NEW ARCHITECTURE - DESIGN CITY

Qintai Center, Wuhan, China

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill win contest for Qintai Center with guzheng-inspired design

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture has won an international competition to design Qintai Center, a 248m (814ft) tall, high-performance corporate headquarters tower and related podium structure in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. AS+GG’s winning entry was selected over competing schemes from firms based in the Netherlands, Japan and Hong Kong.

Qintai Center’s total constructed area is 146,000 sq m, including a 5-star hotel and office space to be occupied by the client, Hubei Tobacco Company, and other tenants. The tower will be connected via a plaza and an above-grade pedestrian bridge to the podium, which will contain retail, restaurants and a conference centre with a ballroom. At the top of the tower, a special executive lounge and restaurants will offer spectacular views of the surrounding cityscape. The tower’s unique form is both culturally and environmentally contextual to the city of Wuhan.

“The genesis of the form in the competition phase related to the guzheng, a traditional Chinese musical instrument similar to a zither, featuring strings that are stretched over pegs that form a raised S curve over a rectangular wooden frame,” notes Adrian Smith, FAIA, RIBA. “The instrument is similar to the one featured in a Chinese legend with deep significance to the culture of Hubei, which in turn inspired our design process early on.”

During the ongoing concept design phase, the cultural influence of the building has been developed in relation to the building’s energy performance. Informed by a rigorous parametric analysis, the façade now bows outward in a diagonal line that ascends northwest up the tower. This shape has been adjusted to optimize self-shading and minimise solar heat gain, an effect augmented by the fact that both the tower and podium’s narrowest exposures are mostly to the east and west, from which the sun is harshest. In addition, the tower’s smaller floor plates allow for greater use of daylight harvesting, which in turn reduces the building’s energy consumption for artificial lighting.

“Our initial reference of Qintai Center in relation to a musical instrument has been refined with the building’s performance in mind,” says Gordon Gill, AIA. “Now the building has matured to have its own specific language tied to a broader environment context while still maintaining the cultural reference of the guzheng. In that sense, it’s an advancement of our firm’s continuing investigation into the relation of architectural form and sustainability, a concept summed up by the phrase ‘form follows performance.’”

Qintai Center is oriented to maximise views of Wuhan’s great bodies of water, including Moon Lake to the east and the nearby Hanshui River to the north. The building will also enjoy a perspective of the AS+GG-designed Wuhan Greenland Center, a supertall tower now in the early stages of construction about five miles from the Qintai site.
The cultural importance of Moon Lake and the city’s three rivers are emphasised on Qintai Center’s 25,863 sq m site by a series of pools and other water features that surround the tower and podium. The water features are also performative elements of the design, making the air feel fresher to building users in Wuhan’s hot climate. Water for these elements will come from stormwater and/or recovered condensate from the complex.

Dubai Architecture

Dubai in 1990 prior to the craziness

The same street in 2003

 Last year

The madness.  Dubai is said to currently have 15-25% of all the world's cranes.

The Dubai Waterfront.  When completed it will become the largest waterfront development in the world. 

All of this was built in the last 5 years, including that island that looks like a palm tree. 

The Palm Islands in Dubai.  New Dutch dredging technology was used to create these massive man made islands.  They are the largest artificial islands in the world and can be seen from space.  Three of these Palms will be made with the last one being the largest of them all.  

Upon completion, the resort will have 2,000 villas, 40 luxury hotels, shopping centers, movie theaters, and many other facilities. It is expected to support a population of approximately 500,000 people.  It is advertised as being visible from the moon.

The World Islands.  300 artificially created islands in the shape of the world.  Each island will have an estimated cost of $25-30 million. 

The Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai.  The worlds tallest hotel.  Considered the only '7 star' hotel and the most luxurious hotel in the world.  It stands on an artificial island in the sea. 

Hydropolis, the world's first underwater hotel.  Entirely built in Germany and then assembled in Dubai, it is scheduled to be completed by 2009 after many delays.

The Burj Dubai.  Construction began in 2005 and is expected to be complete by 2008.  At an estimated height of over 800 meters, it will easily be world's tallest building when finished.  It will be almost 40% taller than the the current tallest building, the Taipei 101. 

This is what downtown Dubai will look like around 2008-2009.  More than 140 stories of the Burj Dubai have already been completed.  It is already the worlds tallest man made structure and it is still not scheduled to be completed for at least another year.   

The Al Burj. This will be the centerpiece of the Dubai Waterfront.  Once completed it will take over the title of the tallest structure in the world from the Burj Dubai. 

Recently it was announced that the final height of this tower will be 1200 meters.  That would make it more than 30% taller than the Burj Dubai and three times as tall as the Empire State Building. 

This is a city on crack.

The Burj al Alam, or The World Tower.  Upon completion it will rank as the world's highest hotel.  It is expected to be finished by 2009.  At 480 meters it will only be 28 meters shorter than the Taipei 101.

  

The Trump International Hotel & Tower, which will be the centerpiece of one of the palm islands, The Palm Jumeirah.

Dubailand.  Currently, the largest amusement park collection in the world is  Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, which is also the largest single-site employer in the United states with 58,000 employees.  Dubailand will be twice the size. 

Dubailand will be built on 3 billion square feet (107 miles^2) at an estimated $20 billion price tag.  The site will include a purported 45 mega projects and 200 hundred other smaller projects.  

Dubai Sports City.  A huge collection of sports arenas located in Dubailand. 

Currently, the Walt Disney World Resort is the #1 tourist destination in the world.  Once fully completed, Dubailand will easily take over that title since it is expected to attract 200,000 visitors daily.

The Dubai Marina is an entirely man made development that will contain over 200 highrise buildings when finished.  It will be home to some of the tallest residential structures in the world.  The completed first phase of the project is shown. Most of the other high rise buildings will be finished by 2009-2010.   

The Dubai Mall will be the largest shopping mall in the world with over 9 million square feet of shopping and around 1000 stores.  It will be completed in 2008.  

Ski Dubai, which is already open, is the largest indoor skiing facility in the world.  This is a rendered image of another future indoor skiing facility that is being planned. 

Some of the tallest buildings in the world, such as Ocean Heights and The Princess Tower, which will be the largest residential building in the world at over a 100 stories, will line the Dubai Marina. 

The UAE Spaceport would be the first spaceport in the world if construction ever gets under way.
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