Spiral Tower: Suburbia in the City
This ‘family-friendly’ skyscraper design aims to bring all of the perks of living in the suburbs into the city. Envisioned for the center of Berlin, the Spiral Tower by Philipp von Bock has housing units in a stepped design that enables each one to have a small outdoor space. Shared green spaces are also built right into the design.
Car Park Tower, Mozhao Studio
A public building providing access to the Hong Kong City Hall, a second-floor pedestrian system and to the streets, Mozhao Studio’s Alternative Car Park Tower design is meant to represent equal access for citizens. Cars are transported to the uppermost levels via spiral car-lifts in an automated process, so there’s no need for people to climb up and down stairs or wait for elevators.
Edgar Street Towers
A swirling tower designed for Manhattan straddles the street, with two ‘feet’ coming together into a single skyscraper. ‘Edgar Street Towers’ by Iwamoto Scott “responds to its immediate site context while establishing a strong relationship to the larger urban form of Manhattan. The towers’ design seeks to reinstate Edgar STreet as an east-west public way, reconnecting Greenwich and Washington streets. The space of this passageway through the building twists upwards, rising through the body of the tower, pinching at the mid level to allow for larger floorplates, and culminating at a rooftop sky lobby and civic space.”
Zurich Cocoon Building
The spiral design of the Cocoon in Zurich is most apparent on the inside, where a white ribbon undulates from the ground floor to the skylight on the uppermost level. The architects envisioned the design as a ‘communication landscape’ to eliminate the usual barriers of walls and floors, opening up the entire space.
