sandwiched in the window
of opportunity between analysis and implementation. And our influence happens
in the translation from information to material. In an attempt to increase our
sphere of influence on our built environment, we have established BIG IDEAS.
BIG IDEAS is an internal technology driven special
projects unit, expanding the traditional scope of the architect into the realm
of information and material. BIG IDEAS explores new intellectual territory in
both the digital and material realm through three specific areas.
As daylight analysis directly influences the building
geometry and as studies of thermal exposure, conditions the building envelope,
we are increasingly relying on technical simulations that would traditionally
be part of the engineering scope. To speed up the feedback loop between design
and analysis, between trial and error, we have internalized the environmental
analysis into our own office. Daylight, sunshine, thermal exposure, airflow,
turbulence, wind, space syntax and traffic flow are technical simulations we
now control to enable ourselves to make designs that are literally shaped by
the forces that surround them. We still collaborate with the best technical
experts to tap into the cutting edge at the horizon of the profession, but we
have found it necessary to educate ourselves to wield the digital tools of
design. Not just building information management or digitally aided design but
also environmental simulation must become part of our architectural tool kit.
Our line of investigations from the Shenzhen Energy Headquarters to the Hanwha PV Plant to the Cité du Corps Humain, has provided us with a parametric design engine that allows us to tailor building envelopes and façade geometries to respond to different climate conditions across the globe. Our expanded parametric design tools are helping us start to formulate a vernacular architecture 2.0 through engineering without engines.
Our line of investigations from the Shenzhen Energy Headquarters to the Hanwha PV Plant to the Cité du Corps Humain, has provided us with a parametric design engine that allows us to tailor building envelopes and façade geometries to respond to different climate conditions across the globe. Our expanded parametric design tools are helping us start to formulate a vernacular architecture 2.0 through engineering without engines.
PRODUCT DESIGN
On the other end of the spectrum where the design
intelligence gets manifested into the material world, we have increasingly
encountered that our imagination was limited to what was already on the
shelves. Through our collaboration as part of KiBiSi –
our design partnership with Kilo
Design and Skibsted
Ideation – we have explored personal technology, urban mobility
and furniture. With BIG IDEAS we feel we can close the gap and really make our
interest in product design a literal extension of our efforts in architecture.
SPECIAL PROJECT
Rather than accepting the inhibitions from the
architectural scope starting too late and leaving too early – missing out on
both research and production – with BIG IDEAS were are starting a new journey
to explore new intellectual territory in both the digital and material realm.
In collaboration with Danish Technical University and Raket Madsen BIG IDEAS resurrected the idea of the giant smoke rings for the Copenhagen Power plant.
In collaboration with Danish Technical University and Raket Madsen BIG IDEAS resurrected the idea of the giant smoke rings for the Copenhagen Power plant.
http://www.big.dk/#big-ideas
BIG is led by partners – Bjarke Ingels, Andreas Klok Pedersen, Finn
Nørkjær, David Zahle, Jakob Lange, Thomas Christoffersen and Managing Partners,
Sheela Maini Søgaard and Kai-Uwe Bergmann.
BIG is a Copenhagen and New York based group of architects,
designers, builders and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture,
urbanism, research and development. The office is currently involved in a large
number of projects throughout Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East.
BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life
constantly evolves and changes. Not least due to the influence from
multicultural exchange, global economical flows and communication technologies
that all together require new ways of architectural and urban organization. We
believe that in order to deal with today’s challenges, architecture can
profitably move into a field that has been largely unexplored. A pragmatic
utopian architecture that steers clear of the petrifying pragmatism of boring
boxes and the naïve utopian ideas of digital formalism.
In our projects we test the effects of size and the balance of programmatic
mixtures on the triple bottom line of the social, economic and ecological
outcome. Like a form of programmatic alchemy we create architecture by mixing
conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, parking and
shopping. By hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, we
architects once again find the freedom to change the surface of our planet, to
better fit contemporary life forms. In all our actions we try to move the focus
from the small details to the BIG picture.
BJARKE INGELS
Bjarke Ingels started BIG Bjarke Ingels Group in
2005 after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 and working at OMA in Rotterdam.
Through a series of award-winning design projects and buildings, Bjarke has
developed a reputation for designing buildings that are as programmatically and
technically innovative as they are cost and resource conscious. Bjarke has
received numerous awards and honors, including the Danish Crown Prince’s
Culture Prize in 2011, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004, and the
ULI Award for Excellence in 2009. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal awarded
Bjarke the Architectural Innovator of the Year Award. In 2012, the American
Institute of Architects granted the 8 House its Honor Award, calling it “a
complex and exemplary project of a new typology.”
Alongside
his architectural practice, Bjarke taught at Harvard University, Yale
University, Columbia University, and Rice University and is an honorary
professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.
He is a frequent public speaker and has spoken in venues such as TED, WIRED,
AMCHAM, 10 Downing Street, and the World Economic Forum.
EDUCATION
The Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture I Graduation 1999
I DK
ETSAB I School of Architecture of Barcelona I ES
