Cutting curves or slices into the facades of buildings doesn’t just make them more visually dynamic, it can create terraces, divert prevailing winds, concentrate sunlight and direct the eye to particular views.  These seemingly random depressions and voids completely transform the shapes of each structure, often leading to an alien appearance.

Twin Moon Cut-Outs

Two buildings set side-by-side look like they were dented by a massive sphere, the concave cut-out creating two moon shapes recessed into the concrete facades. Architect Moon Hoon designed the mixed-use Two Moon buildings for a South Korean client who needed one building for himself and another for his brother. The structures were envisioned as twins, with one sitting ever-so-slightly closer to the street than the other.

TEK Building by BIG Architects

Each ‘slice’ that you see in the main volume of the TEK building by BIG Architects is a functional step, with the entrance spiraling throughout the interior to create one big continuous outdoor staircase leading to a series of terrace-like spaces before finally exiting onto the roof. The building, which is full of exhibitions paces, conference rooms, shops, restaurants and galleries, consists of a system of stacked plate-like pieces that also create solar shading for the interior spaces.

Barn House Sliced Like a Cake

This barn-shaped house looks like a massive black-frosted cake that’s had slices randomly taken from its perimeters, revealing its white interior. These concave cut-outs act as terraces, reflecting and maximizing natural light.

DUO Skyscrapers with Concave Walls

Singapore’s historic Kampong Glam district is set to get a pair of curving skyscrapers arranged in a half-circle, one containing apartments, the other offices and a hotel. The DUO towers by Buro Ole Scheeren feature a stepped design that creates large outdoor spaces at various levels, and are covered in a distinctive grid of hexagonal windows.

The Bow by Foster + Partners

Calgary’s tallest building, The Bow by Foster + Partners is a 58-story wave-like structure with a concave side gathering sunlight and a convex side reducing the load of prevailing winds. Atriums within the concave side separate the glass facade from the offices within, offering meeting spaces, lounges and sky gardens.

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Enter The Void 14 Creatively Concave Sliced Out Structures

This is what creative design is all about: taking a familiar typology and turning (or twisting) it around … not merely to show off something new and unique, but to critically respond and adapt to conditions of site and context.

BIG is a Danish firm with a sizable vision for this new 500-foot structure, in collaboration with local architect James Cheng, which will be the fourth largest skyscraper in Vancouver when completed.

Set atop a mixed-use podium, the main tower portion seems to have a sizable section carved out of it, a physical void placed in visual deference to adjacent thoroughfares, sunlight access and lines of sight, while creating the effect of near structural impossibility from key angles of view.

The plinth portion below carefully considers the needs of pedestrians and feel of the building on the street, while the form and outline of the building above is planned with careful respect for the surrounding skyline.

“The Beach and Howe tower is a contemporary descendant of the Flatiron Building in New York City – reclaiming the lost spaces for living as the tower escapes the noise and traffic at its base,” says Bjarke Ingels, founding partner of BIG. “In the tradition of Flatiron, Beach and Howe’s architecture is not the result of formal excess or architectural idiosyncrasies, but rather a child of its circumstances: the trisected site and the concerns for neighboring buildings and park spaces.”