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MARCH 2024
DEPARTMENTS
16 EDITOR’S LETTER
19 HOUSE OF THE MONTH: Clay House,
Tokyo ATELIER TSUYOSHI TANE ARCHITECTS
By Naomi Pollock, FAIA
25 LANDSCAPE: Promenade Samuel-de
Champlain, Quebec City DAOUST
LESTAGE LIZOTTE STECKER
By Matt Hickman
29 TRIBUTE: Marsha Maytum
(1954–2024) By Joann Gonchar, FAIA
31 PRODUCTS: Glass & Glazing
35 CASE STUDY: Art Nouveau–Inspired
Glazing Revamps a New York Lobby
By Matthew Marani
54 BOOKS: Atrium, by Charles Rice
Reviewed by Leopoldo Villardi
57 GUESS THE ARCHITECT
59 NEWS: Enthusiasm for Building Tall
Endures By Joann Gonchar, FAIA
60 COMMENTARY: Skyscrapers of the
Early 20th Century By Suzanne Stephens
69 FORUM: New Frontiers By Pansy Schulman
BUILDING TYPE STUDY 1,062
TALL BUILDINGS
75 Introduction
76 One Za’abeel, Dubai NIKKEN SEKKEI
By Leopoldo Villardi
82 8 Bishopsgate, London
WILKINSONEYRE By Joann Gonchar, FAIA
88 425 Park Avenue, New York
FOSTER + PARTNERS By Clifford A. Pearson
94 Toranomon Hills Station Tower,
Tokyo OMA By Josephine Minutillo
LIGHTING
100 Firmament at Toranomon Hills
Station Tower, Tokyo LEO VILLAREAL
By Josephine Minutillo
102 Mori JP Tower, Tokyo
L’OBSERVATOIRE INTERNATIONAL
By Leopoldo Villardi
104 Hangzhou Century Tower, China
TORYO INTERNATIONAL LIGHTING
DESIGN CENTER By Matthew Marani
106 Products
FIRST LOOK
39 La Flor at Portal Bosque, La Barra,
Uruguay LIVNI+ & DIEGO ARRAIGADA
ARQUITECTOS By A. Krista Sykes
44 Wisdome at Tekniska Museet,
Stockholm ELDING OSCARSON
By Andrew Ayers
50 PILARES Quetzalcóatl, Mexico City
DELLEKAMP ARQUITECTOS By Michael Snyder
PROJECTS
109 Zaishui Art Museum, Rizhao,
China JUNYA.ISHIGAMI+ASSOCIATES
By Naomi Pollock, FAIA
114 Promenade & Coffee and Tree Café,
Rizhao, China SELGASCANO
By Clifford A. Pearson
129 Dates & Events
132 SNAPSHOT: Atlantis The Royal, Dubai
KOHN PEDERSEN FOX By Leopoldo Villardi
COVER: ONE ZA’ABEEL, DUBAI, BY NIKKEN SEKKEI. PHOTO ©
HUFTON + CROW.
THIS PAGE: 8 BISHOPSGATE, LONDON, BY WILKINSONEYRE.
PHOTO © DIRK LINDER.
Expanded coverage at architecturalrecord.com.
11
 LEARN & EARN
Earn your continuing education credits free online at ce.architecturalrecord.com*
CONTINUING EDUCATION

IN THIS ISSUE

Photo by William Home; courtesy of Jones Architecture

Photo courtesy of Low Hammond Rowe Architects

p119 p125

Facades–The Ultimate Skin Care A Lesson in Civics

Sponsored by Inpro and Vectorworks Sponsored by Think Wood
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12 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
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 From the EDITOR

Rise and Shine

IT SEEMS counterintuitive to do an issue on tall buildings when so
many tall buildings in cities across the U.S. are currently plagued with
too much empty office space (despite a recent leasing uptick, particu-
larly in New York). Why would we need more of them? And those
pencil towers for luxury residences that make up places like Billionaires’
Row at the southern end of Central Park in Manhattan need to be seen
as a special case, functioning more as bank vaults than apartments.
They mostly sit empty as well. Who wants more of those?
But, as Norman Foster said in January at the launch of a master’s
program his institute has created with the Universidad Autónoma de
Madrid, “Cities really are our future. By 2050, 90 percent of the global
population will be living in cities.” And if Norman Foster said it, it

PHOTOGRAPHY: © JILLIAN NELSON

must be true. The architect’s talking skills were part of what con-
vinced David Levinson, chairman and CEO of L&L Holdings, to
hand over a reported billion-dollar commission for a 47-story office
tower on Manhattan’s Park Avenue to Lord Foster of Thames Bank.
In our current situation, it is these kinds of super-high-end office
buildings that are faring better than the shorter, dumpier ones, and
are the structures that continue to get built (including another Foster
tower at 270 Park Avenue for JPMorgan Chase—it being responsible
for the disruption of the view from record’s office that I grumbled
about in last month’s letter). According to an August 2023 Moody’s Analytics report, at the national
level, high-floor office buildings that contain 20 or more floors consistently had lower vacancy rates
than low (five floors or fewer) or medium-size (six to 20 floors) buildings.
Since design of this building type goes on, we take a look at Foster’s tower for L&L in this issue,
as well as new skyscrapers in London (by WilkinsonEyre), Tokyo (by OMA New York), and Dubai
(by Japanese firm Nikken Sekkei, featured on the cover). We also examine lighting schemes for
these and other behemoths, which range from subtle to over-the-top to a work of art (literally, by
artist Leo Villareal).
And, yes, the competition to build the tallest continues. We give an update on the just-completed
Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, the second-tallest building in the world after Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
And we offer the latest word on the Jeddah Tower—formerly known as the Kingdom Tower—in
Saudi Arabia. This future “tallest in the world” structure, which is expected to surpass the Burj
Khalifa by at least 560 feet, recently restarted after a long lull, with contractors submitting bids to
complete its construction.
But if we really are concerned with the future of our cities, the nature of the tall building will
have to change. Imagine a skyscraper that is not a symbol of wealth or kingdom, that contains not
offices for hedge fund honchos or hardly occupied second, third, or fourth residences for multimil-
lionaires, but real housing. In our future cities, we need dignified towers, not cookie-cutter blocks
for that 90 percent who are not the 1 percent.

Josephine Minutillo, Editor in Chief

16 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
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 HOUSE of the Month
A HOUSE TAILOR-MADE FOR THE FOUNDER OF AN APPAREL BRAND PUTS JAPANESE CRAFT IN THE LIMELIGHT. BY NAOMI POLLOCK, FAIA
A HOME FOR ONE in the heart of
Tokyo, Clay House embodies Japanese craft
at its best. The latest from the Paris-based
Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane, the build-
ing blends quietly with its surroundings, a
densely built residential area mainly com-
PHOTOGRAPHY: © TOMOYUKI KUSUNOSE
posed of two-story single-family houses. But
behind its understated stucco wrapping is a
rich material palette and a treasure trove of
exquisite details—signatures of Tane’s archi-
tecture. Before establishing his own practice
in 2017, Tane collaborated with Dan Dorell
and Lina Ghotmeh as DGT Architects.
Subsequently, he has completed a number of
houses, and was selected to design the much-
anticipated building for Tokyo’s Imperial
Hotel, which will finish in 2036.
Occupying a corner site, the Clay House
has a squarish plan with discrete open octago-
nal volumes in its four corners, each one desig-
nated for a specific function. “This liberates
the middle of the house for social activity,”
explains Tane. The ground floor centers on
the combined living/dining/kitchen area, with
the garage, entry foyer, stair, and storage plus
powder room occupying the octagons. A cozy,
shadowy place oriented around a hearth, this
lower level is partly embedded in the ground.
By contrast, the upper floor is a soaring, airy
space where the walls bend inward to become
Sunlight grazes the stucco walls of Clay
House’s upper-level studio.
angled ceiling planes culminating in a skylight
19 feet overhead. Here, the owner has a multi-
purpose studio, which is surrounded by vol-
umes containing the stair, bedroom, dressing
room, and guest room (with the bathroom in
between).
Throughout the wood-frame house, sharp
edges and joint lines are absent. “This was one
of the great challenges,” says Tane. “But it was
a great opportunity to learn about the amazing
power of handwork.” Sculpted like clay (hence
the house’s name) by a skilled mason and
19
 HOUSE of the Month

seasoned Tane collaborator, the stucco walls

incorporate soil excavated on-site. Working
closely together, the architect and mason
adjusted the material composition for a smooth
texture inside and a rough one outside.
The walls were just one of the house’s
handcrafted elements. “Everything is custom
except the toilet,” says the architect with a
laugh. This includes the terrazzo bathtub,
the copper kitchen counters and, of course,
the magnificent, curving stair—Tane’s favor-
ite moment is at the top tread, when the
second floor is revealed. Made of terrazzo
treads cantilevered from the wall and sup-
ported by hidden steel underpinnings, it
ascends graciously, accompanied by a pair of
delicate oak railings. No doubt this elegant
form was inspired by the architect’s experi-
ence living in France. “Paris has so many
beautiful staircases,” he muses.
But at its core, Clay House bows politely
to the traditional, handmade Japanese home.
Its forms and functions may be contempo-
rary, but the spirit of craft links to history.
“Modern technology can be very beautiful,”
comments Tane, “but it is disconnected from
our humanity.” n

record contributing editor Naomi Pollock, FAIA,

is author of The Japanese House Since 1945.

Credits
ARCHITECT: Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects
— Tsuyoshi Tane, design lead; Haruki Nakayama,
Ryosuke Yago, project managers; Shota
Yamamoto, project architect; Minako Matsumura,
Froso Pipi, Daisuke Maeda, design team
5
ENGINEERS: yasuhirokaneda STRUCTURE
(structural); ZO Design Office (m/e/p)
4 CONSULTANT: SOLSO (landscape)
3
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Eiko Construction
CLIENT: withheld
SIZE: 1,900 square feet
COST: withheld
COMPLETION DATE: August 2023
2
Sources
CLADDING: Imajo Sakan (plaster)
ROOFING: Martetsu Kobo
WINDOWS: Yoshi (wood); Sob (metal)
6 HARDWARE: Goal (locksets); Secom (security)
1 INTERIOR FINISHES: Imajo Sakan (plaster);
Matsumoto Kagu (cabinetry); Yamagata Dantsu
(carpet)
LIGHTING: Daiko

1 ENTRY 4 STAIR

2 LIVING 5 WINE STORAGE

0 6 FT.
GROUND FLOOR PLAN
2 M. 3 KITCHEN 6 GARAGE

20 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
Rough plaster wraps
the house’s exterior
(opposite). Oak
millwork forms an
entry vestibule
(right), which leads
to a combined living/
dining/kitchen area
(above, right).
Upstairs, sloped
ceilings culminate at
skylights (above).

21
 WHERE ARCHITECTS GO TO FIND
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Sustainability in Practice
REGISTER TODAY MEET THE SPEAKERS

APRIL 17 | BOSTON
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This special half-day event, organized by Architectural 2024 AIA Gold Medalists
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sustainable design and how to make it an integral part Carol Ross Barney, FAIA
of a firm’s DNA, led by architects who have been doing Design Principal and Founder
Approved for Ross Barney Architects
just that for decades. 2023 AIA Gold Medalist
4 AIA LU/HSW.
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 LANDSCAPE
DAOUST LESTAGE LIZOTTE STECKER REIMAGINES A STRETCH OF QUEBEC CITY RIVERFRONT AS A BEACHSIDE PARK. BY MATT HICKMAN

SO FREQUENTLY touted by its tourism bureau as a winter wonder-

land that you’d be inclined to think it was encased in ice year-round,
Quebec City thaws out nicely during the summer months. The normally
bundled-up provincial capital is a low-key beach town—the banks of the
mighty St. Lawrence River and the Saint-Charles River, a watercourse
flowing through the city, serve as lively spots for warm-weather leisure
pursuits, including those taking place in a state of undress.
Just east of the the Pierre Laporte Bridge, along a once industrialized
and inaccessible stretch of the St. Lawrence, is the newest such spot: a
proper lido, complete with a sandy beach, a wooden pier, a service
pavilion comprising two stacked volumes, a “mirror” water feature for
wading, and an infinity pool built into a precast concrete basin next to
PHOTOGRAPHY: © STEPHANE GROLEAU (TOP); MAXIME BROUILLET (BOTTOM)

the river. Opened last summer, the beach and swimming area form the
literal centerpiece of the third and final phase of Promenade Samuel-de
Champlain, an urban green space conceived to connect visitors of all
backgrounds and abilities with the riverfront. Born as a gift from the
provincial government to Quebec City in commemoration of its 400th
anniversary in 2008, the four-mile-long park is dotted with gardens,
piers, reclaimed wetland areas, and recreational facilities. Weaving
through it all is a multiuse paved path wedged between the river and a
1950s-era highway converted into what Grégory Taillon, an architect
with Montreal-based multidisciplinary firm Daoust Lestage Lizotte
Stecker, refers to as an “urban boulevard.”
“We curved it so that people drive more slowly and to accentuate views
of the river. It’s now more like a parkway,” Taillon says of the less-traffic-
intensive roadway that abuts the revitalized riverfront. “And we pushed it
back,” adds firm principal and landscape architect Lucie Bibeau of the old The swimming area (top), which offers the illusion of taking a dip within
highway. “Otherwise, there would have been no room for the park.” the river, and beach (above) pay homage to Plage du Foulon, which drew
For the final phase of Promenade Samuel-de Champlain, an active rail pleasure-seekers to the banks of the St. Lawrence in the early 20th century.

25
 LANDSCAPE

The lushly landscaped Coastal Meadows include

Frontenac Quay (left) and colossal pebble
sculptures (below, left).

corridor also had to be removed and rebuilt

farther away from the river, a complex under-
taking that explains why 15 years passed be-
tween the completion of the first and final
stages of the project.
Still, there’s a palpable continuity between
the first and the 37-acre last phase, which, in
addition to the lido, features two other major
zones, each anchored by its own architecturally
distinctive pavilion. Located west of the beach
and swimming area adjacent to phase one are
Sillery Park and the Coastal Meadows; to the
east, just past a tranquil marsh ecosystem, is
the family and sports sector, with its myriad
picnic areas, athletic fields, and a marina.
The uninterrupted design language among
the different sections of the promenade can
be credited to the fact that the small team
from Daoust Lestage Lizotte Stecker, on top
of its role as park master-planner, designed
almost every aspect of the project: the pavil-

PHOTOGRAPHY: © STEPHANE GROLEAU (TOP); MAXIME BROUILLET ( BOTTOM)

ions, landscaped elements, urban furniture
(bike racks, benches, drinking fountains,
garbage cans, and on), wayfinding, and signa-
ture landmarks, including a trio of giant,
scalable pebbles replicated from river stones
that were 3D-scanned and modeled by the
project team. (Although part of the firm’s
master plan, the smaller second phase was not
designed by them.)
For a park that lends itself so well to warm
and humid Quebec City summers, this isn’t to
say that Promenade Samuel-de Champlain
empties out completely while its destination
beach and pool are shuttered during the city’s
famously frigid winters. “The river is amazing
during the winter,” says Taillon. “People just
walk or cross-country ski along it.” ■

1 SILLERY PARK 6 ST-MICHEL PIER

2 PAVILLON DE LA 7 POOL & BEACH

CÔTE 8 MARSHLAND
2 10 3 COASTAL WHARF
1 5
7 8 MEADOWS 9 FAMILY &
9
4 FRONTENAC SPORTS SECTOR

6 QUAY 10 PAVILLON DE LA

5 PAVILLON DES VOILE

3 11 BAIGNEURS 11 FOULON PIER

SITE PLAN

26 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
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 Record TRIBUTE

Marsha Maytum (1954–2024)

BY JOANN GONCHAR, FAIA

THE ARCHITECT Marsha Maytum died It was passed overwhelmingly by members at

on February 10 at 69, three years after a diag-
nosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Maytum is known as much for the buildings
she designed, which sensitively respond to
their surroundings and to users’ needs and
desires, as for her deep conviction that archi-
tecture can and should address our most
critical problems, including the climate crisis
and social equity.
Until the beginning of 2023, when
Maytum stepped away from day-to-day prac-
tice due to her advancing ALS, she led San
Francisco–based Leddy Maytum Stacy Archi-
tects (LMSA) with her husband, Bill Leddy,
and their partner, Richard Stacy. “One of our
priorities was the environment, and we really
wanted to focus on that work,” Maytum said
in an interview last year (record, March
2023) about establishing LMSA, originally
founded as Tanner Leddy Maytum Stacy
Architects in 1989. Since then, the now
38-person firm has directed its energy to what
Maytum, Leddy, and Stacy have referred to as
“mission-driven design,” creating an impres-
sive portfolio of projects for clients whose
values mirrored their own, including afford-
able and special-needs housing, academic
buildings, and civic facilities. Along the way,
LMSA has garnered many honors, including
the 2017 Architecture Firm Award from the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) and
12 AIA Committee on the Environment
(COTE) awards.
“Marsha’s special ability to connect with
people with empathy and encouragement per-
meated our firm, reinforcing the bond among
us toward our shared mission,” said Stacy.
Maytum was a pioneer in the integration of
PHOTOGRAPHY: © BRUCE DAMONTE (BOTTOM); COURTESY LMSA (TOP)
Sweetwater Spectrum community (record,
July 2013), in Sonoma, California, established
a replicable residential model for people on
the autism spectrum.
Maytum’s buildings are only one aspect of
her legacy, however. Her leadership extended
to advocating for change within the profes-
sion. As 2019 COTE chair, she championed
a resolution for “urgent and sustained climate
action,” calling for the rapid acceleration of
efforts to decarbonize the built environment.
the AIA Conference on Architecture held
that year in Las Vegas and was subsequently
approved by the organization’s board of direc-
tors. “We felt that it was important to take the
issue directly to the membership and demon-
strate support in a way that was transparent
and visible,” Maytum told the magazine at
the time. The resolution’s adoption laid the
groundwork for the development of the AIA’s
Framework for Design Excellence, which
outlines a holistic approach to architecture,
encompassing the environment, health, and
equity. Together, the resolution and the
Framework signaled a significant realignment
of organizational and professional priorities.
She will be remembered for her optimism
and her steadfast faith in the power of design.
“Marsha’s vision, mentorship, and generative
force to get things done lifted many of us,
helping us to see and realize the positive
change that is possible,” said Julie Hiromoto,
a principal at HKS who collaborated with
Maytum through the AIA and COTE. “She
helped us understand what we—and archi-
tects together—can do to change the world
and empower the next generation.”
Maytum is survived by Leddy, their
children, Anna and Andrew, and two grand-
children. n

preservation with green design strategies,

expertise that was key to her elevation to the
AIA College of Fellows in 2001. Her Tho-
reau Center for Sustainability (1997) was the
first renovation project in the newly estab-
lished national park at San Francisco’s Pre-
sidio. It transformed a former army hospital
into a home for an environmental nonprofit.
Among other adaptive-reuse projects was
the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
(record, March 2018), the conversion of a
historic pier building on the city’s waterfront
into studio and gallery space.
She firmly believed that architecture
should serve everyone, including those with
disabilities. Her innovative solution for the The Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture remade a pier building into studios and gallery space.

29
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 CASE STUDY Glass & Glazing

Art Nouveau–Inspired Glazing Revamps a New York Lobby

BY MATTHEW MARANI

THE COMMERCIAL SKYSCRAPER at 712 Fifth

Avenue is one of those anomalies of New York real estate
and zoning. The 650-foot-tall tower opened its doors in
1989 and, with its main entrance on a side street, also incor-
porates two historic rowhouse buildings. The 1908 Coty
Building, by Woodruff Leeming (known for its decorative
windows by French artist René Lalique), and the former
home of the famed Rizzoli Bookstore (1907), by Albert S.
Gottlieb, front the tower (designed by KPF) on the Fifth
Avenue side. The preservation of the shorter structures’
landmarked facades, including the Coty’s decorative Art
Nouveau glazing, and public access to their storefronts,
which are Privately Owned Public Spaces that link to the
skyscraper’s lobby, were mandatory to allow the tower design
to advance through the city’s land-use-review gauntlet.
With the passage of time, the building’s Postmodern
aesthetic, namely that of the lobby and the adjacent retail
spaces, had grown dated and called for a contemporary
PHOTOGRAPHY: © MICHAEL MORAN

overhaul. Paramount Group, the current owner, which

purchased the property in 1998 from Solomon Equities,
brought KPF back to achieve that end. The resulting re-
vamp wrapped up last spring and saw the respectful renova-
tion of those Fifth Avenue storefronts and the introduction
of a curved glass entrance with a milled-limestone reception
area in the tower lobby (formerly a muted affair of thick, The curved glass panels undulate between the lobby and sidewalk, and lighten the
gray granite columns with little daylight.) formerly dark reception area (top and above).

35
 CASE STUDY Glass & Glazing

The skyscraper can be accessed through the

Fifth Avenue storefronts (left). Carved stone
welcomes visitors to the tower lobby (below).
Lalique glass guided the new design (opposite).

For KPF, the historic glazing of the Fifth

Avenue rowhouses-turned-retail establishments
served as a point of reference for the lobby reno-
vation. The sculpted Coty Building windows,
resembling a trellis with twisted vines and flow-
er blossoms, is the only project designed by
Lalique in the United States. Lalique’s sinuous
scheme has been interpreted for the lobby’s
laminated-glass panels in an arrangement the
design team describes as a set of “angel wings”
that reach out into the street and encircle the
revolving primary entrance, which is flanked on
either side by accessible doorways.
“What you see here sprang from an homage
to the Lalique glass and the idea of capturing
something within the glass as a piece of art,”
says KPF principal Hugh Trumbull. “It is our
offering to really think about how to incorpo-
rate historic architecture and embed it within
the heart of a very different building.”
KPF’s original design concept called for the
use of plexiglass, which would have allowed for

4 1

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AXONOMETRIC

1 FLAT PANELS

2 MULTI-RADIUS CURVED PANELS (FOUR SEGMENTS)

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5 CUSTOM DECORATIVE CAPS

36 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
tighter panel radii and a more seamless look,
with fewer joints, but that proved cost pro-
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associated with that material’s potential wear
and tear. Glass was ultimately determined to
be more durable, enhanced by elements of
desirable distortion and reflectiveness, an
effect that is multiplied by the sheer scale of
the panels—each measures some 14 feet tall.
Facade specialist Front collaborated with
KPF on the project and oversaw the detailing
and design-assist process with Mexico-based
glazing manufacturer Cristacurva. With the
geometry constraints in hand, the architects
worked iteratively to finalize the glass form
and joint locations. The wings consist of
several components: four subtypes of flat and
multi-radius curved panels, each of which is
composed of multiple segments, which are
held in place with custom decorative caps at
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glass, which, in the flat areas, is ⁹/16-inch
thick. “Tight radii require that the glass be
thinner for fabrication reasons,” explains
Front associate principal Jeffrey Kock.
“Fortunately, thinner glass is adequate struc-
turally at curved locations because the curva-
ture imparts stiffness.”
Navigating thermal performance and
conformance with New York energy standards
was achieved through steady-state thermal-
analysis software. However, the cavity be-
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condensation and dust accumulation. These
issues are tackled through low-velocity desic-
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Beyond the curved glass, the lobby transi-
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 FIRST LOOK
Into the Woods
La Flor, a children’s learning center in Uruguay, anchors a community-oriented campus amid maritime pines.
BY A. KRISTA SYKES
A MILE inland from southeastern Uruguay’s
Atlantic coast, in the Maldonado town of La
Barra, a learning center for children aged 3 to
12 sits amid an evergreen forest. Dubbed la
Flor and designed by Pedro Livni and Rafael
Solano of livni+, and Diego Arraigada, the
learning center forms an integral part of Portal
PHOTOGRAPHY: © MARCOS GUIPONI
Bosque, a nonprofit, all-ages cultural club
conceived to foster creativity and community.
The idea for Portal Bosque arose during the
pandemic, when more than 30 Argentinean
entrepreneurs and their families resettled in
Uruguay’s Punta del Este, a region popular for
its seaside resorts and abundant cultural offer-
ings—at least during the summer months of
November to February. During the off-season,
the émigré families found educational and
recreational opportunities lacking, especially
for school-age children. This prompted new
residents Mariquel Waingarten and Matías
Woloski to conceptualize Portal Bosque and
its multidisciplinary programming that unites
nature, technology, and the arts. Waingarten
and Woloski planned the complex for an
initial membership of 100 families, who pay
dues for access to facilities including a café, a
greenhouse for botanical exploration, and an
outdoor biopool. Non-members may purchase
tickets to theater performances, outdoor con-
certs, and other events.
To realize their vision, the clients turned to
Livni, based in Montevideo, Uruguay, and
Arraigada, in Rosario, Argentina. As princi-
pals of three-to-five-person design firms that
focus on residential and small-to-medium-
scale institutional work, the men have much
in common. In addition, both are educators
who developed a rapport during contempora-
neous teaching engagements at the Universi-
dad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires. (Ar-
raigada still teaches there, while Livni is on
the architecture faculty at the Universidad de
From above, la Flor’s plan is evident—seven
circles intersect with a central square.
39
 FIRST LOOK

The activity pods focus attention inward (both, above). La Flor’s

translucent polycarbonate glows in low light (opposite).

8
la República in Montevideo.) So when the clients requested that Livni,
who had been recommended to them, and Arraigada, who had previ-
2 7 ously designed Waingarten’s beachfront house, collaborate on Portal
Bosque, the architects gladly agreed.
Together, Livni’s and Arraigada’s firms are responsible for Portal
1
Bosque’s master plan and five of its seven pavilions, nestled throughout
3
15 acres of maritime pines. The campus layout respects much of what
6
was already there; for example, the property’s well-trod walking paths
5 were incorporated into it. As Arraigada notes, “It was a matter of find-
ing the best opportunities for each building,” whether la Recepción (the
4 Reception)—a preexisting mud-walled house transformed into a wel-
come center—or el Pez (the Fish), a concrete outdoor amphitheater that,
from above, resembles a fish skeleton surfacing through a grassy slope.
Then there is la Flor (the Flower), the 3,200-square-foot children’s
learning center that comprises a large square from which seven circular
pods emerge, each housing a different program: fabrication lab, music
9
room, library, arts-and-crafts studio, audiovisual space, kids’ restroom,
and small kitchen plus restroom for teachers. These activity pods can be
AXONOMETRIC
used simultaneously, accommodating 10 to 15 kids each, and approxi-
mately 50 people can gather in the square core to play or share experi-
ences. A wood frame unifies the building, creating a minimalist struc-
1 COMMON ROOM 4 ARTS & CRAFTS 7 LIBRARY ture that reads as a continuation of its natural surroundings. Inside, a
2 MUSIC ROOM 5 KITCHEN/RESTROOM 8 SHARED RESTROOM
smooth concrete floor offers a neutral baseline as muted teal seating and
carpets complement the warm pine finishes. And while the main
3 AUDIOVISUAL SPACE 6 FABRICATION LAB 9 STORAGE
square’s clear glass envelope allows visual connection with the forest, the

40 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
pods’ translucent polycarbonate skins focus
attention inward.
That the learning center’s plan evokes a
flower is incidental; rather, the architects
emphasize their design’s affinity with the
1960s experiments of the Japanese Meta­
bolists. Livni explains: “Like a Metabolist
work, the learning center has a designated
core—the square—and circular plug­ins,
which carry specific programs.” This co­
mingling of geometries, with the curvilinear
softening the hard­edged, creates a more
organic feel, heightened as one approaches
via the meandering stone path. Livni and
Arraigada adopted a similar core/plug­in
strategy for other pavilions on the property,
including a culinary space named el Comedor
(the Dining Room) and an indoor theater
called la Nave (the Ship), both nearing com­
pletion.
Portal Bosque opened in November 2023.
Just a few months later, membership is at
capacity—an evident endorsement by the
families for which the club was conceived.
With its educational and cultural offerings for
all ages, Portal Bosque has become the place
for creativity and community its cofounders
envisioned. And the learning center, with its
honest materials, striking geometries, and
kinship with nature, plays a decisive role in
Portal Bosque’s success. n

A. Krista Sykes is a writer and architectural

historian based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Credits
ARCHITECTS: Diego Arraigada Arquitectos
(Argentina) — Diego Arraigada, principal;
Francisco Falabella, project manager; Sofía
Rothman, Nicolás Alvarez Saby, Paula
Pasquinelli, Manuel Ventura, design team
livni+ (Uruguay) — Pedro Livni, principal; Rafael
Solano Ferrari, associate architect; Diamela
Meyer, Serrana Lluch, Valentin Eyheralde, design
team; Lorenzo Preve, construction coordination
ENGINEERS: Magnone Pollio (structural);
Estudio Hofstadter (structural, lighting); Dica &
Asociados (sanitary); Asuan (conditioning)
CONSULTANTS: Angeles Casares, Chris Storey
(landscape); Marcelo Ribeiro, Koko Dominguez,
Den Rey, Didi, Estudio Croma, Male Traynor
(interior design)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
SURESTE Construcciones
CLIENT: Fundación Portal Bosque
SIZE: 3,230 square feet
COST: $350,000
COMPLETION DATE: November 2023

Sources
POLYCARBONATE: Abasur

41
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 FIRST LOOK
Sphere of Influence
A Stockholm museum hopes its masterfully built Wisdome will inspire a new generation to pursue science.
BY ANDREW AYERS
LOCATED in the capital, Stockholm,
Sweden’s National Museum of Science and
Technology—the Tekniska Museet—turns
100 this year. “Back in 1924, the country was
among the poorest in Europe and needed to
train more engineers to get industry going,”
says Astrid Stenberg, project leader for visitor
experience at the museum, which is run under
government charter by a private foundation.
“Today the Wisdome program comes at a
time of huge challenges ahead,” she contin-
ues, referring to a decade-long joint initiative
by five Swedish science museums to build
state-of-the-art dome theaters. Showing
immersive 3D visuals—everything from the
latest satellite imagery of the solar system to
specially made films explaining processes
such as photosynthesis—these 360-degree
cinemas are intended to wow a new genera-
tion of young Swedes and encourage them to
study science when they’re older.
Last of the five, the Tekniska Museet’s
Wisdome, which opened in December, is also
the most architecturally ambitious, since the
museum used the opportunity to incorporate a
new events hall. Among the sponsors was the
Swedish/Finnish wood-and-paper giant Stora
Enso, which agreed to supply cross-laminated
timber (CLT) and laminated-veneer lumber
(LVL) for the project. “We thought, ‘Let’s
44 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
build in wood, let’s challenge the Swedish
construction industry,’ ” explains Stenberg.
Entrants to the 2019 design competition
therefore had to make convincing use of these
engineered-timber products, a challenge the
winning office, Stockholm’s Elding Oscarson,
rose to with bravura by looking to historical
precedents, in particular Frei Otto and Carl-
fried Mutschler’s 1974 Multihalle in Mann-
heim, Germany, which is still the world’s
largest self-supporting timber grid-shell
structure.
Initially located downtown, the Tekniska
Museet moved to its current site, in the Royal
National City Park, in the wake of the
Stockholm Exhibition held there in 1930.
Partially inspired by Stuttgart’s Weissenhof-
siedlung, the fair marked the triumph of the
International Style in Sweden, and it was in
rather dourly Functionalist mode that the
architect Ragnar Hjorth completed the new
museum in 1936. Two years later, the initial
building, which closes the fourth side of a
courtyard formed by three 19th-century
military structures, was extended with the
addition of a barrel-vaulted concrete hall at its
rear. Another extension was added in the
1990s, that time in the form of a mostly
windowless rectangular structure that filled
up one half of the remainder of the courtyard.
A similar building was intended for the other
half, but never constructed, and it is there
that the Wisdome makes its mark today.
“In addition to the dome theater, the brief
called for a one-story hall that could house
large-scale gatherings,” recalls Jonas Elding,
founding partner, alongside Johan Oscarson,
of Elding Oscarson. “Rather than having the
theater sticking up next to the hall, we really
liked the idea of having the globe inside as
the centerpiece of the space.” After ruling out
a giant box, they began exploring hybrid
possibilities, in consultation with their struc-
tural engineer, Oslo-based Florian Kosche,
who they brought onboard at the outset to
ensure that form and structure would develop
in tandem. The irregular diagrid dome of the
Multihalle, built for Mannheim’s garden
festival, was an obvious reference in the
circumstances. With this precedent in mind,
the architects devised a glass-walled rectan-
gular-plan structure (82 by 157 feet) that
enclosed the dome theater at its far end, next
to the ’90s extension. On this orthogonal
base, without a single intermediate support,
they imagined an enormous and asymmetri-
cal LVL-lattice vault rising up to enfold the
theater within the volume of the hall.
“It sounds easy, but it was a long process,”
says Oscarson. One of the first challenges
PHOTOGRAPHY: © MIKAEL OLSSON (BOTTOM AND OPPOSITE)
Positioned next to military
structures, the low-slung
building (opposite) bulges
to accommodate the
dome theater (this image).

45
 FIRST LOOK

PINE ROOF SHINGLES

LVL ROOF
STRUCTURE

LVL EDGE BEAM SOLID WOOD PANEL

LVL COLUMN

GLASS PARTITION

INTEGRATED SEAT BENCH

VENTILATION GRILLE PINE FACADE CLADDING

1 THEATER

2 PRE-SHOW

3 CAFÉ

4 BAR

DETAIL SECTION 5 RESTROOMS

was finding a contractor that could actually

build the design. Though Kosche had tried to
simplify the structure so that any Swedish
1
company could construct it, the museum
4
eventually hired Swiss timber specialist
2 Blumer Lehmann, which has worked with,
among others, Shigeru Ban—for example, on
SECTION A - A his snaking Swatch Headquarters in Biel/
Bienne, Switzerland (record, December
2019). Blumer Lehmann’s input proved crucial
since, in addition to fine-tuning details, the
company devised a construction method.
Computers were of course essential. So com-
plex is the geometry that each digitally milled
piece is unique, identified by a QR code. The
principle is nonetheless simple: strips of LVL
5
(12.4 miles in total!) are screwed together to
A A form beams, with three transverse and two
4
longitudinal layers. Whereas the first layer of
beams was pre-bent off-site, the others arrived
flat and were forced into shape in situ. LVL
1
dowels attach them to the beams below, while
3 the grid is closed with acoustic and thermal
2
insulation. Above this is an air cavity, followed
by a waterproof membrane, and finally a
covering of 85,000 handmade, hand-nailed
wooden shingles.
Given the lateral thrust exerted by the
vault, the columns that hold it up—massive
agglomerations of LVL, 24 by 24 inches thick
on the building’s shorter sides and 24 by 32 on
0 30 FT.
FLOOR PLAN
10 M.
the longer—were prestressed with bent steel

46 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
 The roof is covered by 85,000 wood shingles
(opposite). The hall accommodates large-scale
gatherings beneath its LVL-lattice vault (above). The
dome theater offers immersive visuals (right).

rods inserted into their cores. To avoid fixing duct-

work to the vault, air is brought in from under the
floor and sucked out through the top of the dome
theater. Milled in CLT, the latter includes two fully
reclinable wheelchair stations among its 100 seats,
an innovation pioneered at the museum. A large
cooling apparatus for the six powerful projectors is
located under the seating, while the screen, in mi-
croperforated aluminum, both absorbs sound and
lets in air from ceiling-mounted ventilation ducts.
At once modest and monumental, the events hall
is a warm and welcoming space that houses a rect-
PHOTOGRAPHY: © ANNA GERDÉN (TOP, BOTTOM, AND OPPOSITE)

angular wooden block containing restrooms and a

bar. Acoustically comfortable, even when crowded,
it marks a welcome light-filled pause in an other-
wise dense and windowless museum circuit, with its
longer, south-facing facade giving onto an outdoor Credits COST: $22 million
deck that is shaded in summer by ancient linden ARCHITECT: Elding Oscarson COMPLETION DATE: December 2023
trees. Complete with a model and displays that ENGINEERS: Florian Kosche DIFK
explain its construction method and mechanical (structural); SJB Kempter Fritze, Hermann Sources
systems, the building forms an engaging exhibit in Blumer (timber structure)
EXTERIOR WOOD CLADDING: Tilly
its own right. It remains to be seen whether the CONSULTANT: Design to Production
(parametric design) GLASS: Saint-Gobain
structure will spawn imitations elsewhere, but, for ROOF SHINGLES: Nykarleby
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
the museum and the architects, that was not the DOORS: Schüco Jansen (entrances); Daloc,
Oljibe, Blumer Lehmann (timber)
goal. Rather, they hope, it will start a conversation, Stålprofil (interior)
CLIENT:
and inspire others to take an equally inventive National Museum of Science and Technology ACOUSTICAL CEILINGS: Akustikmiljö
approach. n SIZE: 14,000 square feet THEATER SEATING: Ilmonte, Kotobuki

47
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 FIRST LOOK

Arch Support
A minimal material palette and age-old construction system form a distinctive community center in Mexico.
BY MICHAEL SNYDER

WHEN the critic Reyner Banham published

his seminal essay, “The New Brutalism,” in
1955, the project he used to illustrate the
essential elements of this new architectural
language was a school. Designed by Peter and
Alison Smithson, the Hunstanton School was
assembled from brick, glass, concrete, and
steel and, as Banham writes, was “almost
unique among modern buildings in being
made of what it appears to be made of.” More
than half a century later, in 2020, the archi-
tect Derek Dellekamp took on a commission
for one of nearly 300 publicly funded commu-
nity centers built in marginalized districts of
his native Mexico City, part of a city-wide
initiative called PILARES, or Points of
Innovation, Freedom, Art, Education, and
Knowledge. He approached his design using
the same fundamental principles. “There are
no details or finishes. We’ve learned through
previous government projects that that’s what
works,” he says. “It’s Brutalism 101.”
‘Brutalist’ is not, perhaps, the most obvious
descriptor for Dellekamp’s PILARES, one of
25 designed by prominent architecture firms,
largely from Mexico City, under the coordina-
tion of Carlos Zedillo Velasco, currently a
fellow at the Yale School of Architecture who’s
spent much of his career working on collab-
orative design projects with the state. Built
from brick and a bare minimum of concrete,
in one of the seven original villages now ab-
sorbed into the sprawling southern borough of
Tláhuac, Dellekamp’s PILARES occupies a
roughly 4,300-square-foot plot bounded by a
public primary school and a neighborhood
market. The building’s two stories rise from a PHOTOGRAPHY: © RAFAEL GAMO, EXCEPT AS NOTED

50-foot-square footprint, neatly divided into

quarters and bisected by a doorless passage
that opens to the street at one end and an
urban garden at the other. Six of the eight
resulting quadrants are given over to work-
shops and classrooms, and two, stacked in a
street-facing corner, to circulation and ser-

Repeating brick arches form the structure

(opposite) and are also expressed in the
building’s fenestration (left).

50 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
51
 FIRST LOOK
vices. Rather than a rigid system of posts and
beams, Dellekamp used a repeating arch as
the project’s basic construction system, open-
ing windows in the upstairs classrooms to take
in views of the city’s emblematic twin volca-
noes about 30 miles to the southeast. Square
panels of glass—transparent at the roof, frost-
ed in the floor of the upper story—mark the
AXONOMETRIC
52 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
building’s central axis, drawing in light from
above and illuminating clusters of arches
reminiscent of Andalusian mosques.
That historicist gesture creates a “formal
familiarity for the user, an approach that’s
almost Postmodern,” Dellekamp says—a
tactic he and his team learned in a previous
public project, also coordinated by Zedillo, to
Axonométrico Estructural
GROUND-FLOOR PLAN
rebuild a church destroyed by a 2017 earth-
quake in the small city of Jojutla (record,
November 2021). There, arches and barrel
vaults softened the hard lines of the otherwise
abstract concrete canopy. Here, at Mexico
City’s periphery, where many residents build
their own homes using exactly the same
materials and forms deployed in Dellekamp’s
PHOTOGRAPHY: © SANDRA PEREZNIETO (TOP)
A glazed square within the floor of the second
level marks the central axis (right). The facility
has become a vital part of the urban fabric
(bottom) and hosts popular classes (opposite).

PILARES, the school, he says, offered “a

typology that people recognize.”
According to María de Jesús González
Hermosillo, coordinator for two PILARES
outposts in Tláhuac (the other is one of about
270 standard PILARES executed by munici-
pal builders), many local residents refer fondly
to Dellekamp’s building as el Castillo, or the
Castle. Throughout the day, preteens and
adults flock to the second-floor computer labs
for remote access to continuing-education
courses, and to workshops on the ground
floor in everything from yoga to jewelry-
making, electrical training to urban farming.
Most evenings, González Hermosillo says,
the classrooms fill to the point that tae kwon
do and boxing lessons, attended by kids as
young as 5 years old, have to take place out-
side. The success of this PILARES, says
González, owes much to the local commu-
nity’s deep roots. “They’re much more at-
tached to their traditions, and they really
participate in the surrounding neighborhood,”
she says. “If you promise something here, you
have to follow through.”
Despite the simplicity of Dellekamp’s design
and the impeccable execution of its brickwork
arches, the community center is imperfectly
finished. (So far, 16 of the 25 architect-
designed projects have been built, Zedillo says,
at a per-square-foot cost comparable to those
designed by municipal builders.) Contractors
failed to seal the steel window casings, which
are already rusted and leaking, months after
the building’s completion, and neglected to
install glass doors on the upstairs computer
labs. For both Dellekamp and González, the
biggest disappointment has been the city’s
failure to demolish a high white wall that
separates the building from the street. “The
building is so beautiful,” says González, “but a
lot of people walk by without noticing it.”
Still, the PILARES Quetzalcóatl, as
Dellekamp’s community center is known, has
already been assimilated into its neighbor-
hood’s urban fabric. In early photos, what
Dellekamp refers to as the building’s “platonic
geometries” seemed elegant but, perhaps, Credits GENERAL CONTRACTOR: DGOP
ARCHITECT: Dellekamp Arquitectos — Derek CLIENT: Gobierno de la Ciudad de México
unwelcoming; today, paper cutouts fill its
Dellekamp, principal; Santiago Sitten, Francisco E. (Mexico City)
arched windows and colorful drawings bright- Franco, project team SIZE: 5,920 square feet
en its meditative halls. The building has come ENGINEER: Nina Casas Guzik (structural) COST: $330,000
alive, appropriated by the community, not as a CONSULTANTS: Lightchitects (lighting); José COMPLETION DATE: October 2023
work of architecture but as a piece of public Francisco De Riquer Torres (building services);
infrastructure—a castle for everyone. n Humberto Orozco (soil)

53
 BOOKS
Atrium, by Charles Rice. MIT Press, 216 pages,
$45.
REVIEWED BY LEOPOLDO VILLARDI
Atriums might include the visual spectacle of
skyward-bound elevator cabs, or gravity-defy-
ing bridges floating high overhead. They
might be peppered with eateries, or art, or
lounges accompanied by lush foliage. Often,
they are considered an extension of the public
realm, maintained under the watchful stew-
ardship of private caretakers. But there is more
to these soaring spaces than meets the eye.
“It is not simply a large indoor space as
might be required by a specific function or
type, such as the foyer in a theater, the con-
course in a transit station, or the vault of a
glasshouse, arcade, or shopping mall,” writes
architectural historian and theorist Charles
Rice in Atrium. Unlike those examples, he
contends, these expansive voids do not neces-
sarily belong to the building types in which
they appear. An office, commercial tower, or a
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hotel may very well have enclosures mediate architec-
one—or not—and func- ture, urbanism, material, and
tion all the same. What legislation through specific
they lack in programmed case studies. Although Rice
use, they can make up in begins by positioning the
awe inspired. What atrium within a political-theo-
exactly gave rise to them? retical framework, he quickly
Rice makes clear from moves into more tangible
the get-go that this book territory and showcases his
does not trace the genea- subject-matter expertise. (He
logical origins of the previously authored the 2016
atrium. Instead, he book Interior Urbanism:
ruminates on issues Architecture, John Portman and
grounded in the latter Downtown America on the
half of the 20th cen- architect-developer and atrium
tury—late capitalism, impresario.)
rapid deregulation, and new land-use laws The second chapter, for example, delves
among them—that created a market ripe for into the challenges posed by governing atri-
this architectural novelty, particularly in the ums—particularly with regard to fire safety,
United States and the United Kingdom. the 1973 early morning blaze that broke out in
Each of the book’s five chapters—taking the Blue Max nightclub of Portman’s Hyatt
the gerund names “Forming,” “Regulating,” Regency O’Hare hotel serving as a point of
“Conditioning,” “Organizing,” and “Cultiva- departure. The event made readily apparent
ting”—explores the many ways these interior that these voids, left unregulated and poorly
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ing and deadly haze. The sheer variety in
shape and size of atriums confounded fire
safety engineers, and the task of defining
them, merely to codify best practices, proved
daunting as well. Another chapter of the book
explores how atriums challenged the notion of
a totally sealed built environment, an idea that
had emerged following the advent of air-
conditioning. Yet another discusses how they
have helped to organize workforces and shape
office culture.
Readers encounter plenty of expected
names, including Portman, Richard Rogers,
Kevin Roche, and Raymond Moriyama, but,
PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY SIMON SADLER

in examining one space after another, Rice

also introduces lesser-known buildings by the
likes of Welton Becket, Niels Torp, and Ralph
Erskine—and reveals their significance.
Despite being a brisk read, the volume Rice
has produced fills the void, so to speak.
Atrium brims with architectural episodes that
deftly balance lofty ideas with technical, LARGE, SCULPTURE-LIKE tubes containing fans reduce air stratification within the atrium of the
nitty-gritty nuance. n Bateson Building, designed by Sim Van der Ryn and Peter Calthorpe, in Sacramento, California.

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MEANING TO THE EMERGENT

GENRE OF THE COMMERCIAL
SKYSCRAPER.

The Port House in Antwerp, Belgium, was designed by Zaha Hadid and
completed in 2016. The angular, glass-enclosed volume that Hadid added atop the
former fire station recalls the prow of a ship—an appropriate reference for the
headquarters of a regional port authority.

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 The DESIGN:ED Podcast by Architectural Record takes you inside
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 Record NEWS

Reaching for the Sky: Enthusiasm for Building Tall Endures

BY JOANN GONCHAR, FAIA

ONE WOULD think that the pandemic

and the flexible-work policies that many
companies have since adopted would have
dampened enthusiasm for building tall. But,
globally at least, tall-building development is
moving apace. According to a recent report by
the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban
Habitat (CTBUH), in 2023, 176 buildings of
at least 200 meters (656 feet) in height were
completed worldwide, surpassing the previous
record of 163 such completions set in 2018.
“This reflects the resumption of projects
started before the global Covid outbreak,
which were temporarily halted or delayed by
the ensuing material shortages, inflation
increases, and other factors—but there is defi-
IMAGES: LUCA LADI BUCCIOLINI/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS VIA GETTY IMAGES (LEFT); ADRIAN SMITH + GORDON GILL ARCHITECTURE/JEDDAH ECONOMIC COMPANY (RIGHT)

nitely upward momentum in the field,” says

CTBUH CEO Javier Quintana de Uña. The
council predicts that the trend will continue,
with between 150 and 190 200-meter-plus
towers reaching completion in 2024.
The tallest building finished in 2023 was
Merdeka 118, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Officially opened in early January of this year,
the 118-story, 2,227-foot-tall tower is now the
world’s second-tallest building. It is 490 feet
shorter than the record holder, SOM’s 163-
story Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, completed in
2010, and 154 feet taller than the tower now
in third place, Gensler’s 128-story Shanghai
Tower (2015).
The form of the faceted Merdeka 118, with
its off-center spire, was inspired by the out-
stretched-hand gesture made by Malaysia’s
first prime minister when he declared the
country’s independence in 1957, according to
Melbourne-based Karl Fender, founding
partner of Fender Katsalidis, the tower’s
architect. The building houses 83 floors of
offices, including space for its developer—the
Malaysian asset-management group PNB—a
hotel and a skydeck. The podium, which is
still under construction, will include a shop- Merdeka 118, in Kuala Lumpur (above, left) and the Jeddah Tower, in Saudi Arabia (above, right).
ping mall and a conference center. Three
shorter residential towers will rise from it. of while a partner at SOM. But construction mains unchanged from the original scheme,
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, there soon stalled in 2018 at around 60 stories, after the according to the developer and the architects,
could be activity once again on the site of the arrest of Bakr bin Laden, then chairman of as does its program, which includes a hotel,
Jeddah Tower, which is planned to be more Saudi Binladin Group, the tower’s contractor. condominiums and rental apartments, office
than one kilometer (3,280 feet) tall. The Now, though, the developer, the Jeddah Eco- space, and the world’s highest observatory.
project, formerly known as the Kingdom nomic Company (JEC), says it has invited However, JEC and AS+GG say that they do
Tower, and designed by Chicago-based construction companies to submit new bids plan updates to some materials and systems
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture for finishing the building, with a contract to take advantage of technological improve-
(AS+GG), started construction in 2013 and award expected this spring. ments since construction first began more
was on track to steal the “tallest” crown from The design—a three-lobed shaft that than a decade ago. Completion is expected in
the Burj Khalifa, which Smith was in charge gradually tapers to a shard-like spire—re- four to five years. n

59
 Record COMMENTARY
Anomalies in Architectural Criticism:
Skyscrapers of the Early 20th Century
BY SUZANNE STEPHENS
IT IS ALWAYS surprising to discover how
the criticism of a particular building, such as a
skyscraper, can change drastically over the
years. For example, when the Chrysler Build­
ing opened in 1930, it was castigated by a
number of critics for being too flashy. Today
it ranks as one of the defining landmarks on
the New York skyline. The Empire State
Building, completed in 1931, was considered
a formidable construction achievement. Yet its
mooring mast, installed to assure it would be
the tallest skyscraper in the world and ratio­
nalized as a landing port for dirigibles, made
it a topic of ridicule among the critics. Now
the Empire State Building has become the
inarguable symbol of New York City, moor­
ing mast and all. When the plans for Rock­
efeller Center were announced in 1931, a
vigorous public outcry condemned the pro­
posed scheme for its density, its height, and its
bland, block­like buildings. The brouhaha led
to revisions, but it was still criticized, until
architects and laypeople began to admire it.
Today this mecca for visitors embodies Man­
hattan’s essence of urbanity.
What is it that causes opinions to change?
In analyzing critiques illustrating how some
skyscrapers are vilified and then later vener­
ated, or how some are embraced enthusiasti­
cally and later overlooked, we find a mix of
reasons. For example, ideological beliefs to
which both designers and critics may adhere,
such as traditional or modern architectural
principles, can shift over time. The aesthetic,
functional, symbolic, and urbanistic criteria
that determine these evaluations also are
modified as the physical and cultural context
is transformed. Then, too, the psychological
effect of the “shock of the new,” where time
is needed for the eye and the mind to adjust
to the unfamiliar, can eventually dissipate
along with initial judgments.
Early 20th­century architects searched for
the appropriate expression of the skyscraper as
a new building type. This “proud and soaring
thing,” in Louis Sullivan’s words, should
emphasize its verticality and honestly express
the structural and technical elements (such as
steel columns and lightweight cladding)
behind its height. But, as buildings climbed
higher and higher, the question became how
to finish off the top. The spire seemed the
way to go but also seemed so traditional, even
60 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
recalling Gothic churches. As Modernism’s
predilection for horizontality increased—re­
flective of curtain wall construction, with its
glass bands of fenestration—the spire seemed
anomalous and anachronistic. The flat roof
made more sense.
These are only some of the factors affecting
the evaluation of skyscrapers, and a small
cluster of tall buildings from the 1920s to the
1940s illustrates the intensity of the debate
over the ways the initial design approaches
were first received and then evolved.
1. Shelton Hotel, New York
Arthur Loomis Harmon. 1924
Let’s begin with the least well­known but
much adulated “skyscraper” of its time, the
Shelton Hotel. Only 30 stories high, it was
designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon before
he joined up with R.H. Shreve and William
Lamb on the Empire State Building. Archi­
tect and theorist Claude Bragdon, writing in
record (July 1925), applauded the way
Harmon used “fenestration, outline, and
mass” to express the different functions with­
in the building, from guest rooms to social
spaces such as the roof garden, gymnasium, 1
and the squash court. Bragdon also approved
the architect’s decision to batter the walls at Avenue between 48th and 49th streets, where
the base and rely on entasis above, so “the it houses student apartments called FOUND
walls have a slight slope inward, a thing felt by Study Turtle Bay.
the eye rather than fathomed, conveying the
same indefinable sense of satisfaction that one 2. Chrysler Building, New York
gets from a Doric column.” William Van Alen. 1930
In The New Republic in 1924, architect
George Chappell commended the Shelton’s Next is a skyscraper that met a negative
placement “on a tight urban site according to reaction from critics writing for a general
new zoning with setbacks required to avoid audience. At the time when William Van
dark, airless streets.” However, the future Alen designed the Chrysler Building for the
problem could be detected. Lewis Mumford, auto manufacturer Walter Chrysler, the
writing in Commonweal in 1926, urged 1,046­foot­high structure was the tallest in
readers to go see “the best building in New the world. The brick­clad steel­frame 77­sto­
York, one of the best buildings of the mod­ ry building’s setbacks and the decorative
ern age” as soon as possible, since it was accoutrements of oversize gargoyle­like radia­
being eclipsed by surrounding construction: tor caps, winged­helmet hood ornaments, and
“The skyscraper as an architectural form is frieze of racing cars, plus a spire of chromium
significant only when it is momentarily nickel steel singled it out. But, in The New
isolated from the chaos of other commercial Republic in 1931, Lewis Mumford was upset
buildings,” he wrote. that the carmaker who “effected an aesthetic
And soon the Shelton Hotel, surrounded revolution in the design of the moderate­
by taller buildings, was forgotten, even priced car” should commission this example
though it still stands today, on Lexington of “romanticism without imagination.”
 George S. Chappell (writing under the
pseudonym “T-Square”) in The New Yorker in
1930 pronounced it “a stunt design,” adding,
“it is merely advertising architecture.” Doug-
las Haskell (The Nation, 1930) approved of the
way it “flashes and glitters in the sunlight,”
but denigrated the top’s “Coney Island impro-
visation.”
The professional press, however, enthusias-
tically backed the Chrysler Building: an
unsigned essay in The Architectural Forum
(October 1930) raved that the Chrysler was
“bizarre, fantastic, and exotic, it grasps and
holds at least for a moment the attention of
the passersby below, as well as the amazed
interest of the countryside and the distant
seafarers for miles around.” Architecture and
Building, in August 1930, rhapsodized, “This
building, dedicated to commerce and industry
. . . has given New York City a most spectacu-
lar monument.”
Architect and writer Eugene Clute in
another essay in The Architectural Forum
(October 1930) maintained that the Chrysler
Building “is an expression of the intense
activity and vibrant life of our day.” Architect
Kenneth Murchison, writing in The American
Architect (September 1930), dubbed Van Alen
PHOTOGRAPHY: © SIGURD FISCHER (OPPOSITE), EDDOWES CO. (LEFT), BOTH COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; NYHOLM & LINCOLN (RIGHT)
that has been erected since the Shelton.”
The catalogue for the influential show that
Hitchcock organized with Philip Johnson,
Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, at
New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1932,
added about it: “The setbacks, each the width
of a bay, are brilliantly handled in a way that
does not produce a heavy pyramidal mass.”
Mumford attributed its design success to
the straightforward emphasis on vertical lines,
as did much of the other critical acclaim. The
motif was heightened by the pattern of the
brick cladding. In a Nation critique in 1930,
Douglas Haskell described the masonry as a
“bold negation,” for it was “almost nothing but
a series of stripes, nothing but surface pat-
tern.” The vertical lines of bricks created a
“curious weightless” quality that “made the
facade appear to float,” and “the lack of hori-
zontals has almost destroyed perspective and
depth, as in a forest of sticks.”
Kenneth Murchison, Hood’s colleague in
designing the Beaux Arts Apartments on
Manhattan’s East 44th Street, remarked
sardonically about the Daily News, in The
Architectural Forum: “ ‘Stripes’ is Mr. Hood’s
middle name. He can’t get away from them.”
Nevertheless, Talbot Hamlin, in The New
International Yearbook (1930), found “the
superb straightforwardness of the simple
upper part” was belied by the “weak and
sentimental” entrance. Hamlin objected that
the domed, black-glass-clad lobby, with a
large revolving globe of the world at its cen-
ter, was “over-ornamental” and “like a circus
sideshow.”
Today, the newspaper has moved else-
where, and, while the lobby was landmarked
in 1998, few wander inside.

“the Ziegfeld of his profession,” concluding

that some may think the Chrysler is a “freak,”
but “others consider it a great feat, a master-
piece, a tour de force.” Murchison prophesied:
“Indubitably, the Chrysler Building will be
surpassed in bulk and in height, but, as the
others rise, watch out and see if they exhibit
the originality, the sense of action, and the
spirit of movement that William Van Alen
has put into his design.”
While Van Alen’s professional colleagues
admired his design work, he did not go on to
create any more spectacular towers. In fact, he
had to sue Chrysler for his fee. (Van Alen
ultimately won, but the lawsuit damaged his
reputation—it is said that potential clients
were afraid to hire him.)

3. Daily News Building, New York

John M. Howells and Raymond Hood. 1930

When the Daily News Building, at 42nd

Street and Second Avenue, opened, the arbiter
of the International Style, Henry-Russell
Hitchcock, called the 36-story high-rise by
Howells and Hood “the most effective sky-
scraper in New York.” Today, it is almost
forgotten as an early contribution to the design
of tall buildings. In 1931, Lewis Mumford
declared in The New Republic, “In many ways
2 3
[the Daily News] is one of the best skyscrapers

61
 Record COMMENTARY
4. Empire State Building, New York
Shreve Lamb & Harmon. 1931
The critical reaction to the Empire State Building,
at 1,250 feet the world’s tallest skyscraper for four
decades, was mild in comparison with that of the
Chrysler Building.
Vertical motifs ruled. George S. Chappell (as
“T-Square”) explained in The New Yorker in early
1931 that the way the detailing emphasized the
verticality “is the very breath of the design.” And
literary critic Edmund Wilson proclaimed in The
New Republic, shortly after the skyscraper was
dedicated in 1931, “There is no question that the
Empire State Building is New York’s handsomest
skyscraper.” He added, “This towering plinth,
though it is the tallest in the city, has almost always
an effect of lightness,” much owing to the “long
lines of nickel facing.”
While Chappell had objected to the mooring
mast, planned to accommodate zeppelins, Douglas
Haskell wrote in Creative Art just before the
Empire State Building was finished that the dock-
ing tower was “quite charming. It continues the
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62 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
square forms of the main shaft, and has consider-
able delicacy in its openwork.”
For some, the mooring mast seemed to be the
albatross around the neck of the skyscraper: in
The New Republic (1931), Lewis Mumford main-
tained, “Nothing could be stupider and sillier.”
Nor was Mumford keen on the chrome nickel
facings emphasizing the vertical lines of the
87-story structure: “They merely nickel-plate the
lily, and their termination in rosettes is inane.
PHOTOGRAPHY: © YOSEI AMEMYA; COURTESY PSFS (OPPOSITE)
There is no suggestion of making the material
integral with the structure.” He concluded that
the Empire State Building was “respectable but
dull. It shows no real advance.”
Yet again, George Chappell differed, exclaim-
ing in another piece in The New Yorker in 1931
that the Empire State Building’s designers “have
endowed it with such clean beauty, such purity of
line and subtle uses of material, that we believe it
will be studied by many generations of architects,
a hazardous prophecy in these days of change.”
Postscript: Chappell was soon to lose his Sky
Line column in The New Yorker to Lewis Mum-
4
ford, not an architect, and Philip Johnson and
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 Henry-Russell Hitchcock did not consider the
Empire State modern enough to include it in
their landmark Modern Architecture exhibition
at MoMA.
5. Philadelphia Saving Fund Society
Building, Philadelphia
George Howe and William Lescaze. 1932
The back-and-forth over vertical and horizon-
tal motifs was clearly demonstrated in the
Philadelphia Saving Fund Society in Phila-
delphia (PSFS), designed by George Howe
and William Lescaze in 1932. Of the batch of
skyscrapers coming to fruition in the early
1930s, this one best captured the principles of
the International Style. In an earlier scheme,
Howe and Lescaze had favored a horizontal
emphasis on three exposed elevations of
PSFS’s tower, as part of the Modernist predi-
lection for having bands of glass and continu-
ous spandrels form a non-load-bearing curtain
wall on the exterior of a building. They canti-
levered the floors slightly beyond the columns
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to enhance this curtain wall feature. However,
the client wanted to express a sense of verti-
cality in the skyscraper, which the exposed
columns on the exterior would do. The archi-
tects and the client reached a compromise: the
columns jutted out on the long east and west
sides of the slab while the horizontal curtain
wall sheathed the shorter facade on Market
Street.
The result spurred Douglas Haskell, in
1932, to dismiss the design as “a filing cabinet
of a building. It is a stack of trays, held at the
side by the vertical sticks of the rack.” The
horizontal lines of the facade, he said, belonged
to “intellectual baggage from Europe.” Henry-
Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson praised
PSFS in the MoMA catalogue as “an applica-
tion of an aesthetically logical and consistent
horizontal scheme of design to the skyscraper.”
Although the building was not completed, the
text noted, “The tower, with its cantilevered
facade . . . is certainly admirable both as sound
building and excellent architecture.”
5
In 1933, Lewis Mumford declared in the
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 Record COMMENTARY
Sky Line column of The New Yorker that “the
positive standard of beauty established by
Howe & Lescaze” in PSFS’s interiors was
miles above that of Rockefeller Center.
6. Rockefeller Center, New York
Reinhard & Hofmeister, Hood, Godley &
Fouilhoux, and Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray,
called Associated Architects. 1939
Today it is hard to believe that Rockefeller
Center was so vilified when its plans were first
presented in March 1931. Lewis Mumford
writing in The New Republic called the project
“weakly conceived, reckless, romantic chaos.”
When he took over as the architecture
critic for the Sky Line column at The New
Yorker, Mumford showed he had not mel-
lowed since his earlier salvo in The New Rep-
ublic. He claimed it to be “a plan that leads
nowhere except back to the chaos from which
we should like to emerge.”
The architectural journal Pencil Points
6
declared shortly after the initial presentation:
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“The whole thing aroused the public as no
other architectural undertaking has ever
done.” Pencil Points cited a letter to The New
York Times that called it “the ugliest conglom-
eration of buildings in New York.” Another
article in Pencil Points, “A Modern Teapot
Tempest,” proclaimed: “With its mouth all
made up for frosted cake, the public was
PHOTOGRAPHY: © SAMUEL GOTTSCHO, COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
naturally keenly disappointed when the model
revealed that it was to get only bread.”
None of the vitriol quite matched that of
Ralph Adams Cram, an architect known for
his Gothic leanings. In The American Mercury,
he characterized Rockefeller Center as “the
apotheosis of megalomania, of a defiant ego-
tism . . . Gone also is all human scale; these
raw pylons, obelisks, ovoids, and pyramids
have nothing to do with man; these scarps
and tall cliffs crush him and his soul as do the
sheer walls of the Grand Canyon.”
The high-voltage criticism actually spurred
design changes in Rockefeller Center. In
April 1931, The Nation noted two aspects of
this debate: the “layman has rebelled,” and
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“the rebellion has been effective.” Already
there was a rethinking: “it is now announced
that new plans are to be worked out.”
Nevertheless, Walter Lippmann, the po-
litical columnist, declared in 1933, in Ameri-
can Architect, that its “aesthetic aimlessness . . .
is equaled only by its social irresponsibility.
This collection of mammoth theaters and
office buildings is being plumped down, in
one of the busy and congested portions of
Manhattan Island, with something like total
disregard of its effects on the neighborhood.”
Although it was still under construction in
1933, Lewis Mumford, again in The New
Yorker, criticized the 70-story RCA Tower: its
long walls, which ran east–west, cast a large
shadow to the north. The narrow portion of
the tower, whose central facade was oriented
east to the sunken plaza and the Channel
Gardens stretching to Fifth Avenue, looked
scrawny. On top of that, Mumford wrote, “the
hanging gardens give the effect, from the
street, of inverted mustaches.” Mumford
concluded at this point that “the whole effect
of the Center is mediocrity—seen through a
magnifying glass.”
In the same year, Douglas Haskell couched
his negative views as metaphors in The Nation.
He called Rockefeller Center a “necropolis”
and said the RCA tower “is tall enough to
produce a sense of awe, which the dullness and
drabness shade into horror.”
But a surprising development occurred. By
1939, Mumford’s perspective had become
decidedly more positive. As he wrote in The
New Yorker: “Purely as a visual contribution in
the midtown section, this group of buildings
has turned out so well that one can afford to
forget about all the little stunts that have ac-
companied its exploitation, from the roof
gardens to the rejected [Diego] Rivera murals.”
By 1940, Mumford was ready to admit he
was wrong about his initial impressions of the
projected plans for Rockefeller Center. Con-
sidering that not many critics confess to a
change of heart, his essay for The New Yorker
was surprising. Mumford still detested the
hanging gardens, which may seem odd, since
greenery on roofs has become so treasured
today. But he concluded, “Rockefeller Center
has turned into an impressive collection of
structures; they form a composition in which
unity and coherence have to a considerable
degree diminished the fault of overemphasis.”
Nevertheless, Mumford still maintained the
height of the 70-story RCA Building (now 30
Rockefeller Plaza) was “the most serious
aesthetic error.” He argued the center would
have been “stunning” and easier to see in its
entirety if the RCA tower had been kept to 32
stories, with other buildings reaching heights
of eight and 16 stories.
Douglas Haskell also had a change of
heart: he praised Rockefeller Center in 1966,
in The Architectural Forum, saying, “It gave
back to the city more space, and gave the
people more art, and more joy, than any other
‘city redevelopment.’ ” Unlike Mumford, he
made no mention of his turnabout since con-
demning it as a “necropolis” in 1933.
Sigfried Giedion brought up the vertical-
ity/horizontality fixation in his lectures at
65
 Record COMMENTARY
Harvard in 1938 and 1939 (published in 1941
as Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of
a New Tradition). The way the RCA Build­
ing’s north and south walls rose up 850 feet,
with no setbacks, and turned the facades into
a horizontal slab was fine: when this scale “is
combined with the thinness of the structure,
a certain feeling of hovering, of suspension,
emanates from the surfaces.” If the Center
“tyrannizes over the entire vicinity,” he wrote,
“the complex presupposes not the single point
of view of the Renaissance, but the many­
sided approach of our own age,” a reference to
his well­known space­time­continuum thesis.
Le Corbusier, writing in 1947 in his book
When the Cathedrals Were White, based on his
experience of skyscrapers during his visit to
the U.S., in 1937, was pragmatic about Rock­
efeller Center: “It is rational, logically con­
ceived, biologically normal, harmonious in its
four functional elements: halls for the en­
trance and division of crowds, grouped shafts
for vertical circulation (elevators), corridors
(internal streets), regular offices.”
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Manfredo Tafuri, the Italian architectural
theorist and historian, commented in 1979
that this “synthesis” of several different archi­
tectural and urban strategies was not particu­
larly inspiring. Yet, he continued, the complex
“forms a worthy introduction to the surreal
spectacle, the skating rink (or summer restau­
rant) submerged in an ordered forest of sky­
scrapers . . . Indeed, the deliberately restrained
and ordered style of the architecture accentu­
ates this festive mise en scene of the plaza, in
which the public of midtown Manhattan
participates daily.”
Critical Shifts
Now, looking back at the earlier critiques, the
obsession with verticality and horizontality no
longer pertains; neither is the expression of
structure and program, once reflective of early
modern principles, as important. They have
been absorbed, forgotten, or replaced with
slipcover curtain wall abstraction. Single­
pitched roof angles are more common than
spires and flattops. Still, some ideas remain:
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visibility continues to be important, since
smaller, older landmarks can easily be eclipsed
by new construction. Questions of urban
congestion also are still a point of debate,
even as buildings get taller.
One lesson can be learned: criticizing a
scheme when it is first presented and not yet
built, as happened with Rockefeller Center,
can effect positive changes if there is a loud
enough public outcry. But the medium of
communicating that outcry needs to be force­
ful and reach an influential audience. In a
digital age, when print media have often
abandoned architectural criticism and social
media are loosely tethered to facts or solid
arguments, this may not happen. Vigilantly
keeping a debate alive that awakens the public
and professional consciousness is more impor­
tant than ever. n
This essay is an excerpt from a forthcoming book
that former record deputy editor Suzanne
Stephens is writing on American architectural
criticism in the popular press.
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 FORUM
New Frontiers
An ambitious city-building initiative expresses
conflicting desires through architecture, writes
Pansy Schulman.
PRAXIS is building a new city. Or, at least, that’s what the
company’s website proclaims, in text overlaying an aerial ren-
dering of ivory buildings tucked into the lush greenery of a
coastal strip. Launched in winter 2021 by tech-adjacent busi-
nessmen Dryden Brown and Charlie Callinan, both in their
mid-20s, Praxis calls itself “a grassroots movement of modern
pioneers” and aims to build an autonomous cryptocurrency-
backed city “somewhere in the Mediterranean” by 2050.
The figure of the architect is noticeably absent from
Praxis’s master plan. In 2023, the company announced the
city’s design was to be overseen by Zaha Hadid Architects
(ZHA)—no surprise, as the vision of Praxis gels with the
anti-regulatory, tech-forward political leanings of firm
leader Patrik Schumacher—but the firm’s name has since
disappeared from the Praxis website, and ZHA did not
IMAGE: COURTESY @ ITERINTELLECTUS
respond to record’s request for comment regarding its
involvement. No matter, as the Praxis model of city-build-
ing is based on a “demand-first” and bottom-up approach,
which will see the aesthetic and functional vision of the city
formed by a community of future citizens.
I started following the progress of Praxis soon after it
launched: its website was bare-bones and motives shrouded,
but its channel on the social media platform Discord was
bustling as a place for hopeful Praxians to discuss what their
future city would look like. Images of stately neoclassical
architecture dominated the “#aesthetics” thread, along with a
smattering of AI-generated renderings of hyper-futuristic
Praxis CEO
Dryden Brown
reshared this
image by
buildings, as well as lifestyle-inspiration images of armored
@IterIntellectus
centurions, with busty women depicted in servile or domestic on X/Twitter,
roles. The company now hosts real-life parties and gatherings writing “This is all
in addition to its Discord channel (now some 12,000 mem- I want to build.”
bers strong), sporadically publishes essays on its website, and
produces a podcast interview series called The Frontier. While
it has not secured a physical site on which to build, applica-
tions are now open for a “Steel Visa,” which grants a Praxis
proto-citizenship card for agreeing to a future deposit of
$5,000, and the company recently unveiled the PRAX credit
system, which will measure an individual’s contributions to
building the city.
Praxis’s success is far from assured, but, operating as a
tech start-up, the company has raised over $20 million in
funding largely by courting the libertarian sector of the tech
world—which, having exhausted Silicon Valley’s territorial
limits, has become eager to fund extra-urban ventures out
of government-regulation reach. And, in June, Praxis an-
nounced the hiring of megadeveloper David Weinreb, the
former CEO of the Howard Hughes Corporation, who has
overseen several master-planned luxury neighborhoods
across the country, including Ward Village in Honolulu and
The Woodlands in Texas.
Such collaborators suggest that, despite its hyperbolic
ambitions, the Praxis initiative represents a natural continua-
tion and acceleration of the spatial “splintering” that marks the
current trajectory of urban development. A product of political
and economic forces that favor privatism and profit, the con-
69
 FORUM
temporary city is “an archipelago of enclaves,” a term coined
by geographers Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin to
describe a collection of bounded, internally organized sites
that consolidates all elements of urban life within their bor-
ders. This fragmentary model opposes itself to the Modernist
vision of city-building—best represented by Le Corbusier’s
unrealized Radiant City—a top-down organization that
rationally orders elements of urban life into a cohesive whole.
Hudson Yards, that city within a city on Manhattan’s
West Side, exemplifies the current tendency toward spatial
expressions of privatism. Praxis, yet more extreme, closes the
circle of history, bringing the exclusionary enclave back out
toward new territories. But, whereas Hudson Yards—along
with such concurrent city-building initiatives as Saudi
Arabia’s The Line—though gilded with idealistic claims of
maximizing sustainability and “innovation” is conceived
primarily for economic benefit, Praxis presents itself as an
ideological venture, with a stated mission of “[accelerating]
technological progress to create a vital future for humanity.”
While Praxis’s populist slant
supposedly frees its imaginings
from the hierarchy of expertise, it
centers the tech entrepreneur
as sole savior.
In its short lifespan, Praxis’s initially cryptic ideology has
crystallized. In a transcript acquired by The New York Times,
Brown told his speechwriter that the inspiration for Praxis
came during the summer of 2020, when, sequestered in his
West Village apartment, he was disturbed and frightened by
reports of looting in Manhattan. In writings published on the
Praxis website by community members and company leaders,
the state of the contemporary city is bemoaned as unhygienic,
rampant with crime and disorder, and spiritually bereft.
This is a familiar story, the same strain of anti-urbanism
that has driven the privileged out of cities since the late 19th
century, first to pastoral retreats following the industrial
revolution, and then to newly accessible suburbs after World
War II. In recent years, it has re-emerged as a political talk-
ing point; last year, Donald Trump went so far as to propose
something straight out of the Praxis playbook: to build 10
“Freedom Cities” on federal land “to reopen the frontier,
reignite American imagination, and give hundreds of thou-
sands of young people . . . a new shot at the American dream.”
Despite its radical posturing, the philosophy propelling
Praxis’s desired exodus aligns with these long-held gripes
about the sicknesses of the modern world, from the erosion
of the family unit and traditional gender roles to the rise of
secularism and moral relativism and the perceived fact that
mainstream culture “rejects beauty” (an aesthetic critique
covering both contemporary architecture and women’s
fashion). Against this image of societal decline, Praxis
insists on a return to the vague but foundational values of
“vitality,” “nobility,” and “virtue,” associated with the wis-
dom of Greco-Roman antiquity and preindustrial serenity.
70 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
“We’ve lost the future because we’ve lost the past. We live in
an atomized society. We bowl alone and demonize our
compatriots together,” wrote Brown in a 2020 essay pub-
lished on the Praxis website.
This reactionary political foundation is in some ways at
odds with Praxis’s tech-forward posture, but technological
“accelerationism” is nonetheless key to the Praxis social vision.
This conflict is reflected in the company’s sparse architectural
imaginings and helps explain why it adulates both Classical
form and the futuristic curves of parametricism. Modernist
architecture, however, is notably absent from Praxian aesthetic
visions—ironically so, as the entire endeavor signals a return
to the utopian impulse that defined the pursuit of architecture
in the early 20th century. The rigid tabula rasa urban vision
dreamed up by Modernists—such as the Radiant City, or
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City—were long ago dis-
carded in recognition of the complexities of real urban space.
Praxis’s ideological motivation marries a Modernist faith
in technology and ambition to build a new world to a pro-
found nostalgia. Whereas Modernists abandoned the past,
destroying history in their pursuit of ideal futures, Praxis
rejects the present, blindly assigning to the past an inherent
moral truth that they see as lost.
Urban form has long been inextricably tied to utopian
thought, and Praxis is not the first city-building scheme to
dream of leaving the existing world behind, but it does distin-
guish itself by leveraging the increasingly illogical operations
of venture capitalism that subsidize the tech world and prop
up extreme endeavors—all you need is a compelling enough
pitch deck. While Praxis’s populist slant supposedly frees its
imaginings from the hierarchy of expertise, it centers the tech
entrepreneur as sole savior. In the process, it makes literal the
metaphorical tropes that have explicitly or implicitly girded all
kinds of urban change—the glorious frontier, intrepid pio-
neers, and sparkling new worlds.
The myth of the frontier, which has persisted in the
American imagination long after the country became set-
tled, requires the accompanying myth of virgin, uncon-
quered territory, ripe for the taking. In the United States, of
course, that was never a reality—even in the golden ages
that Praxis continually references—and the hyperdeveloped
state of the contemporary world makes it even more fantasti-
cal. In the case of The Line, the Saudi Arabian govern-
ment’s breathless promises of a futuristic linear city rising
out of the desert glossed over the fact that the land on which
the city is being built has long been inhabited by people of the
Howeitat tribe. When construction started last year, people
were forcibly displaced and their homes destroyed to make
room for the city; six Howeitat men now face execution or
life imprisonment for resisting their eviction.
Though it looks unlikely that Praxis will consolidate the
capital or level of political authority required to achieve a
similar feat of spatial erasure on the Mediterranean coast, its
naked ideological aims highlight the pitfalls of grandiose
urban visions that promise salvation through territorial ex-
pansion. It’s certainly easier to dream up new cities, but we
need not destroy the past or the present in pursuit of a bright-
er future; real and pressing work is needed in the existing
places of our world. n
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 CEU
TALL BUILDINGS
BUILDING TYPE STUDY 1,062 LIGHTING
TALL BUILDINGS
100 Firmament
76 One Za’abeel Tokyo | Leo Villareal
Dubai | Nikken Sekkei
102 Mori JP Tower
82 8 Bishopsgate Tokyo | L’Observatoire International
London | WilkinsonEyre
104 Hangzhou Century Tower
88 425 Park Avenue China | TORYO International Lighting
New York | Foster + Partners Design Center

94 Toranomon Hills Station Tower 106 Products

Tokyo | OMA

CONTINUING EDUCATION
To earn one AIA learning unit (LU), including one hour of health, safety,
and welfare (HSW) credit, read the “Tall Buildings” section on pages 75
to 107 and complete the quiz at architecturalrecord.com. Upon passing
the test, you will receive a certificate of completion, and your credit will
PHOTOGRAPHY: © JASON O’REAR

be automatically reported to the AIA. Additional information regarding

credit-reporting and continuing-education requirements can be found at
continuingeducation.bnpmedia.com.

Learning Objectives

1 Discuss commercial-building features and amenities that can lure

employees back to the office and enhance occupant well-being.

2 Describe structural and construction challenges involved in building

tall towers with record-breaking elements.

3 Discuss strategies for reducing the embodied carbon associated with

a tall building’s structure.

4 Describe glazing strategies for tall buildings that can reduce energy
consumption while helping achieve aesthetic objectives.

5 Explain how architectural lighting, and lighting as part of site-

specific art, can reinforce the design parti of a tall building.

AIA/CES Course #K2403

TORANOMON HILLS STATION

TOWER, TOKYO, BY OMA

75
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

ONE ZA’ABEEL’S
dramatic cantilever
(this image) features a
transparent, walkable
floor (opposite).

76 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
ONE ZA’ABEEL | DUBAI | NIKKEN SEKKEI
Raising the Bar
An eye-catching pair of towers, linked by a dramatic cantilever, stands out on the Dubai skyline.
BY LEOPOLDO VILLARDI
PHOTOGRAPHY BY HUFTON + CROW
“THIS CITY is always pushing itself to accomplish something never
before done,” says architect Fadi Jabri, head of Nikken Sekkei’s Dubai
office. Record-setters abound—the Burj Khalifa is still the world’s
tallest building 14 years after completion. The financial capital has also
sprouted a gilded gateway, the Dubai Frame, and multiple sets of
twins—such as the Emirates and Al Kazim towers. “We wanted to add
something new to a skyline that seems to have everything; this was the
challenge for us,” he adds.
Such a simple-sounding exercise belies the complexity of realizing
that achievement while building One Za’abeel, a double-towered
mixed-use complex that spans an active road and shatters the record for
longest occupiable cantilever. Situated in a little-developed neighbor-
hood between historic Old Dubai and the dense downtown, the two
skyscrapers—one 1,000 feet tall and the other 770—spring from a
three-story, greenery-capped plinth that sits on a triangular island
bounded by a sea of multilane highways. Getting there—and leaving—
without the aid of a car is an onerous task, but that’s more or less the
point. One Za’abeel was partly envisioned as a luxury “urban resort”—
the sky-high version of an all-inclusive hotel—packed with amenities
and places to eat, shop, and relax.
Clean, minimally detailed glass curtain walls cloak each of the
sans-setback towers. Although the shorter exposures are regularly
broken by balconies and terraces, the longer facades feature pristine,
uninterrupted surfaces that terminate on both sides with bladelike
planes, lengthened by the inverted corner tucked behind them. Heat-
strengthened, laminated glass fins that penetrate the envelope partially
support these facades, reducing the size of mullions and preventing
distortion caused by “pillowing.” Embedded frit renders these fins,
from an oblique angle, an opaque, misty gray that quickly evaporates
as one moves around. And when the sun sets, the crisp, prismatic
forms of One Za’abeel are accentuated by a subtle but effective lighting
scheme, by Tokyo-based LPA, that outlines them.
77
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

The upper floors of the taller tower host a 229-key luxury hotel,
One&Only, and a 132-key wellness-oriented hotel, SIRO, both oper-
1 ated by Kerzner International, as well as 94 branded residences and
nine “penthouses” at the crown. Guests approach via a shaded ramp,
where, the architects explain, design cues hint at the atmosphere of an
2 oasis. Water trickles down surrounding walls, while mashrabiya screens
hide pumps that flood the arrival area with recycled cool air from the
building—refreshing during scorching summer months, when tem-
peratures can peak at 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Inside the hotel lobby,
designed by Jean-Michel Gathy’s Malaysia-based firm, Denniston,
3
dunelike sculptures flow through opulent marble-lined interiors.
The lower floors of the tower comprise 280,000 square feet of leas-
2 able Grade A office space, accessed via the ground-level concourse and
podium, which include some of the few interiors designed by Nikken
5 Sekkei. These, along with the office lobby by LW, are far more re-
strained in tone—elegantly so—with touches of warm woods, fluted
and translucent glass, and burnished metals. One tenant is the Invest-
ment Corporation of Dubai, parent company of Kerzner and the princi-
pal investment arm of the local government, chaired by the crown prince
of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.
5
3 The shorter tower, One Za’abeel The Residences, comprises, as its
name suggests, 264 apartments in both simplex and duplex arrangements.
“The Link,” hovering 330 feet above the ground, connects the two
high-rises. Guests who wander into it may not immediately realize that

10

11

11
10
6

11
10

3
8

0 150 FT.
GROUND-FLOOR PLAN
50 M.

7 7
11

A
0 100 FT. 0 100 FT.
SECTION A - A LINK LOWER-LEVEL PLAN
30 M. 30 M.

1 MECHANICAL 4 LOUNGE/AMENITIES 7 THE LINK 10 RETAIL

2 PENTHOUSE 5 HOTEL 8 OFFICE 11 FOOD & BEVERAGE

3 APARTMENT 6 HOTEL DROP-OFF 9 OFFICE LOBBY (BELOW) 12 PARKING

78 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
A DIAGRID wraps the Link (above), which is topped by a
pool (right). The hotel check-in is on the 25th floor
(above, right).

they have moved beyond the footprint of either tower,

but a quick glance to either side will do the trick—
suddenly, they stand in a 750-foot-long column-free
expanse brimming with bars and restaurants. On one
end, the Link dramatically juts out 221½ feet, forming
the longest occupiable cantilever in the world, usurp-
ing the previous record holder, Moshe Safdie’s Marina
Bay Sands in Singapore. At the other end of the Link,
guests amble through Arrazuna—a restaurant de-
signed to resemble a food market with multiple
“stalls,” around which glimpses of Dubai’s skyline
come in and out of view—or they can enjoy a meal at
any number of high-end offerings with tasteful interi-
ors by New York–based Rockwell Group.
Although the restaurants and bars help fulfill the
ambition to become an urban resort, the Link was not
planned in the project’s early days as a culinary destina-
tion. As Kerzner chief executive officer Philippe Zuber
explains, the architects proposed something different.
“What an expensive art gallery that would have been,
suspended up there,” he remarks of the idea, noting that
such a venture would not have been profitable.
On the roof of the Link, guests will find a 360-foot-
long infinity pool with stunning views of downtown
Dubai. “This building gave us an opportunity to think
about what an urban resort should stand for,” Zuber
says. “This is an elevated boulevard. It is a beach in the
sky.” The aim is not placelessness, either, given the
many nods to local cuisine and culture—and, heard in
the distance, the intermittent call to prayer serves as a

79
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

THE LINK connects the two towers of One Za’abeel (above and opposite). linearity. Campy blue velvet covers much of the hotel’s nightclub, the
Sphere, which features what appears to be a kidney-shaped Anish Kapoor
reminder of One Za’abeel’s Emirati setting. (Initially, the pool was to knockoff-turned-bar. Multimedia gimmicks, such as the digital locks that
have a transparent basin; though technically possible, the move was romantic duos can clip onto a digital chain-link fence, add lowbrow Las
deemed too immodest.) Vegas frill. “It has definitely been a challenge. We have our own design
This sliver of paradise was not assembled in situ; rather, engineers DNA and identity, but we’re creating a building for the client, for the
built the structure in sections, using the podium as a staging ground, community, for Dubai,” says project architect David Lehnort, noting
and then hoisted it into place over 72 hours. “Dubai has only stopped the many stakeholders, six interior design firms, and considerable cast
three times: when George Bush visited, when Covid first struck, and of international consultants involved. There’s a little bit for everyone.
when the lift began, which halted car traffic,” Jabri says with a laugh. One Za’abeel does not add to the nearby roster of unremarkable and
The endeavor required hundreds of cables and strand jacks temporarily pastiche towers—on the contrary, it expresses a take on the tall building
affixed to both towers. At 9,600 tons (heavier than the Eiffel Tower’s that is more sophisticated than almost everything else Dubai has to offer.
frame), the massive diagrid would have pulled the skyscrapers closer And, in the process of realizing the world’s longest cantilever, Nikken
together; instead, they were deliberately canted away from one another, Sekkei, Japan’s oldest architecture firm, may have accomplished some-
and raising the structure brought them parallel. thing far more meaningful—that is, shown Dubai how to raise the bar. n
The Link daringly hangs from both high-rises, bridging the gap
between them—the gesture recalls the unbuilt Cross # Towers, pro-
posed by Bjarke Ingels Group for Seoul in 2012, about a year before the Credits Brimaxx, Farmboy, Capsule Arts,
Crowd Dynamics, Brash
competition for One Za’abeel was held. A hybrid concrete-and-steel ARCHITECT: Nikken Sekkei — Koko
Nakamura, design director; Fadi GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
system, on a 40-foot grid, holds up the towers and the Link—and a Jabri, executive officer; Hiroshi ALEC Engineering and Contracting
hefty, 6½-by-9-foot corner column bears the brunt of the tremendous Nishikiori, David Lehnort, Issei CLIENT: One Za’abeel Holdings
moment load from the cantilever. On the upper floors, the concrete Kasashima, associates; Takamitsu
Moriyama, architect SIZE: 5,704,800 square feet
structural frame is more conventional. A 20-foot grid runs through
ENGINEERS: Nikken Sekkei, WSP COST: withheld
SIRO, accommodating smaller rooms, and a 30-foot grid runs through
Middle East (structural, m/e/p); COMPLETION DATE: January 2024
the luxury hotel and penthouses. The transitions, concealed at transfer RWDI (wind)
and mechanical levels, and further disguised by the highly regimented CONSULTANTS: Inhabit (facade); Sources
curtain wall, allowed the architects to pull columns away from the Limah, ESD (signage); Cracknell
(landscape); LPA (lighting); LW CURTAIN WALL: Al Abbar
corners at higher levels, freeing up valuable space for views.
Design Group, Denniston, Rockwell FLOORING: Tarkett, BASF, Silikal
Refinement may prevail throughout much of One Za’abeel, but this Group, DWP, HBA Social F+B
makes a handful of loud interiors much more noticeable. Bulbous ceiling CONVEYANCE: Otis
(interiors); Stufish (canopy); DPA
protrusions in the Link, formed by wood slats, detract from its impressive Design Studio, Wellness by Design,

80 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
81
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

8 BISHOPSGATE I LONDON I WILKINSONEYRE

Stepping It Up
A tower responds to planning mandates with shifting forms, clever engineering, and careful detailing.
BY JOANN GONCHAR, FAIA
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DIRK LINDER

LONDONERS LIKE to give the city’s office towers amusing nick­
names. There’s Foster + Partners’ 30 St Mary Axe, known as the
Gherkin (2004); Richard Rogers’s 122 Leadenhall, aka the Cheese­
grater and Rafael Viñoly’s 20 Fenchurch Street, referred to as the
Walkie Talkie (both completed in 2014); as well as KPF’s 52 Lime
Street, called the Scalpel (2018). But now this collection of buildings,
all in or near the financial district’s “eastern cluster,” has a new
addition: WilkinsonEyre’s 50­story, 668­foot­tall 8 Bishopsgate,
which some have dubbed the Jenga, due to the stacked and subtly
rotated volumes that lend it a passing resemblance to the off­
kilter towers of the popular woodblock game.
Completed in July for developer Mitsubishi Estate London, 8
Bishopsgate is much more nuanced than its moniker implies,
however. Rather than a willfully haphazard and attention­grab­
bing form, the tower is a carefully considered response to client
needs, to the surrounding context, and especially to the London
View Management Framework—planning provisions protecting
views of important landmarks across the city. Among the
Framework’s requirements is a stipulation that buildings not
interfere with the “skyspace” around the dome of St Paul’s
Cathedral when viewed from the west and from a certain vantage
point. These regulations were the source of the wedge shape and
raked facade of the Cheesegrater, for instance, which sits imme­
diately to the east of 8 Bishopsgate.
WilkinsonEyre took a different approach, translating the
conditions of the Framework into a stepped profile. The building
reads as a collection of stacked boxes, including one at the base
clad in sandstone­faced precast panels to relate to nearby heritage
buildings, and fully glazed volumes above. The blocks become
more slender as they ascend, stepping back toward the north and
8 Bishopsgate’s much taller and heftier neighbor, PLP Archi­
tecture’s 2020 skyscraper, 22 Bishopsgate. As they rise, each of
the blocks of 8 Bishopsgate is slightly rotated, with a modest
cantilever, relative to the one below it. The result is a tower with
a sympathetic scale and an assemblage that seems informed both
by the mazelike street grid and by the variety of building heights
and shapes nearby.
Critical to this expression is 8 Bishopsgate’s taut glass enve­
lope, which Oliver Tyler, a WilkinsonEyre director, claims is the
“crispest and flattest in the city.” And indeed the reflections seen
on many of the skyscrapers in close proximity reveal that their
facades ripple and bow, while there is little distortion evident on
the skin of 8 Bishopsgate, which consists of a double curtain
wall, about 8 inches deep, enclosing automated blinds. Tyler
credits the precision of the cladding to a close collaboration with
the Dutch fabricator that modified its usual assembly sequence to

EIGHT BISHOPSGATE twists like the streets below (left) and

steps back to its taller neighbor, 22 Bishopsgate (opposite).

82 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
83
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

4
5
ATE
O PSG

1 2
BISH

3 1

A 6
EET
LEADENHALL STR

GROUND-FLOOR PLAN

3 9

1 ENTRY 7 WINDOW-WASHING-
7
6 2 RECEPTION EQUIPMENT STORAGE

3 CAFÉ 8 OFFICE

4 VIEWING-GALLERY 9 MECHANICAL

ACCESS 10 CYCLE PARKING

5 MANAGEMENT OFFICE 11 VIEWING GALLERY

6 TERRACE

0 50 FT. 0 100 FT.

LEVEL-26 FLOOR PLAN SECTION A - A
15 M. 30 M.

84 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
THE LOWER volume is clad in sandstone (right), while upper ones, which
cantilever (opposite) are fully glazed. The double-height reception area
(above) has marble walls, terrazzo floors, and timber-slat ceilings.

achieve the architect’s desired effect.

The attention to detail continues inside, in public spaces like the
double-height entry hall, where visitors are greeted with Carrara-
marble-clad walls, terrazzo floors that include the same marble in its
aggregate, and elevator lobbies in expertly finished exposed concrete.
Overhead, panels made of slats of sweet chestnut span the exposed
steel ceiling structure. Curvaceous benches in oak, of Tyler’s design,
are placed here and there. The overall feeling is sleek and inviting.
Eight Bishopsgate replaces two early 1980s buildings—one 20
stories and the other seven stories—which “were not maximizing the
site nor were they fit for purpose,” says Kevin Darvishi, leasing director
for Stanhope, the project’s development and asset manager. Their
replacement has proved popular primarily with financial, insurance,
and legal tenants. As of late January, of 560,000 square feet of office
space at 8 Bishopsgate, about 85 percent is leased or under offer, ac-
cording to Darvishi.
One of the tower’s main selling points, as companies try to lure
employees back to the office, has been its amenities, such as outdoor
space. Where the building steps back, at levels 9, 11, and 25, there are
landscaped terraces for occupants of those floors. There are also shared
amenities, including a tenants-only restaurant and bar on level 26,
which opens out onto an especially capacious terrace, and on a mezza-

85
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

A TOP-FLOOR viewing gallery offers sweeping vistas (above). A tenants-

only restaurant opens onto a capacious terrace (left). The Cheesegrater,
with its raked facade, sits just to the east of 8 Bishopsgate (opposite).

nine just above the lobby, a 200-person auditorium with an adjoining

meeting space. Meanwhile, on the top floor, a viewing gallery with
sweeping city vistas can be reserved for special events when not open to
public. Below grade, there is parking for nearly 1,000 bikes—one of
the largest such facilities in the city, according to the project team—
and spa-like showers and locker rooms.
The structure of 8 Bishopsgate consists of a steel frame and two
reinforced-concrete cores—one to the south that serves the building’s
low-rise portion and another to the north, which extends to the
crown. Linking the two cores together, a braced box at the building’s
midsection helps stabilize the tower and enables the projecting vol-
umes without the excess steel usually associated with such cantilevers,
explains Chris Edgington, an associate director at Arup, which
served as the structural and mechanical engineer. Together with
rationalizing the frame, the braced box helped reduce the use of steel
by 25 percent, saving 5,000 metric tons of embodied CO₂ when
compared to a more conventional tower, according to the project
team. Every steel member is “sized to do what it needs to do and is no
bigger,” confirms Tyler.
This “right-sizing” approach also extends underneath the tower,
where, instead of relying on pile foundations typical of tall buildings,
Arup designed a raft foundation with piles only under the taller north

86
core. The hybrid solution, according to
Edgington, resulted in the “leanest founda-
tion possible,” avoiding the use of 4,000 cubic
yards of concrete and saving another 680
metric tons of CO₂.
Operationally, too, the building is de-
signed with sustainability as a priority.
Contributing to its BREEAM Outstanding
designation (the green-building rating sys-
tem’s highest certification possible) are its:
on-floor air-handling units, which allow
tenants control over their individual spaces
and provide higher fresh-air and filtration
rates than is typical; a water-to-water heat
pump that recycles waste heat from air-con-
ditioning; and systems that capture and treat
water from sinks and showers and from roof
runoff, reusing it for toilet flushing and
irrigation. And, of course, there is the dou-
ble-skin facade, with its interstitial blinds,
that helps to reduce glare and cooling loads.
The flawlessly flat skin is, arguably, em-
blematic of the whole tower: a symbol of
8 Bishopsgate’s high environmental aspira-
tions, but also of a commitment to detail and
precision that is rare in such large speculative
projects. n

Credits
ARCHITECT: WilkinsonEyre — Oliver Tyler,
director; Ayman El Hibri, associate director
CONSULTANTS: Arup (structural,
m/e/p, access, landscape), Alinea (cost),
Andrew McMillan Associates (catering),
Studio Sutherland with Whybrow Pedrola
(wayfinding), EQ2 (lighting), Gerald Eve
(planning), PFB Construction Management
(construction design and management), Reef
Associates (facade maintenance)
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER: Lendlease
CLIENT:
Mitsubishi Estate London + Stanhope
SIZE: 913,000 square feet (gross)
COST: $377 million (development)
COMPLETION DATE: July 2023

Sources
CURTAIN WALL: Scheldebouw
PRECAST CLADDING: Loveld
GLASS: Interpane
TIMBER CEILINGS AND PANELING:
BCL Timber Projects, Gustafs
MARBLE AND TERRAZZO: InOpera
LOCKSETS: Assa Abloy
CLOSERS: Dorma
EXIT DEVICES: Zumtobel, Philip Payne
LIGHTING: Osram, LED Linear, iGuzzini, Erco,
Zumtobel, ACDC, Concord, Light Graphix,
Light Lab
VERTICAL TRANSPORT: Kone

87
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

425 PARK AVENUE I NEW YORK I FOSTER + PARTNERS

Towering Ambition
A full-block office building rises on Park Avenue for the first time in half a century.
BY CLIFFORD A. PEARSON

LIKE THE hedge-fund managers who work inside it, 425 Park
Avenue faces the dilemma of standing out in a crowd while never
screaming for attention or bragging (too) loudly. The reportedly $1 bil-
lion building on New York’s fanciest boulevard proves its worth the
way high-priced financial bro’s do: by outperforming the competition
(and talking a good game). The old guard here—Mies van der Rohe’s
Seagram Building and Gordon Bunshaft’s Lever House—still com-
mand respect and challenge any new kid in the ’hood to show he be-
longs. The first full-block office building on Park in more than 50
years, 425 had to push its way into an exclusive club without seeming
to break a sweat. Luckily, Norman Foster has done this before and isn’t
easily intimidated. And, luckily for Foster, he had a deep-pocketed
client who had hung onto the project through economic downturns,
three different mayoral administrations, and the vicissitudes of New
York’s rule-making process—and was determined to make a statement.
The client, L&L Holding Company, acquired the property in 2006
when it was occupied by a 32-story office building designed in 1957 by
Kahn & Jacobs and had tenant leases that wouldn’t run out until 2015.
It had low ceiling heights and outdated mechanical systems, making it
unattractive to top-end tenants. The company brought in Lehman
Brothers as an equity partner, but Lehman went belly-up at the start of
the 2008–09 financial meltdown. David Levinson, chairman and CEO
of L&L, found new financing and stuck with the project. In 2012,
L&L organized a design competition for a new building, inviting nine
world-renowned firms to participate. The client then narrowed the
selection to four architects—Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, Rem
Koolhaas/OMA, and Foster—and spent the next several months meet-

PHOTOGRAPHY: © NIGEL YOUNG/FOSTER + PARTNERS, EXCEPT AS NOTED

ing with the architects, visiting their offices, touring their work, and
getting to know their operations. “I thought it would get easier to make
a decision after we cut the field to four,” recalls Levinson. “It got harder.
They’re all great architects, and I got friendly with each of them.”
What struck Levinson about Foster was the clarity of his scheme,
the quality of his team, and his ability to explain everything. “He
draws in a sketchbook as you sit there, and you see his ideas come
alive,” says Levinson.
The Foster scheme stacks three blocks of offices with a double-
height floor separating each one and stepping back each time on the
north, south, and west. This provides three different-size floor plates,
allowing L&L to attract a range of tenants—from large financial
companies to smaller professional firms. Each of the two setback floors

THE TOWER’S service core rises on its east side, culminating in three
136-foot-tall blades (left). Its mostly glass west facade addresses Park
Avenue (opposite).

88 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
89
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

features outdoor terraces on the north and south, as well as social

spaces for eating and gathering—for a single tenant on the 7th floor
and for all building tenants on the 26th. Another healthy-building
strategy provides a separate air-handling unit for each level, giving
tenants more control and potentially reducing energy use.
Instead of placing the circulation-and-mechanical core at the center
of the building, the project team, including mechanical and structural
engineers at WSP, moved it to the east side, where an existing mid-rise
office tower blocked views anyway. Doing this creates a large rectan-
gular space on each floor for tenants to lay out as they see fit, rather
than arranging offices within a square donut. Foster and WSP also
designed a steel exoskeleton for the structure, so perimeter columns
don’t impinge on the flow of interior space. Floor slabs extend beyond
the steel frame on the north and south, creating corner offices that
appear to float above the street.
Sliding the core to one side, though, creates asymmetrical loads on
the structure, so the architects and engineers developed a diagrid
system for the double-height floors where the building steps back. At
the ground level, six steel columns rise along Park Avenue. But at each
double-height transition level, one column drops off and loads are
transferred to the next stack of floors via the diamond-shaped struc-
ture. A second row of columns runs through the center of the floors,
with one dropping off at each transition level—so the lowest stack of
floors has six of these columns, while the second has five, and the third
has four. At the top of the tower, these columns disappear completely.
The structure combines steel elements, a concrete core, and concrete

9
3 4 5

12

13 13

14
1 11
8

6 6 10

2 7

0 30 FT.
GROUND-FLOOR PLAN SEVENTH-FLOOR PLAN 26TH-FLOOR PLAN
10 M.

1 OFFICE LOBBY 5 KITCHEN 9 TERRACE 13 MEDITATION

2 RETAIL 6 CAR ELEVATORS 10 COFFEE STATION 14 STORAGE

3 BAR 7 LOADING 11 SEATING/DINING

4 PRIVATE DINING 8 OFFICES 12 CASUAL SEATING

90 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
AN EARLY SKETCH by Foster himself set the key ideas for
the project (opposite, top). A Sol LeWitt painting animates
the lobby (above), while one by Larry Poons runs above the
bar (right).

floor slabs. A trio of concrete shear walls runs through

the core and is expressed at the top of the building as
blades extending 136 feet above the highest floor, creat-
ing a distinctive crown visible on the city’s skyline. On
the north and south of this stylish top, LED screens
present digital artwork to catch the eye of pedestrians
from many blocks away.
Due to New York zoning regulations, L&L had to
retain 25 percent of the old building’s structure if it want-
ed to develop the same amount of space as its predeces-
sor—670,000 square feet. Though the City Council
ultimately relaxed the rules in 2017, it was too late for
L&L to benefit, since construction had already started
the year before.
To accommodate the more restrictive rules, the project
team devised a complex plan that removed the top 15
floors of the existing building, inserted a temporary steel
structure to support the remaining 17 floors, then re-
moved every other floor slab to create double-height
spaces for the new building. Once this was done, the

91
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS
contractor erected the new structure, incorpo-
rating the old floor slabs that remained and
adding the new exoskeleton and 30 new floors
on top of the old ones.
With its gridded facades and its exposed
structure serving as its main architectural
expression, 425 Park echoes the “tautness” of
its illustrious neighbors, says Nigel Dancey,
a senior executive partner and studio head at
Foster. The architects also took inspiration
92 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
from the drawings of Hugh Ferris, who envi-
sioned moody, stepped-back towers lining the
avenue, says Dancey. “We took the history and
grandeur of Park Avenue and updated it for a
new era,” says James Barnes, a senior partner
at Foster.
The building also borrows from Foster’s
own history. Moving the core to the perimeter
was a key strategy that the firm employed in
its first high-rise project, the Hongkong &
NEW YORK’S grid informed Foster’s design for
the structure and its elevations (left). A shared
amenities floor features a pair of outdoor
terraces (opposite, bottom) and a wall sculpture
that uses Yayoi Kusama balls (opposite, top).
Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC)
Headquarters in Hong Kong, completed in
1986. On top of that, like HSBC, 425 Park
separates blocks of office floors with multi-
height levels identified by triangular struc-
tural elements boldly expressed on the exte-
rior. The two buildings also engage the street
with a bit of swagger, HSBC with its now
iconic angled escalators taking visitors to a
10-story atrium raised a few levels above a
covered plaza, 425 Park with a 45-foot-high
lobby bookended by same-height spaces for a
restaurant on the north and a gallery/retail
component on the south.
Art plays a key role throughout 425 Park.
In the lobby, a large Sol LeWitt piece takes
center stage. In the restaurant, which Foster
himself designed, a long Larry Poons paint-
ing anchors the bar area. On the shared-
amenities level on the 20th floor, the Foster
team composed a wall-mounted sculpture
repurposing 400 stainless-steel balls that
artist Yayoi Kusama had created years before.
Asked about the future of commercial
districts like Midtown Manhattan at a time
when many people work from home at least
part of the week, Levinson is bullish. “The
best companies now have their employees
coming in almost every day. And recent data
show that the top-quality office buildings are
leasing out,” he states. According to L&L,
425 is 87 percent leased, nearly half of it to
hedge-fund giant Citadel.
Indeed, the success of 425 Park may entice
other developers and rich corporations (like
JPMorgan Chase, which hired Foster to de-
sign its 60-story headquarters now under
construction a few blocks south, at 270 Park
Avenue) to build expensive structures that can
lure the top end of the commercial market.
Right now, high interest rates are the main
obstacle to that, says Levinson. But if rates
come down, a new wave of ne plus ultra towers
could sweep through Manhattan. If that
PHOTOGRAPHY: © ALAN SCHINDLER (LEFT)
occurs, what happens to older office buildings
that can’t compete with the sexy newcomers?
Will they hang on as partially vacant remind-
ers of previous booms, get torn down to make
way for new construction, or be reinvented as
housing or something else? Instead of repre-
senting the end of an era, 425 Park might
kickstart a transition—albeit painful and
perhaps lengthy—to a more mixed-use
Midtown that is active all day long. n
Credits
ARCHITECT: Foster + Partners — Norman
Foster, Nigel Dancey, James Barnes, Justin
Boyer, Pier Rapana, Joe Bausano
ARCHITECT OF RECORD: Adamson Associates
ENGINEERS: WSP (structural, m/e/p); Langan
(civil)
CONSULTANTS: Cerami (acoustics); Charlie
Rizzo (code/expediter); Entek (window
washing); Gardiner & Theobald (project
management); Jenkins and Huntington (vertical
transportation); Socotec (facade); Tillotson
Design and Illuminating Concepts (lighting);
Jacobs Doland Beer (kitchen); Kroll (security)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR:
AECOM Tishman Construction
CLIENT: L&L Holding Company
SIZE: 670,000 rental square feet; 770,000
gross square feet
COST: withheld
COMPLETION DATE: October 2022

Sources
METAL PANELS: Outokumpu Stainless Steel
CURTAIN WALL: Permasteelisa North America,
Scheldebouw & Josef H. Gartner
GLASS: AGC Interpane, Saint Gobain Eckelt
ENTRANCES: CRL Blumcraft
RESTAURANT FURNITURE:
Foster with Karimoku

93
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

TORANOMON HILLS STATION TOWER I TOKYO I OMA

A New Slant
A tower twists to serve the public rather than to achieve pristine form.
BY JOSEPHINE MINUTILLO

PHOTOGRAPHY: © JASON O’REAR; TOMOYUKI KUSUNOSE (OPPOSITE, TOP AND BOTTOM)

94 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
TOKYO does not have one of those iconic skylines—towers
with striking forms or distinctive crowns do not emerge from
the water the way they do in cities like New York and Hong
Kong. Tokyo’s buildings—many of more or less similar
heights—are not ordered but rather form a haphazard con-
stellation in the urban fabric, where one does not stand out
much more than the rest (with the exception perhaps of a
bright orange and white Eiffel Tower–inspired communica-
tions structure). There is no proliferation of supertalls that
dot the landscape. There are no gridded streets but instead
long, winding boulevards that navigate hills and highways.
It is within this context that the New York office of
OMA, led by Japanese architect Shohei Shigematsu, who
knows the context well, has completed a new tower to an-
chor a new neighborhood. If that anchor appears unsteady—
seemingly twisting in the wind or, from certain angles,
looking a bit crooked—it is, of course, by design.
The torquing Toranomon Hills Station Tower accommo-
dates a rich variety of program in its 49 above-grade stories,
and even more below grade—most notably a subway station.
The structure is among the latest in a decades-long trans-
formation of Toranomon Hills, and of nearby Azabudai
Hills—where Pelli Clarke & Partners also just completed
the Mori JP Tower, the tallest in Japan (page 102)—into a
business district. THE TORQUING OMA building (opposite) is a sharp contrast to the subtly curved
The transformation comes at the hands of Mori Building, Mori JP Tower in the distance. A faceted bridge just above street level (top) and a
which famously earlier revamped neighborhoods such as the “sky bridge” farther up the tower (above) form part of the design.

95
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

8 8

4 4 3
4
A A

1 2

3
4 4

0 100 FT.
SITE PLAN
30 M.

1 1 ATRIUM 6 SKY LOBBY

2 3 2 T-DECK 7 OFFICE

3 GLASS ROCK 8 TOKYO NODE

1
4 RETAIL 9 SKY GARDEN
5 SUBWAY STATION 10 STACKED PARKING

0 100 FT.
SECTION A - A
30 M.

96 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
 THE SKY LOBBY is located on the seventh floor (opposite). Origami-like
ceiling panels and colorful glass along the escalators by Sabine Marcelis
enliven the atrium (above and right).

swanky Roppongi Hills in the Japanese capital. The family-owned

real-estate giant has traditionally worked with firms like the late
César Pelli’s, which are expert at skyscrapers, but in Toranomon Hills
has broadened its portfolio of architects to include the likes of
Christoph Ingenhoven (who designed a pair of plant-covered tow-
ers—one office, one residential) and OMA.
The unconventional choice of OMA, selected in a 2015 competi-
tion, resulted in this unusual structure. It is the firm’s first ground-up
building in Tokyo and, at just over 2.5 million square feet and 873
feet tall, OMA’s largest built work to date. (Shigematsu completed
the 19-story Tenjin Business Center in his home city of Fukuoka,
west of Tokyo, in 2021.)
OMA’s Toranomon Hills building is the final piece of the nearly
20-acre development that previously contained small, aging structures
PHOTOGRAPHY: © TOMOYUKI KUSUNOSE (3)

in dense clusters. Positioned at the terminus of Shintora-dori Avenue,

a thoroughfare connecting Tokyo Bay to the city center and what is
now being called the city’s “Champs-Élysées”—in another Tokyo
reference to the French capital—the tower serves as a gateway of sorts.
“We thought of the skyscraper as connective, not inward-looking,”
says Shigematsu. At its base, a 50-foot-wide elevated pedestrian bridge,
known as T-Deck, seemingly collides with the center of the tower,
creating a rupture (and split structural and elevator cores) that pushes
one side of the building forward—resulting in a 50-foot-long over-
hang—and the other back, with the middle contorting to accommodate

97
 CEU TALL BUILDINGS

THE SKY GARDEN’S infinity pool (above) and a top-floor conference center (top)
offer arresting city views. Elevator lobbies feature sleek lighting and metal finishes
(right). The tower appears to take on different forms from different angles (opposite).

98 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
 the shifting planes. Despite the warping, the
area remains the same on each floor through-
out the building, and all of the 6-by-14½-foot
IGU’s of the unitized curtain wall are straight.
Above T-Deck, a sky bridge that wraps a
corner of the building’s facade acts as a mar-
quee over the main entrance; its underside
hosts a dynamic light installation by artist
Leo Villareal (page 100). The soffit of the
prefabricated T-Deck—which connects to a
squat subway headhouse across the street,
dubbed Glass Rock, and other nearby Mori
buildings and art-filled public space—fea-
tures origami-like folds of half inch–thick
welded steel plates that are carried into the
Station Tower’s expansive atrium.
The multilevel atrium welcomes a vast
array of visitors to the building, including
those heading below grade to the retail
concourse and subway platforms of the new
Toranomon Hills Station on the Hibiya Line
and above as guests of the 205-key hotel
(designed with a Scandinavian flavor by
Space Copenhagen), patrons of Tokyo Node,
a 108,000-square-foot voluminous art space
on the uppermost levels, or office workers
spread out over a million square feet within
the middle floors. At the very top, an infin-
ity pool and greenery-filled observation area,
known as the Sky Garden, wow diners at the
two restaurants located there. (Plantings also
accentuate the highly variegated base at
street level, on the opposite side of the
building from T-Deck.)
If, from a distance, the slanting structure
gives the impression that it just wasn’t built
right, that notion is quickly dismissed upon
seeing the building up close. While OMA is
not generally known for the impeccable
execution of its projects, it’s apparently
difficult to escape a certain attention to
detail in Japan. The vibrant exterior, with its
louvered facade, is matched inside, where
PHOTOGRAPHY: © TOMOYUKI KUSUNOSE (OPPOSITE, 3); JASON O’REAR

there’s also a refinement that comes with

recurring motifs—grated ceilings, sleek
lighting, and color schemes that fade from
intensely saturated to pale hues (particularly
in the glass escalator panels throughout the
atrium designed by Sabine Marcelis, a fre-
quent OMA collaborator).
“For me, the focus was to create a highly
public top and highly public bottom,” says
Shigematsu. “The form is expressing the axis
the building occupies, but it’s also creating a
relationship to the context.” And if Shige-
matsu was less concerned about how his
tower would transform the skyline, it still
managed to achieve something most tall
buildings in Tokyo do not—to stand out. n
Credits
ARCHITECT: OMA — Shohei Shigematsu, partner
in charge; Takeshi Mitsuda, Jake Sadler-Foster,
Luke Willis, associates
EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT: Mori Building
ENGINEERS: Kume Sekkei (structural, m/e/p,
fire protection, facade); Arup (structural for
competition, facade)
CONSULTANTS: L’Observatoire International
(exterior lighting); Arc Light Design (interior
lighting); Ney & Partners (T-Deck)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Kajima Corporation
CLIENT: Mori Building
SIZE: 2.55 million square feet
COST: $1.3 billion
COMPLETION DATE: October 2023
Sources
CURTAIN WALL: Showa Leadfu, YKK AP
(aluminum); Asahi Building Wall (glass)
ENTRANCES: NABCO Systems

99
 CEU LIGHTING

Firmament at
Toranomon Hills
OMA
Leo Villareal
BY JOSEPHINE MINUTILLO

ARTIST LEO VILLAREAL has brought

dancing lights to the cables of the Bay Bridge
connecting San Francisco and Oakland. He’s
illuminated the Thames River in London.
His Multiverse transformed a tunnel connect­
ing the East and West Buildings of the Na­
tional Gallery in Washington, D.C. Smaller­
scale interventions have had big impact on
individual buildings. At the recently com­
pleted Lindemann Performing Arts Center at
Brown University by REX, his Infinite Com­
position of white LED panels over structural
columns injects life into the lobby (record,
November 2023).
His biggest impact on a building may be his
latest. Firmament at OMA’s Toranomon Hills
Station Tower (page 94), is an emphatic punc­
tuation mark at the tower’s entrance. Like all
of Villareal’s work, it is a site­specific piece
that, in this case, underscores the building’s
role as a gateway to Tokyo’s recent Toranomon
Hills development at one end of the newly
reconfigured Shintora­dori Avenue. By dy­
namically illuminating the underside of
OMA’s sky bridge, 132 feet above the ground,
day and night, the artwork, which, for Villa­
real was meant to connect to the sky and
cosmos, enchants visitors to the building and
its belowground metro station as well as pass­
ersby on the street. “We had a proposal to do
the top of the building, which was one idea,”
says Villareal. “But this building occupied a
very special location, so it was intriguing to me
to activate the bottom of the sky bridge.”
Inspired by artists such as Diego Rivera,
Villareal likens the 126­foot­long, L­shaped
panel to a mural, the kind that, like Rivera’s,
adorn historic buildings. Only here, the
reflection of the piece in the tower’s glass
skin creates a doubling effect of the constant­
ly moving light show.
To some, the 6,000 LED nodes within
Firmament may seem to react to the people
walking beneath it, but the artwork does not
contain sensors. “I did do some interactive
pieces early on,” recalls Villareal, “but I found
it difficult to create a satisfying experience
like that.”
Instead, after spending several nights on­

100 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24

 Artist Leo Villareal brings a dynamic light show to OMA’s Tokyo tower,
emphasizing its role as a gateway to a new neighborhood.

site observing the mixed-use tower, its many spaces, and how people move
around it, Villareal created different visual sequences. These are displayed in
a random order and for a random amount of time. Layers of sequences are
dynamically combined so that observers are not seeing the same thing over
and over. “It’s not a loop,” says Villareal. “I’m really shuffling the deck.”
To distinguish the quality of the light in this piece from the ambient
light, Villareal used a 4000 Kelvin color temperature. The resolution of the
graphics is relatively low compared to some of Villareal’s other more recent
work. “I like how pared down it is and how it evokes something like an
early kind of video game, which probably resonates in Japan,” says the
artist. Using customized tools and working with products from Color
Kinetics, the artwork incorporates LED nodes, power supplies, network
switches, and computers, and is meant to be a permanent fixture on the
PHOTOGRAPHY: © INKI KANG

building. “We have the ability to do some debugging remotely if we need

to, but fortunately we haven’t had any issues, and the software we create is
very robust.”
Villareal has described his pieces as digital campfires, bringing people
together to observe a phenomenon. “The public nature of the work—that
it’s available and free to everyone—is very important to me.” n

101
 CEU LIGHTING

Mori JP Tower
Pelli Clarke & Partners
L’Observatoire International
BY LEOPOLDO VILLARDI

A stone’s throw from Toranomon Hills Station

Tower (page 100) in Minato-ku, the ward in
Tokyo that plays host to a suite of international
company headquarters and national embassies,
the Pelli Clarke & Partners–designed Mori JP
Tower elegantly ascends to new heights—liter-
ally. At 1,083 feet, the building is the tallest
skyscraper in Japan (only two communications
structures surpass it in height) and represents
the pinnacle of a 30-year relationship between
architect and client, Mori Building.
Mori JP Tower forms the centerpiece of a
mixed-use, three-tower urban village called
Azabudai Hills, master-planned by PC&P
but with smaller-scale architectural contribu-
tions by Thomas Heatherwick and Sou
Fujimoto, among others.
Measuring 267 feet square at its thickest—
wider than a Manhattan block—Mori JP
Tower would have appeared staggeringly stout
without the help of a few design moves with

102 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24

 Four vertical channels break up the
skyscraper’s volume (right). Downlights
wash columns and walls (opposite).

big impact, reinforced in the evening by

L’Observatoire International’s lighting
scheme. The bulky height-to-width ratio
prompted the introduction of a vertical
channel down the middle of each face,
rendering the otherwise singular tower into
a bundle of four narrower volumes. The
tower softly billows, like entasis, tapering at
the base and toward its petal-like crown.
Rounded corners add to the visual trickery
at play, as does highly transparent low-iron
glass, which gives the tower a silvery cast
akin to a Mikimoto pearl, says Fred Clarke,
partner at PC&P. “It has a commanding but
still quiet presence.”
But, as L’Observatoire founder Hervé
Descottes notes, “our cities live at night.”
Tokyo is incredibly bright, he adds, while
also pointing out that very few towers have
lit crowns. “It’s important that they connect
with people and serve as locators.”
Although 48 floors of Mori JP Tower
were planned as leasable office space, the
top 10 levels house Aman Resorts–branded
residences. To ensure that the apex would
glow without affecting these units, pro-
grammable LEDs were installed inside the
glass-clad spandrels between floors.
Concealed LEDs also illuminate the verti-
cal channels, reinforcing the quadripartite
expression of the facade at night but with an
important twist: these bands of light dim
toward the ground, creating a sense that the
four wedges are opening—like a flower bud
beginning to blossom. The lighting scheme
at the crown may seem understated when
compared to the intense brightness of near-
by landmarks, such as Tokyo Tower, but it
establishes a rare identifiable symbol in
Minato-ku.
At the ground level, a louvered streetside
plinth echoes the scale of the surrounding
context. Uplights, integrated into every fifth
fin, illuminate the undersides, while down-
lights wash other surfaces—a rounded-glass
corner entrance filled with plants, or mas-
sive sloped columns near the office en- Credits CONSULTANTS: Heatherwick Studio (public
spaces and lower-level architecture); Light Design
trance—to dramatic effect.
PHOTOGRAPHY: © JASON O’REAR

“We see tall buildings as the intermedi-
ary between heaven and earth,” Clarke adds.
“That’s what César Pelli always used to say.”
Record-setting achievement notwithstand-
ing, Mori JP Tower cuts an elegant, if still
weighty, figure across the Tokyo skyline—
day or night. n
ARCHITECT: Pelli Clarke & Partners — Fred
Clarke, senior design partner; Mitchell Hirsch,
Jun Mitsui, partners in charge; David Coon,
design team leader; Olivia Shenglin Huang, senior
designer; David Diaz, Amrit Pilo, design team
LIGHTING DESIGNER: L’Observatoire
International
ENGINEER: Nihon Sekkei (m/e/p, structural)
(retail interior lighting), Sirius Lighting Office
(landscape lighting)
GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Shimizu Corporation
CLIENT: Mori Building
SIZE: 4,970,800 square feet
COST: $4.28 billion (entire development)
COMPLETION DATE: November 2023

103
 CEU LIGHTING
Hangzhou Century THE CITY of Hangzhou, the capital of
Zhejiang province, sits at the mouth of
Center China’s Qiantang River, and, like other me-
tropolises across the country, it has undergone
SOM exponential population growth over the last
several decades, now at some 11 mil lion
TORYO International Lighting residents. Having risen from approximately
Design Center 600,000 in 1950, it developed along the way a
panoply of skyscrapers, as well as a campus of
BY MATTHEW MARANI parks and stadiums to support last year’s
Asian Games. The Hangzhou Century
Center, designed by SOM for developer
104 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
Greenland Holdings, is one such project
that—as a two-towered 1,000-foot-tall struc-
ture connected by a sweeping midsection—
demands attention, especially with a spec-
tacular lighting array that emblazons its
sinuous form against the night sky.
The Center, which contains offices, a
hotel, and residences, is a linchpin for
Qianjing Century City, a new nine-square-
mile mixed-use district that incorporates the
Asian Games sports infrastructure. Clad
with a diaphanous glass veil that is suspended
 The tower is a visual landmark for the urban
district (opposite). The LEDs follow the tower
form (right). The glazing is a screen for the
bridge, then merges into the curtain wall
(bottom, both).

over the unitized glass curtain wall at the

tower base and then merges into the fully
enclosed facade as it arches upward, the
supertall acts as a metaphorical and physical
curtain opening to that urban scene. This
outward-facing role is strengthened by the
publicly accessible skybridge linking the two
towers near their bases and by the more than
6,000 color-changing LEDs integrated into
the glazing system on the internal face of the
tower elevations.
“Many of the most interesting buildings in
the world can be encapsulated in two or three
lines or movements. So, in this case, it is
primarily those two curves,” says SOM asso-
ciate director and design studio head Mark
Nagis. “The idea behind the lighting was to
do everything we could to reinforce those
design aspects.”
That accomplishment was no small feat for
a project of this scale. The glass overlay is
fritted and arranged in a running-bond pat-
tern; at the midsection, alternating modules
remain open to the elements to act as both
apertures and protective covers for the exte-
rior space of the bridge below. The lighting
scheme follows the building contours, being
embedded within the curtain wall at the
outward surface of each mullion, and runs
vertically for some 15 miles across the facade.
At the underside of the bridge, the design
team opted for flat, triangular metal-panel
cladding that follows the doubly curved
surface; the gaps between those panels are
fitted with additional LEDs. All the lights
can be set to any color on the WRGB spec-
trum—literally millions of options—and they
are currently programmed to change every
minute, though that speed can be ramped up
to 24 refreshes per second.
SOM collaborated with Beijing-based
lighting consultant TORYO International
Lighting Design Center for the scheme and
with Arup as the facade consultant. Both
Credits Sources
PHOTOGRAPHY: © HANGZHOU GREENLAND

were critical in determining the feasibility of

different design iterations, such as placing a ARCHITECT: SOM GLAZING: Taiwan Glass
field of individual LED dots at the intersec- ARCHITECT OF RECORD: Ecadi CURTAIN WALL: YASHA
tions of spandrels and mullions. SOM’s in- LIGHTING DESIGNER: LIGHTING: Webb Deco (LED fixtures); CREE
TORYO International Design Center (LED chips)
house structural and mechanical engineers
CONSULTANTS: D+H (landscape); Arup (facade)
also helped guide decision-making. The sum
of all those parts is an eye-catching edifice CLIENT: Greenland Holdings

that successfully beckons residents and tour- SIZE: 5.7 million square feet
ists to the banks of the Qiantang River and COST: withheld
the heart of Hangzhou. n COMPLETION DATE: February 2023

105
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Fry Reglet LED Reveals
Fry Reglet, known for its architectural metal fabrications
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Numi Linear
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boydlighting.com
Node System
This new modular system
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Beamer Projector
The capabilities of ERCO′s
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erco.com

106 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24

 IVO
This shallow recessed downlight from Gotham Lighting fits
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gothamlighting.com

Vika
Introduced at
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Designed by Michael Anastassiades for Flos, My Circuit is a modular ceiling Vika sculptural floor
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Rio LAZR Floodlight

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107
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ZAISHUI ART MUSEUM I RIZHAO, CHINA I JUNYA.ISHIGAMI+ASSOCIATES

Walk on Water
A new cultural building nimbly snakes across a lake in Shandong Province.
BY NAOMI POLLOCK, FAIA
PHOTOGRAPHY BY IWAN BAAN

A SINGLE LINE slicing down the middle of a man-made lake, the

Zaishui Art Museum is as bold as it is breathtaking. This stark, elegant
form stands out against the blue-green water, yet its scaleless simplicity
harmonizes beautifully with the setting, yielding a delicate marriage of
architecture and nature. While sunlight from above bathes the interior,
lake water laps gently at its base, even coming inside and washing up
against the concrete floor. In China, where the vastness of the open
landscape so often dwarfs buildings, achieving such a balance is no
minor feat. Yet this was the ambitious goal of Junya Ishigami, one of
Japan’s most daring designers practicing today.

109
 The project began with a cold call to Ishigami from Xu Qunde,
chairman of the Shandong Bailuwan Company, a developer working
on a multistage mixed-use project in Shandong Province. As through-
out China, the land is owned by the government but was rented to the
client for the purpose of development. In addition to housing and
commercial buildings, several other components intended to attract
tourists have been built, including the lake, and a colorful promenade
and café by the Spanish firm selgascano (page 114). In addition, a
horseback-riding center, a hotel, and a 148-foot-high concrete church,
also by Ishigami, are in progress. From the outset, the developer want-
ed to locate the museum in relation to the lake—the question was how.
In search of an answer, the client and architect together visited
Wuzhen, a city laced with Venice-like canals, and considered various
options proposed by Ishigami. Ultimately, their decision was to place
the 217,700-square-foot museum not alongside but actually within the
oblong body of water.
Connected to the ground at either end, Ishigami’s building extends
along the lake’s full length. The main entrance to the kilometer-long
structure is at its narrow end. It opens to a long and linear hall, with
doors on either side where parking is located, leading like a corridor to
a fluid sequence of distinct but connected functional zones. These start
with a lobby, reception area, exhibition hall and café, which are fol-
lowed by additional museum display areas interspersed with informal
seating. Designed for flexibility, the building can accommodate a wide
variety of art installations, but its opening act features chocolate.
Within this exhibition, six clear-acrylic boxes showcase the various
110 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
steps that turn cacao beans into confection, including roasting, grind-
ing, conching, and, of course, tasting.
Over the course of its length, the building volume gradually widens,
from 16 feet at the east end to 66 feet at the west where a terrace con-
nects to a second, C-shaped structure containing a second café, a gift
shop, and gallery. From there, a tunnel goes under the street and leads to
additional parking, as well as other parts of the greater Bailuwan devel-
opment. Facing the lake, this subsidiary building is embedded in the
ground and covered with a grassy roof. Its concealed form is a functional
complement but physical contrast to the museum itself.
Within the main structure, there are no walls, partitions, or visual
boundaries. Instead, a continuous polished-concrete floor distinguishes
one place from the next. As in many traditional Japanese buildings, the
floor is more than a surface for walking on. It defines space, its concrete
surface expanding and contracting in width to create programmatic areas
and circulation pathways. At the narrowest point, which is in the entry
hall, it cinches down to a mere 7 feet wide.
Rather than being sharply divided from the structure, lake water
washes up on this path’s outer edges, where the concrete slopes down
as gently as a sandy shoreline within the building’s glass skin. “I imag-
ined the floor like an island,” says Ishigami. Fed from the nearby
Chaobai River, the lake depth ranges from 20 inches to 6 feet along the
transparent enclosure, which consists of 900 clear-glass panes that
extend 4 inches below the lake’s surface. A gap between the glazing
and the concrete floor—it was designed to remain—allows the water to
flow inside, but, in the occupied areas, the floor rises a constant 4
inches above it. In winter, when the lake
freezes over, a variable air-volume-heating
system under the floor keeps the interior
water liquid, although it is still and glassy. In
summer, soft breezes ripple its surface and
gently infuse the galleries with fresh air,
thanks to the 100 operable panes. “I wanted
SECTION
to make a new outside environment inside the
building,” explains the architect.
Interspersed with the glass, 150 steel-
reinforced concrete columns march along
each side of the building. Spaced 20 feet apart
and measuring 14 inches by 9 inches, they
transfer their loads to single-footing founda-
THE KILOMETER-LONG structure (opposite)
connects to the shoreline with a path that leads
to the middle section of the building (above).
tions that rest on the lake’s stable bottom.
Underwater, they also support the steel bars
that secure the glazing units from below.
Since earthquakes are not a threat here, the
rectangular members are sufficient to handle
vertical as well as lateral forces. Unlike earlier
Ishigami works, such as the Kanagawa Insti-
tute of Technology Workshop (record, No-
vember 2008), a building with 305 super-
skinny steel columns, the building’s structural
system was relatively straightforward. But
achieving high-quality concrete construction
required guidance from the architects and
numerous mock-ups from the contractor.
Also made of concrete, the roof undulates
along its length, tilting from side to side as
well as up and down. It peaks at 16 feet, its
highest point, at the building’s west end, and
drops to its lowest of 4 feet, currently near a
hot-cocoa sampling station in the middle of
the building. These variations enabled
Ishigami to manipulate the relationships
111
112 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
THE MEANDERING path in the main building is
edged by lake water (opposite, bottom). An
aerial view (right) reveals a curving, green-
roofed secondary structure (opposite, top).

between indoors and out. Where the roof

tilts down sideways, only the lake can be
seen, but, where it tilts up, the scenery ex-
pands and the hilly landscape in the distance
comes into view. On its underside, the con-
crete ceiling is enlivened by the ever-chang-
ing sunlight reflected off the water. Aside
from portable lamps for emergencies, the sun
is the museum’s only source of light, once
again blurring the divide between interior
and exterior. Capitalizing on the best day-
light hours, the museum is only open from
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Stepping down in scale but still under-
scoring the connection to the natural envi-
ronment, Ishigami-designed furnishings,
including planters and tables, were made
primarily of local sandstone by highly skilled
Chinese craftspeople. “Since I wanted to
create a new outside, the pieces look like
outdoor furniture,” notes Ishigami.
Throughout the building, their curvaceous
sculptural forms dot the interior, inviting
visitors to pause, or passively guiding them
on their way.
In Japan, where open, buildable land is
quite limited, maximum building size is
tightly controlled. However, in China, where
property is plentiful, the government decides
the minimum floor area and clients are
encouraged to build as big as possible, ex-
plains Ishigami. But, he notes, the scale of
the Chinese terrain is both a strength and a
weakness. “Since the environment is so vast,
there are no relationships between buildings
and their surroundings,” he says. Inextricably
linking the two, the Zaishui Art Museum
deftly raises that bar. n

Credits
ARCHITECT: Junya.ishigami+associates —
Junya Ishigami, Zenan Li, lead design architects;
Zhirui Lim, Sellua Di Ceglie, Rui Xu, Tong Zhang,
Cing Lu, Yuxuan Zhou, Zhixuan Wei, Yunyi
Zhang, Hanyang Zhou, Qinxuan Li, Jason Tan,
Anping Song, Yichen Ji, project team
ENGINEERS: XinY structural consultants
(structural); Environment-Friendly Solution to
Building Services Engineering (m/e/p/lighting)
CONTRACTOR: Beijing Yihuida Architectural
Concrete Engineering Co. (reinforced concrete)
CLIENT: Shandong Bailuwan Company
SIZE: 217,700 square feet
COST: withheld
COMPLETION DATE: December 2023

113
 CANOPIED PROMENADE + COFFEE AND TREE CAFÉ I RIZHAO, CHINA I SELGASCANO
Local Color
A covered promenade and café cut a lively path through a large housing complex in China.
BY CLIFFORD A. PEARSON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY IWAN BAAN
WIGGLING through a phalanx of mid-rise housing blocks, a cov-
ered walkway and attached café serve as a colorful antidote to the
regimented architecture all around it. Designed by the Madrid-based
firm selgascano, the irrepressible explosion of angled-steel tubing and
corrugated-metal roofing is a social magnet for the thousands of resi-
dents in Bailuwan Town. As has happened throughout China during
the past three decades, the area two hours’ driving distance from the
coastal city of Qingdao has been rapidly transformed from farmland.
The developer makes its profit from the housing components—which
are heavily formatted in siting, plan, and scale and usually designed by
large Chinese firms—but entices buyers with a series of eye-catching,
break-the-mold structures often designed by foreign architects. At
Bailuwan, in addition to Junya Ishigami (page 109), the developer
commissioned Sou Fujimoto, Ryue Nishizawa, and selgascano to
114 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
create these special elements, each firm working independently of the
others to add a different spice to the architectural stew. Some of these
have been built, while others—including a hotel and a residential
complex by selgascano—remain on hold as China’s once-booming
housing sector now faces a monumental bust.
José Selgas and his partner Lucía Cano had never worked in China.
But Xu Qunde, the chairman of the Shandong Bailuwan Company,
approached them and traveled to Madrid shortly before the Covid
pandemic began. “He turned out to be one of our best clients,” says
Selgas, who found the chairman thoroughly engaged in the project and
willing to solve any problem that arose during construction. Although
the apartment buildings on-site had already been designed, Xu allowed
selgascano to add curving, yellow-accented balconies on one side and
devise a color scheme and new composition for fenestration on the
THE ARCHITECTS enlivened the town with color
and trees—along a walkway (opposite), on
balconies (right), and at a café (above).

other. The project goal was to enliven the

housing blocks and create visual connections,
which was also achieved with the promenade
and café that would snake through the center
of the site. The contrast to the red-brick,
residential monoliths could not be starker.
Selgas and Cano at first considered relating
their designs to Chinese antecedents. Xu
rejected that approach, the only time he
dismissed an idea outright. He agreed, how-
ever, on integrating architecture and land-
scape, blurring indoors and out. While this
strategy has deep roots in Chinese pavilion
and garden design, the Bailuwan walkway
and café would make no direct historical
allusions. Instead, they’re a contemporary
assemblage of elements selgascano has used
before—steel tubing, corrugated metal, and
acrylic panels—responding to the particulars
of site, program, climate, and culture.
“We always try to do less,” says Selgas.
“Use less material, consume less energy, make
it lighter.” So the firm’s 575-foot-long covered
passage dances gracefully above the ground,

115
 open on all sides and allowing air and daylight
to trickle through gaps in the irregularly
shaped roof pieces. Known for their vibrant
use of color, Selgas and Cano eventually
selected a progression of tones ranging from
willow green and olive to beige and tan. The
architects insisted on using high-quality paint
so it would last for many years.
Paired angled-steel tubes serve as columns
and hold up the same kind of tubes used as
beams to support corrugated-steel roof panels.
Those tubes become benches when laid hori-
zontally and connected to the columns; selgas-
cano originally proposed using a custom con-
nector for attaching tubes, but the client ended
up welding the pieces. Pavers are handmade
ceramic tiles, which came from Spain after the
architects—surprisingly—couldn’t find any
appropriate fabricators in China.
The north end of the walkway attaches to
an amoeba-shaped canopy that from above

1 OUTDOOR SEATING

2 CAFÉ SEATING & BAR

3 CAFÉ LOUNGE AREA

4
4 ROOF DECK
1 2 5 5 CANOPY ENTRANCE
3

0 15 FT.
CAFÉ LONGITUDINAL SECTION
5 M.

116 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24

THE CANOPIED PATH, café (opposite), and
multihued housing (right) are among new local
projects that include Ishigami’s art museum.

looks like the bulbous lump in the gut of a

snake that has just eaten its prey. At the head
of the serpent, the architects designed the
café with holes cut out of the roof for trees to
grow through. The “coffee-and-tree café” is
the only portion of the project with an en-
closed space. It is wrapped on all sides with
clear floor-to-ceiling acrylic panels, 2 inches
thick and a little more than 8 feet high.
Selgascano often uses acrylic in projects,
because it’s half the weight of glass, is recy-
clable, and requires much less energy to fabri-
cate, being heated to 300 degrees Fahrenheit,
rather than 3,000 for glass. The acrylic for the
project was manufactured in China by a
company that works on aquariums, and was
delivered to the site in five large pieces that
were quickly installed.
“The most important part of the project is
the landscape,” says Selgas. Whether you’re
on the walkway or in the café, you’re always
surrounded by trees and plantings. “On most
projects, landscaping is the last thing consid-
ered and the first to get cut. Not here.”
A curving steel stair with tubular railings
leads to a rooftop sitting area above the café.
For the top surface of the concrete-slab roof,
Selgas and Cano specified a material made of
recycled tires. For the ceiling in the café and
the soffit of the cantilevered roof, they used a
recycled-wood-and-resin material that has the
feel of wood. The wide eaves and the trees all
around the café protect the interiors from the
full impact of the sun.
The architects also designed two wave-
shaped bus shelters, clad on the inside with
slender yellow and white tubes and on the
outside with a reflective metal skin that helps
them disappear within their setting. Along
the access road, they designed colorful metal
awnings for a long retail structure and six
sinuous pavilions made of painted rebar that
sit in a rooftop garden. And, just to the west
of the walkway at its start, they created a
curvaceous terrace with a small “capsule
kitchen” and plenty of tables and chairs. Credits
A high-energy jolt of architectural exuber- ARCHITECT: selgascano — José Selgas, Lucía Cano, principals in charge;
ance, the walkway and café projects entice Paolo Tringali, Inés Olavarrieta, Justo Díaz, Juan Díaz, Alejandro Jiménez,
Ying Zhu, project team
residents to come and relax, to explore and
ENGINEERS: IDI Ingenieros
play, to stroll and hang out. Bisecting the
CONSULTANT: DVELAS (furniture)
property, they serve as common ground for
kids, parents, and seniors. They’re both a line CLIENT: Shandong Bailuwan Company

and a hub. And they do all this by balancing SIZE: 13,000 square feet (site)
the needs for both standing out and fitting in, COST: withheld
especially with nature. n COMPLETION DATE: January 2023

117
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By Peter J. Arsenault, FAIA, NCARB, LEED AP
O
n all buildings, the outer skin
(e.g., the facade) performs all of
the same functions that the skin
on our body does. In both cases, it is the
skin that protects the inside from the ele-
ments like sun, rain, and wind. It regulates
the flow of moisture by allowing it to
permeate through the skin when needed
or prevent it from passing at other times. It
helps regulate our temperature in conjunc-
tion with insulating layers. It absorbs or
reflects light and heat based on the color
and texture. In some cases, it can be self-
healing or otherwise easy to repair when
damaged. And, of course, we want it to look
good and healthy not just today but over
many years. In this course, we address these
multiple aspects of building skins including
their role in creating sustainable buildings.
While the part we see is the outer surface of
the facade, buildings like people, are much
more than just skin deep.
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Dallas Road Townhouses. Building facades come in
all types, styles, shapes, and sizes, yet they all need
to be designed well for reasons of aesthetics, safety,
sustainability, and overall performance.
SUSTAINABLE FACADE DESIGN
Facade design is part of every building proj-
ect. The style, character, and visual appeal of
a building are all part of the design consider-
ations. In addition, the performance in terms
of energy flows, water control, moisture
management, and impact on the surround-
ing environment all come into play too. Most
facades are a combination of opaque wall
areas and fenestration, each with their own
contributions, or detractions, from the ap-
pearance and performance of a facade.
A primary design requirement from
building owners, building codes, and
voluntary standards is that the facade must
meet criteria for sustainability and resilience.
Doing so is a multi-step process with many
different, sometimes competing, consid-
erations. Fortunately, things have evolved
to the point where aesthetics and sustain-
able performance can be blended into a
complementary and successful solution. The
CONTINUING EDUCATION
CONTINUING EDUCATION
1 AIA LU/HSW 0.1 ICC CEU
1 GBCI CE HOUR
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you should
be able to:
1. Identify different strategies for
creating sustainable, integrated
building facades that meet aesthetic
and performance needs.
2. Assess the safety performance aspects
of properly incorporating expansion
joints into building facades.
3. Explain the multiple ways that the use
of Building Information Modeling (BIM)
can help create facades that contribute
to health, wellness, and safety.
4. Determine how the proper use of
expansion joints help with occupant
safety and fire resistance in building
facades.
To receive AIA credit, you are required to
read the entire article and pass the quiz.
Visit ce.architecturalrecord.com for the
complete text and to take the quiz for free.
AIA COURSE #K2403N
119
 FACADES–THE ULTIMATE SKIN CARE
Images courtesy of Habit Studio
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Falkland Street Project. BIM software allows designers to visualize different building designs
while providing data related to performance and sustainability.
application of continuous insulation over a
structural system of whatever type is becom-
ing more common and readily achievable to
produce higher thermal performance in most
climate zones across the US and Canada. Air
and water barrier products are more plentiful
with more options for application types to
effectively control air infiltration and manage
vapor transmission. Cladding and rain
screens have become well developed including
some sophisticated means for supporting
them. All of these components go into a fa-
cade design, so understanding not only their
purpose, but also their material makeup plays
directly into creating a sustainable facade.
Design Strategies
Architects and other building design
professionals seeking to achieve sustain-
able facades can learn from some strategies
that have been successfully used by others
including the following.
• Consider Lightweight Cladding: Less
weight usually translates into less struc-
ture to hold it up not only in the framing
but also in the foundation. In particular,
the use of lightweight metal in facades
can include rolled steel sheets, metal
cladding panels, or composite metal
panels. Metal building products, such as
steel and aluminum, typically contain
high amounts of recycled material thus
lowering the amount of embodied carbon
in the products. Masonry and concrete
or other cement-based products are fossil
fuel intensive to produce with high levels
of embodied carbon. Metal fabrication
can have even lower carbon footprints
120 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
when the electricity used in the process
comes from renewable resources like
wind, solar, or hydropower. Finally,
the ability to recycle and upcycle metal
materials at the end of their service life
also improves their sustainability.
• Prioritize Adaptive Reuse or Historic
Preservation: It is often said that the
most sustainable building is an existing
one. The same is true of facades. If a
building renovation project includes
facade work, focus first on the ability
to save and re-use what is there before
automatically assuming everything has
to be removed and done over. This could
include selectively removing only things
that are outdated or deteriorated but
keeping the things that are still usable
while their replacement would create
more work, and more emissions, to
produce and install.
• Account for Siting and Building
Orientation: Facade skins can always
get a little help from their surroundings.
Siting and building orientation play a
big role in the amount of wind, sun,
and weather that a building facade is
exposed to and it may be different on
different sides of a building. Trees and
other vegetation can provide some shade
and protection while surrounding build-
ings in an urban setting can do the same
thing. In cases where facades are fully
exposed, adding elements over fenestra-
tion is a common approach to improve
shading and overall performance.
Strategies can include horizontal or
vertical sun shading systems as condi-
tions call for. They can also include
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planted green facades to add a natural,
biophilic solution.
• Anticipate Climate Extremes: Many
buildings are being subjected to more
extreme conditions than previously due
to climate change. The frequency and
severity of storms and the intensity of
temperature and wind conditions have
made historical data alone unreliable
as a design guide. Similarly, climate
zone designations have been a useful
benchmark for climate conditions, but
individual sites can have widely varying
conditions. Hence, it has become pru-
dent to include measures for increased
resistance to these extremes as a means
of creating more resilient, and therefore
more sustainable, buildings.
The design process of achieving a truly
sustainable facade has changed in recent
years. It is no longer a matter of just picking
a few products out of a catalog and calling it
done. Rather, detailed information is needed
not only on the technical aspects of the prod-
ucts’ performance but also on their ability to
be compatible with other products and with
building codes. Similarly, there is a need to
have information about the environmental
impacts of the products selected which is
often found in Environmental Product
Declarations (EPDs). Managing all this data
can be quite difficult if done manually or
in a piecemeal fashion. It is more effective
to use computer-based data coordinated
with Building Information Modeling (BIM)
software. A key advantage of BIM software is
that it provides the ability to readily visual-
ize, test, and analyze a variety of different
building facade designs in order to arrive
at the best outcome. The algorithms and
visualization tools inherent in BIM inform
design professionals how a specific project
will both look and perform in a particular
site and in light of the natural elements
there. In this way, an integrated planning
and design process can be employed to
ensure a project is set up for success to meet
all project goals, including sustainability,
from inception through to completion.
DESIGNING FOR MOVEMENT
The design of facades for larger buildings
needs to consider the fact that building
structures, and their facades, must be al-
lowed to move. That movement is accom-
modated by designing predetermined gaps
into large structures that can absorb the mo-
tion. In large buildings, they are a necessity,
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 FACADES–THE ULTIMATE SKIN CARE
particularly where buildings are segmented
into different sections or if one attaches to
CONTINUING EDUCATION
another structure such as a parking garage or
other use. The location, size, and movement
requirements for all such expansion joints are
project-specific and appropriately established
by the Structural Engineer of Record.
Some design conditions directly affect
the way expansion joints are worked into a
building. For example, facades and exterior
elements often have complex geometries that
can converge in a range of locations such as
at grade, under entry portals, at beltlines,
across patios, soffits, etc. It is also common
that multiple materials are used for aesthetic
or functional purposes on a building. All of
these conditions directly affect expansion
joints, requiring them to accommodate dif-
fering materials to invert under patios, climb
up and over parapets or elevator mechanical
rooms, negotiate curbs or rooftop gardens,
etc. These locations are also where a range
of trades can come together for the different
materials and systems being installed. Not
surprisingly, these locations are also the
sources of most leaks or breaches in the
envelope related to water, air, or thermal
compromises. Therefore, providing properly
coordinated details that can be used by the
trades to address these situations can be criti-
cally important in maintaining the integrity
of the facade across the expansion joints and
the areas around them.
Unfortunately, very few projects contain-
ing expansion joints are ever detailed to such
a finite level. This leaves most contractors,
facility managers, owners, and potentially
architects to deal with the consequences of
uncoordinated expansion joint systems for
years to come. Industry data suggests that
expansion joint issues account for the second
highest recurrence of the owner's first year
callbacks to the contractor (The #1 reason
remains HVAC balancing problems). The
owner’s issues generally surround frustration
with joint systems- whether for functional,
aesthetic or leak-resistance purposes.
The first step to proper specification and
detailing of a joint system is to acknowledge
the nominal joint size for a particular build-
ing and the range of movement between the
fully contracted size and the fully expanded
size. The design width of an expansion joint
at an average air temperature is referred to
122 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
Expansion joints in a facade can blend in with the surrounding material or be designed to
make a visual statement. Either way, they need to be located and installed properly to ad-
dress the different types of movement to which a building and facade can be exposed.
as the nominal joint size. The building move-
ment that makes expansion joints necessary
occurs due to several common reasons with
three types of movement that typically need
to be accommodated:
• Thermal Forces: This type of movement
is most typical and caused by daily or
seasonal environmental temperature
changes in and around the structure.
Thermal movement is primarily “one-
directional” in nature and is the result of
the expansion and contraction of struc-
tural elements as affected by heat, cold,
and humidity levels. The typical amount
of thermal movement is approximately
10-25 percent of the nominal joint size.
That means the maximum expanded
joint size where the building sections
contract away from each other (i.e.,
during cold temperatures) should be 10 –
25 percent more than the nominal joint
size. Similarly, the minimum contracted
joint size where the building sections
expand toward each other (during warm
temperatures) should be 10 – 25 percent
less than the nominal joint size. If ex-
pansion joints aren’t sized and installed
properly, then the thermal expansion
and contraction can cause buckling of
structural surfaces and ripple along the
facade and other surfaces.
• Seismic Activity: The shifting of the
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Images courtesy of Habit Studio
earth’s tectonic plates (i.e., earthquakes,
tremors, etc.), and shifts along fault lines
is the source of seismic activity. Seismic
movement may be horizontal, vertical,
in shear, or a combination of all three.
Seismic expansion joint widths may need
to increase with higher floor levels to
accommodate the additional, cumulative
movement that needs to be addressed.
These joints must have the capacity for
movement of plus or minus 50-100 per-
cent of the nominal joint size associated
with them. When it comes to expansion
joint systems, it is important to select
systems that can “reset” themselves after
a minor seismic event without requiring
workers to reposition any cover panels.
• Wind-Loads: Movement induced by high
winds, can force the structure to sway.
This movement is normally perpendicu-
lar and/or parallel to the joint. This is
common where a low horizontal building
span meets with a taller vertical element.
Movement in these joints is typically on
the order of 50 percent of the joint width.
Peter J. Arsenault, FAIA, NCARB, LEED AP is
a nationally known architect and a prolific author
advancing better building performance through
better design. www.pjaarch.com, www.linkedin.
com/in/pjaarch
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124 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24


Photo by William Home; courtesy of Jones Architecture
The C. Gerald Lucey Building in Brockton, Mass., used exposed mass
timber to provide both structural integrity and beauty for occupants.
A Lesson in Civics
Mass timber as a catalyst for achieving
sustainability goals in civic projects
Sponsored by Think Wood
T
he use of mass timber in civic
architecture offers a sustainable and
aesthetically pleasing solution for
creating net-zero or highly efficient civic
buildings. To help with the successful out-
comes of such projects, it is important to
prioritize stakeholder engagement, commu-
nity involvement, and education through-
out the design process. These aspects play
a pivotal role in fostering community
acceptance, inclusivity, and a shared com-
mitment to sustainable development.
Engaging key stakeholders, including
government officials, local authorities,
and potential partners, is essential to align
project objectives with civic priorities.
Involving stakeholders at the outset helps
Think Wood provides commercial, multifamily, and single-family home design and build resources to architects, developers,
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identify their needs and concerns, allowing
the design to reflect the community's values
and goals effectively. This collaboration
helps align the mass timber building with
civic aspirations, which is particularly
important in the context of net-zero goals.
One of the fundamental design principles
when working with mass timber is to em-
brace the material's natural characteristics.
Wood, with its inherent warmth, beauty, and
strength, allows for the creation of structures
that connect with both the environment and
human senses. Designing with mass timber
involves an appreciation and understanding
of its structural capabilities and aesthetic
qualities to enhance the visual and tactile
experience of the built environment.
CONTINUING EDUCATION
CONTINUING EDUCATION
1 AIA LU/HSW 0.1 ICC CEU
1 GBCI CE HOUR
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you should
be able to:
1. Describe how mass timber can be
incorporated to be part of an efficient
and expressive structural solution.
2. Explain why integration and
collaboration with the design and build
team early in the process is critical
when designing with mass timber.
3. List the physical attributes of mass
timber that help support recent trends
in sustainable building practices in
civic projects.
4. Describe the importance of managing
consensus and engaging in community
stakeholders during the design
process to ensure a more inclusive and
accepted net-zero civic building.
To receive AIA credit, you are required to
read the entire article and pass the quiz.
Visit ce.architecturalrecord.com for the
complete text and to take the quiz for free.
AIA COURSE #K2403O
125

CONTINUING EDUCATION
An electric arc furnace (EAF),
shown here in operation, uses
Photo courtesy of Nucor
up to 100 percent scrap steel
and has approximately one
third the CO2 emissions of a
traditional blast furnace/basic
oxygen furnace (BF/BOF).
Structural Steel for
Low-Carbon-Emission
Lightweight Frames
Using structural steel for building frames to
enable more flexible, lightweight structures
while reducing carbon emissions
Sponsored by The Steel Institute of New York | By William B. Millard, PhD
A
mong much of the general public,
the communications media, and
even some architects and devel-
opers, there is a misconception that the
production of structural steel results in
more carbon emissions than the produc-
tion of other inorganic structural materials.
The global emissions footprint of structural
steel is indeed troublesome; even the most
sustainable steelmaking technologies use
considerable energy; and production meth-
ods in some areas remain both dirty and
energy-intensive—yet confusion between
domestic metrics and global metrics, which
include emissions from both traditional
integrated blast furnace/basic oxygen
furnace (BF/BOF) steel production and the
far more sustainable electric arc furnace
(EAF) method using recycled ferrous scrap,
frequently obstructs an accurate assessment
of the energy and emissions performance of
the U.S. steel industry. The U.S. is a leader
among nations where EAFs are now domi-
nant, recycled content is the norm, and the
126 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
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steel industry exemplifies the operations of
a circular economy.
“Steel has been recycled for over 4,000
years,” notes metallurgist and architectural/
structural metals consultant Catherine
Houska, recalling remarks she recently
made to an American National Standards
Institute technical advisory group. “If you
go back to when mankind first started to
use iron, it has been recycled very carefully
since that time.” The long-established
tradition of reusing scrap metal and melting
it at temperatures that effectively remove
impurities (since steel has a higher melting
point than aluminum or copper and can be
recycled indefinitely through the lifetimes
of many buildings or products) forms a
foundation for newer sustainable practices.
These increasingly involve shifts to alterna-
tive energy sources, part of the broader
decarbonization of infrastructure and the
economy; designs that use steel in highly ef-
ficient ways, thanks in part to high-strength
grades of steel that can carry more load with
CONTINUING EDUCATION
1.25 AIA LU/HSW 0.1 ICC CEU
1 GBCI CE HOUR 1 PDH
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you should
be able to:
1. Identify and recognize the properties
of structural steel that are conducive
to environmental sustainability and
resilience as defined by national and
global standards.
2. Recognize aspects of the domestic
and global steel industry that require
nuanced attention to energy and
emissions footprints, depending on
local conditions and practices.
3. Investigate opportunities to apply
the properties of lightweight, high-
strength steel in the design and
construction of building frames,
thus using materials efficiently and
reducing carbon emissions.
4. Assess the functional contributions of
materials, designs, and systems as they
contribute to green and sustainable
design using structural steel.
4. Comprehend systems in a variety
of green, conventional, and
investigational structures and
formulate appropriate selections
related to specific applications.
To receive AIA credit, you are required to
read the entire article and pass the quiz.
Visit ce.architecturalrecord.com for the
complete text and to take the quiz for free.
AIA COURSE #K2402G
EDUCATIONAL-ADVERTISEMENT STRUCTURAL STEEL FOR LOW-CARBON-EMISSION LIGHTWEIGHT FRAMES

Photo courtesy of Tom Harris

less bulk (see Architectural Record, February
2022, “Not Quite Your Grandfather’s Steel:

High-Strength A913 in Today’s Green
Construction”); computationally assisted
analysis of structural loading, allowing
increasingly precise allocation of materials;
and, in certain prototype projects, advanced
additive manufacturing technologies. The
strength/weight ratios found in contem-
porary steel continue to enable lightweight
structures with impressive aesthetics and
structural performance (see Figure 1).
Design and construction methods grounded
in the capabilities of today’s steel industry
can legitimately earn descriptions as green
and clean.
“The biggest misconception I encoun-
ter,” says Max Puchtel, SE, PE, director of
government relations and sustainability at
the American Institute of Steel Construction
(AISC), “and this is common when you
look at any kind of third-party webinar
or publication about the steel industry on
sustainability, is people will tout global
numbers for emissions responsibility for the
steel industry when they’re talking about
the domestic steel construction industry.
So you’ll see things like, ‘The steel industry
is responsible for 8 percent of worldwide
emissions,’ which is true, but that’s a global
number. It reflects the fact that worldwide,
there’s about a 70/30 split of integrated
traditional steelmaking relative to modern
recycled-content steelmaking.”
“In the U.S., about 75 percent of all
steel is made with an electric arc furnace,”
notes Philip K. Bell, president of the Steel
Manufacturers Association, the Washington,
D.C.-based organization representing the
domestic EAF industry. “Most construc-
tion materials—whether they’re structural
beams, long products like rebar, wire rod
for reinforced concrete, and even plate—are
made by EAFs,” he continues. “About 99
percent of all long products are made by
EAF. About 80 percent of all structural
products are made via EAF, and about 75
percent of most plate products are made
via EAF.... This trend is growing not only
in North America, but around the world.
Increasingly, we see foreign steel industries
trying to make their steel industry look
more like ours, where they are retiring old
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Figure 1. GEODIS Park by Populous and Hastings Architecture, the new home of Nashville
SC of Major League Soccer, features exposed slender beams of structural steel produced
in an EAF. It is the largest dedicated soccer stadium in the U.S. or Canada and a winner
of a 2024 AISC Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel
(IDEAS²) Award. Source: AISC
blast furnaces that use extractive methods regulatory bodies all paying serious attention
of mining iron ore and coal and replacing to energy and emissions metrics, improving
them with EAFs. This is particularly true in the performance of this critical industry
Canada, Germany, and the U.K.” strikes observers inside and outside the field
A move toward EAF is not yet the as a powerful imperative (Muslemani et al.).
case, however, in China—the nation that The relevant metrics include both embodied
produces over half the world’s crude steel carbon and operational carbon, though
annually. China’s proportion of EAF current building codes chiefly address their
facilities also lags well behind those of the attention to the latter. These measurements
U.S. and other world leaders, with estimates apply to all three scopes of emissions: scope
varying, but some credible sources suggest- 1 includes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
ing a mere 10 percent EAFs in 2020, with from sources that an organization controls
15 percent as an aspirational goal by 2025 directly; scope 2 includes indirect GHG
(Zhang and Chow); large-scale new BF/ emissions associated with the purchase of
BOF construction persists in that nation, electricity, steam, heat, or cooling; and scope
despite stated intentions to encourage 3 includes all other indirect GHG emissions
scrap-fed EAFs (Shen and Myllyvirta). The resulting from activities in an organization’s
locked-in commitment to BF/BOF mills by value chain (Greenhouse Gas Protocol).
the world’s largest steel producer is a major
reason the global steel industry, assessed as
a whole rather than nation by nation, can
appear anything but green.
With global climate change making the Bill Millard is a New York-based journalist who
conversion of high-emissions extractive has contributed to Architectural Record, The
processes to circular, sustainable, and Architect’s Newspaper, Oculus, Architect, Metals
resilient processes an increasingly urgent in Construction, OMA’s Content, and other
priority, and with professionals, clients, and publications.

The Steel Institute of New York is a not-for-profit association created to advance the interests of the steel construction
industry by helping architects, engineers, developers, and construction managers develop engineering solutions using
structural steel construction.

127

CONTINUING EDUCATION
Photo courtesy of Anton Grassi Photography
Biophilic Design in Action
Indoor gardens with preserved plants
Sponsored by Garden on the Wall®
By Kathy Price-Robinson
B
iophilic design is the latest frontier
in creating indoor environments
that help people feel, work, learn,
and heal better. The design philosophy
seeks to create indoors the patterns of
nature that humans are naturally attuned
to. This includes natural light and nature
views, natural materials like wood and
stone, and plants. While vertical walls of
living plants seem to satisfy this human
need for exposure to nature, the upkeep
and maintenance of these assemblies has
proven onerous. That accounts for the
growing interest in striking installations of
all-natural, preserved plants that require
virtually no maintenance but that deliver
a power immersive experience of nature.
And why not? The plants are all-natural,
albeit with their sap replaced with a non-
toxic solution, and without the pruning,
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128 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
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watering, leaking of systems, and burden
of care that their live counterparts require.
This course introduces the learner to the
biophilic benefits of preserved plant gardens
for indoor use and provides high-profile ex-
amples where these installations are already
benefiting building occupants, building
managers, and building owners.
Kathy Price-Robinson writes about building and
design. Her remodeling series “Pardon Our Dust”
ran 12 years in the Los Angeles Times. She special-
izes in buildings that are durable and resilient
to climate disruptions, as well as products and
designs that provide shade in hot climates.
www.kathyprice.com
CONTINUING EDUCATION
1 AIA LU/HSW 1 GBCI CE HOUR
1 IDCEC CEU/HSW 0.1 ICC CEU
Learning Objectives
After reading this article, you should
be able to:
1. Describe biophilic design and its
effect on occupants of workspaces,
healthcare, and hospitality.
2. Explain how plants are preserved and
used in indoor gardens.
3. &GƂPGVJGFGUKIPHCDTKECVKQP
installation and maintenance of
indoor gardens and planters created
with all-natural, preserved plants.
4. Discuss the importance of third-party
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safety and sustainability.
5. Identify several applications of
preserved-plant gardens that bring
biophilic design to workspaces,
healthcare facilities, and hospitality
venues.
To receive AIA credit, you are required to
read the entire article and pass the quiz.
Visit ce.architecturalrecord.com for the
complete text and to take the quiz for free.
AIA COURSE #K2202L
 DATES & Events
Upcoming Exhibitions
Spatializing Reproductive Justice
New York
May 2-September 3, 2024
Arriving at the Center for Architecture in
the spring, this traveling exhibition and
programming series is dedicated to how
architects and designers can address the
inequities of reproductive care in the United
States. Organized in association with WIP
Collaborative and ArchiteXX in light of the
repeal of Roe v. Wade, the exhibition is in-
formed by past and present reproductive-
justice movements and recent research into
the spatial, legal, and social logistics of
reproductive-health-care access. On view are
investigations into how factors of race, class,
and gender impact an individual’s access to
care, alongside speculative design proposals
for facilities, systems, and networks that
expand reproductive-care access. For more,
see centerforarchitecture.org.
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• Candy Lane Elementary School, Oregon City, OR
Preformance Data:
• Fire-rated up to 120 minutes
• Bullet resistance ratings up to UL Level III
for school applications
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ROOFING, SIDING, THERMAL & MOISTURE PROTECTION
MOISTURE CONTROL FOR BUILDING DESIGN
CLASS I (IRC)
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Product Application
• Roof Vapor Retarders
• Under Slab Vapor Retarders
• Wall Vapor Retarders
• Crawl Space Vapor Retarders
Performance Data
• Class I – Very low permeability vapor retarders
– rated at 0.1 perms or less. Sheet polyethylene
(visqueen) or unperforated aluminum foil (FSK)
are Class I vapor retarders.
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Ongoing Exhibitions is a series of works inspired by architecture
and urban landscapes. With her monochro-
What If: Unbuilt Architecture in matic photo collages meticulously forged by
Switzerland hand, multimedia artist Adrienne Moumin
Basel uses repetition and geometric abstraction to
Through April 7, 2024 reimagine simple structures and familiar
The Swiss Architecture Museum brings objects, such as light fixtures, doorways, and
together nearly two dozen architectural arches, to create dizzying optical effects that
institutions from across the country in a shift one’s perspective of the everyday. See
wide-ranging exhibition exploring unbuilt aiadc.com
Swiss architecture. What If draws from the
“nearly infinite pool” of lost, rejected, stalled, Estúdio Campana: On the Road
or changed designs—from Caruso St. John New York
and Morphosis to Le Corbusier—that con- Through April 20, 2024
tinue to live on in Swiss architectural dis- The first of a series of exhibitions celebrating
course. The result is a vision of an “alterna- the 40th anniversary of the São Paulo–based
tive Switzerland, in which the courage to design studio is on view at the Friedman
embrace utopia is greater than the fear of Benda gallery. Founded by brothers Hum-
avoiding mistakes.” See sam-basel.org. berto and Fernando Campana, Estúdio
Campana has gained international recogni-
Adrienne Moumin: In Another Life tion for its innovative approach to design, in
Washington, D.C. which mundane materials are transformed
Through April 12, 2024 into furniture, installations, and other ob-
On view at the District Architecture Center jects, exploring and bringing new context to
MATERIALS DOORS, WINDOWS
LIFT-STRAP BIFOLD DOORS AND ONE-PIECE HYDRAULIC DESIGNER DOORS
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Schweiss Doors, Moving Walls
Schweiss Doors manufactures unique custom
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Product Application
• Moving doors and walls
• You think it, we build it
• Custom designed storefronts, and more…
Performance Data:
• Faster, safer operation
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507.426.8273 | schweiss@bifold.com
MAKING THE COMPLEX CLEAR
Clear Seas Research is an industry-focused market research company dedicated
to providing clear insights to complex business questions. Capturing feedback via
quantitative surveys (online, phone, mail or in-person) OR qualitative experiences
(one-on-ones, focus groups or bulletin boards), we present results that are easily
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www.clearseasresearch.com
129
 DATES & Events
Brazilian craft traditions. On the Road is the
studio’s first show with Humberto as sole
principal designer, following the death of his
brother Fernando last year, and marking a
new chapter in the practice. For more infor-
mation, see friedmanbenda.com
Sites of Impermanence
New York
Through May 11, 2024
The National Academy of Design presents
an exhibition of art and architectural works
by its 2023 cohort of National Academi-
cians. Architects Richard Gluckman, Carlos
Jiménez, and Sarah Oppenheimer were
among eight artists and designers recognized
by the Academy for their contributions to the
American cultural landscape. With a diverse
roster of participants, the show comprises a
vivid cross section of responses to urgent
contemporary conditions and the underlying
histories that have shaped them, with works
exploring ideas of temporal and spatial muta-
bility. See nationalacademy.org
IN THE GALLERY AND ONLINE
130 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24
Albert Frey: Inventive Modernist
Palm Springs, California
Through June 3, 2024
The Swiss-American architect Albert Frey
(1903–97) paved the way for the emergence
of the California city as a center for Modern
architecture and design. The Palm Springs
Art Museum presents an exhibition that
explores how he used the formal tenets of
early European Modernism to pioneer a new
style of “desert Modernism,” making an
indelible mark on the cityscape. The expan-
sive retrospective showcases rare and previ-
ously unseen architectural models, drawings,
films, photographs, and furniture to high-
light Frey’s formative and place-sensitive
approaches to material, color, and geometric
composition. See psmuseum.org.
Competitions
North American Copper in Architecture
Awards 2024
Deadline: April 22, 2024
Presented by the Copper Development
Association (CDA), this annual awards
program celebrates projects across the United
States and Canada that feature architectural
copper and copper alloys, including roof or
wall systems, facades, and custom-fabricated
elements. Projects of any size and type are
eligible, so long as they feature architectural
elements of copper, brass, or bronze; are
located in the United States or Canada; and
were completed within the last three years.
See copper.org.
E-mail information two months in advance to
schulmanp@bnpmedia.com.
Drawings: Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
39 Battery Pl, New York
skyscraper.org
Advertisers Index
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Architectural Record - AIA Photo Contest 73 Inpro 121 Skyscraper Museum, The 130

Architectural Record - Education Exchange 22 Joto-Vent System USA, Inc. 64 SlenderWall 38

Architectural Record - Grace Farms 108 Julius Blum & Co., Inc. 8 Steel Institute of New York 126, 127

Architectural Record - March Webinars 48 Kalwall 71 Technical Glass Products 2, 3

Armstrong World Industries, Inc. CV2, 1 Kingspan Insulated Panels 9 Think Wood 125

ASI Group 7 Kingspan Planet Passionate 74 Uline 37

AZON 28 Landscape Forms, INC. 24 Vectorworks 123

Bradley Corporation 17 Lorin 6 Vetrotech 27

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(Formerly known as PPG Glass) 33

Coverings 2024 18 Moz Designs 63

Wooster Products 54

DeepStream Designs, Inc. 65 NanaWall 13

EarthCam, Inc. 62 National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association 4, 5

Publisher is not responsible for errors and omissions in advertiser index. R Regional Insert

131
 SNAPSHOT

Seemingly sprouting out of the Emirati coastline, when viewed

from above, Palm Jumeirah is one of the largest man-made
archipelagos in the world and Dubai’s premier vacation
destination. Thousands of luxury villas and resorts pepper the
palm’s sandy “fronds” and the crescent-shaped breakwater
that surrounds them—including Atlantis The Royal, the newest
offering from the aquatic-themed hotel chain operated by
Kerzner International. Kohn Pedersen Fox’s New York office,
serving as design architect, remolded the logic of a tall building
into a sinuous super-scale lattice that stretches more than a
quarter mile in length. The permeable structure, open to the
gentle sea breeze from the Persian Gulf, soars 43 stories to
offer guests and residents sky-high terraces, cabanas, and
pools. And when taking in the sun grows old, the hotel features
a full complement of amenities: over a dozen restaurants,
high-end retail, and critter-filled aquariums. Leopoldo Villardi

PHOTOGRAPHY: © H.G. ESCH

132 ARCHITECTURAL RECORD M A R C H 2 0 24

 ACADEMY
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