A long-standing design proposal from Foster + Partners has been scrapped by developers in favor of a new scheme from BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) that presents a different face to viewers depending on their approach or view within the city, rejecting conventional skyscraper typology and cultivating visual transitions between neighborhoods on all sides.

As the last project slated to be built on the World Trade Center site, the would-be 2 WTC skyscraper is a critical piece of the Lower Manhattan landscape, but its future tenants wanted something that stood apart from the more straightforward tall buildings associated with finance and Wall Street.

The prior scheme, shown above, featured four connected verticals, each terminating in an angled plane at the top, essentially a tower with slots centrally located along each face. The new scheme, endorsed by occupants including 21st Century Fox and News Corp and shown below, intentionally shies away from the skyscraper aesthetic and creates space for greenery on a series of platforms created by recessed sections of structure.

Its facade shows off a slim and modest structure when viewed from the memorial site on one side below but creates a stacked-box effect when seen from adjacent lower-rise parts of the city above like Tribeca: “From Tribeca, it will appear like a vertical village of singular buildings each tailored to their individual activities stacked on top of each other, forming parks and plazas in the sky.”

By keeping larger boxes at the base and similar overall square footage (nearly 3,000,000 square feet), the building also is designed to accommodate sizable studio spaces for the aforementioned media companies. Lower levels will be occupied by these giants while upper floors will be rented out to smaller commercial clients. Set alongside One, Three and Four World Trade Center, this structure will stand apart, its broken-down scale visually bridging the gap between the southern tip of the island and the rest of the city to the north.

Riding to the top observation deck of 1 World Trade Center opening next month, visitors will be treated to a dizzying view of the city below, but not the one they might expect – instead of looking out windows, they will see their surroundings on lifelike screens, enveloping them in a time-lapse view of New York City’s historic evolution. All of this is packed into a trip that lasts less than sixty seconds (video below).

Inevitably included in this fast-paced vertical ride through history is a view of one of the former Twin Towers, which appears then vanishes off to the right, reflecting its (brief in this speedy history) real-world existence and subsequent absence. This inclusion was contentious and thoroughly debated among all involved parties, but the creators hope it will be seen by the public as a tribute to the fallen towers or at least under as a necessity for accuracy.

A circular display on one panel scrolls up through the years rather than heights, highlighting the fast passage of time, while a settlement and city emerge from the once-open island on all sides. The show was designed and produced by the Hettema Group and Blur Studio in conjunction with architects of Montroy Andersen DeMarco.

The New York Times sets the scene: “Nine 75-inch, high-definition monitors are arrayed in each cab behind windowlike mullions to convey the impression that one is in a glass-walled elevator. At first, one feels enclosed in bedrock. The year is 1500 and the elevator is 55 feet below ground. As it rises, time advances. The cab seems to head skyward from an offshore marsh, a reminder that the trade center site was originally underwater.”

The experience is as historically complete as it is educational and immersive: “A peaceful riverfront settlement is then seen, just before the Europeans arrive. Soon enough, the still verdant island is dotted with the steep, crow-stepped gables of New Amsterdam, as windmill vanes poke up over the treetops.”

“Height records are made and broken by a succession of tallest towers: the Park Row Building, the Singer Building, the Woolworth Building and the original trade center. Then, the steel framework of the new 1 World Trade Center seems to assemble itself around the cab before visitors once again find themselves within an enclosed space — this time, an elevator shaft.”

Korean Twin Towers FAIL? It would definitely appear so, though Dutch architects MVRDV strenuously deny any connection, inspirational or otherwise, with New York City’s lost World Trade Center towers. “The Cloud” is due to rise in Seoul by 2015 – that is, unless a storm of controversy blows the plan away.

Seoul Food for Thought

(image via: DQNplus)

Imagine if you will, an architectural combination of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 (below) and a pair of towering skyscrapers. The result will likely resemble “The Cloud”, an ambitious high-rise apartment building designed by Dutch architects MVRDV. Current plans predict the post-modern structure will occupy a prime portion of the Yongsan Dreamhub project in Seoul, South Korea, by its 2015 completion date.

(images via: Rezendi and The Blaze)

The Yongsan Dreamhub project is an extension of Seoul’s business district; the master plan is one of 40 projects currently overseen by Studio Libeskind.

(images via: Archivenue and DesignBoom)

How incongruous is it that Daniel Libeskind, chosen to to oversee the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, is also associated with a building design that to many invokes the fiery destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on September 11th, 2001.

Big H with ELL to Pay

(images via: Domus and WN.com)

On the face of it, the H-shaped “The Cloud” displays both practical design considerations and a visible form that places it firmly in the so-called “deconstructionist” aesthetic common to many of Daniel Libeskind’s works. Libeskind, however, has no direct connection to this part of the project as it was subcontracted out to Dutch firm MVRDV.

(images via: Architizer and Archinect)

“The Cloud” is no small undertaking. The 54-floor and 60-floor towers rise to heights of 260 meters (853 ft) and 300 meters (984 ft) respectively, offering 128,000 square meters of living space. Roughly halfway up the towers centered around their 27th floors, a 10-story “cloud” connects the two towers in a similar fashion to the ground-level common plinths found in many multi-building developments.

(images via: Archinect and The Pop-Up City)

By raising the plinth skywards, the formerly occupied ground floor space is freed for other purposes, in this case a landscaped public garden designed by Martha Schwartz. Over 14,357 square meters of amenities are located in the connecting cloud including a wellness center, conference center, fitness studio, pools, restaurants and cafes.

(images via: DQNplus and Occult Propaganda)

The top surface of the tower-connecting cloud is also utilized and features an extensive series of easily accessible public and private outdoor spaces, open-air patios, sun decks, gardens and swimming pools. What could possibly go wrong?

Al Clouda?

(images via: Google+ and 911WhoDidIt)

Call it a mass case of pareidolia (seeing faces and images where none exist) or an unintentionally evocative design, but a furor quickly arose when images of “The Cloud” were first published. Regardless of intent, the resemblance of MVRDV’s design to New York’s twin WTC towers in flame is obvious – no matter that said resemblance appears even closer once one is made aware of it.

(images via: UC21blog and VRForums)

MVRDV (architect Winy Maas, above) was seemingly caught unaware by the disturbingly evocative similarity of “The Cloud” to the 9/11 disaster and have strenuously protested claims their design intentionally imitates the lost Twin Towers in flame. To quote a posting on MVRDV’s facebook page, “A real media storm has started and we receive threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse. MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud project evokes regarding 9/11, it was not our intention.”

(images via: Pop-Up City, ABC News Radio and Inhabitat)

The posting continues, “The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, the design was not meant to provoke this.”

(image via: Home Theater Forum)

Beyond the above apology, MVRDV is distancing themselves from the ruckus by stating any decisions regarding the implementation of their design are strictly for the client to decide. That being said, Seoul is a long way from Manhattan and those who will live in and around “The Cloud” may not have negative feelings about the building’s appearance. Even so, would you want to live in a building that looks like the scene of a massive terrorist attack – or a 1974 Hollywood disaster movie?