Top Towers Building

Top Towers Building
Top Towers
Constructive simplicity and visual complexity

This project required the design of two very economic office towers, but with great visual impact as a response to its context, a point of great visibility within the city of São Paulo, Brazil.

It was also required an extreme maximization of private floor areas in relation to the total built area, as well as the best possible relation between common and private floor areas, configuring a typical and strict real state equation.

Technically, the buildings enjoy great constructive simplicity, with a precise and economic structural modulation.

The terraces that strongly characterize the towers are nothing beyond a simple game of displacements, and structurally they work as extensions of the great rectangular slab that supports each floor. The windows are also displaced in function of each unit’s terraces.

Conceptually this design references, albeit in a contemporary and renovated way, the playful modulated façades of so many of São Paulo’s buildings from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s that still stand in the city’s downtown.

Its impacting language of light and shadows is also related to today’s world contemporary production, one in which Architecture is again an expressive protagonist of the city’s built environment.

The general result of seeming complexity is actually born out of rigorously simple design, structural and modular principles.


Jorge Königsberger
Gianfranco Vannucchi

Technical data - Top Towers

Area of the terrain: 3.802,49 m²
Total built area: 25.929,97 m²
Total private area:
• Tower A: 7422,26 m²
• Tower B: 6993,27 m²
Number of floors:
• Tower A: 24 floors + 3 underground levels
• Tower B: 21 floors + 3 underground levels
Number of units:
• Tower A: 217 units
• Tower B: 206 units
Number of parking spaces: 332
Development of the project: 2005 - 2006
Building period: 2007 - 2008

70ºN

This project is part of a masterplan that looks to develop a reclaimed area of the Tromsø strait. It’s amazing what is being done in Europe in terms of new dwellings. The construction of the rest of the masterplan is currently in progress.

Architects: 70ºN Arkitektur
Location: Tromsø, Norway
Client: Strandkanten AS
Lighting Design: Ljusarkitektur
Landscape: Aurora Landskap / 70°N arkitektur as
Engineers: Skanska ASA
Contractor: Skanska ASA
Project year: 2003-2009

Leaf chapel

The Leaf chapel sits within the grounds of the Risonare hotel resort in Kobuchizawa, a refreshingly green setting with beautiful views to the southern Japanese Alps, Yatsugatuke peaks and Mt.Fuji.

Louis Vuitton flagship store by UNStudio

Естествено Холандски архитекти и естествено проект в Япония!
UNStudio:

The design for the 10 storey (54m tall) flagship store in Japan aims to establish an architectural equivalent of the identity of Louis Vuitton in which classical and modern qualities are blended. The element that moves through all the scale levels
of the design is the leaf shape which is found in the floor plan, the section and the elevation. Leaf-shaped openings in the façade give the building
a strong identity with landmark potential. The building follows the structure of a (grand) house: with three levels, each spanning a varying number of split-level floors and each with its own atmosphere and purpose. Each floor is in principle divided into four leaves, which are set in a spiral pattern. Terrace zones, which offer a mix of functions in a garden setting, mark the different vertical sections of the house.

Contemporary Home

If you are a fan of contemporary homes then these pictures may be a source of inspiration. This home is referred to as the "orange house" and offers some unique architectural aspects. The architects behind this design were Nuno Grande and Pedro Gadanho.






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Asemic Scapes

Asemic Scapes - Rehabilitation Center Rainberg is concept for a medical rehabilitation centre in the Austrian Alps designed by architecture gradute Sarah Schneider.

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Mora River Aquarium

The River Aquarium is located in Mora, a small municipality in the Northern Alentejo region. Given the need to shift regional development from the dependence of an increasingly weaker agriculture economy into the environmental tourism and leisure market, the municipality launched a design-and-build competition for an aquarium that could somehow embody the paradigms of biodiversity of the Iberian river.
Integrated in the Ecological Wild Park of Gameiro and bordering the Raia stream, the building stands amidst a secluded field of cork and olive trees removed from the more intense leisure and fishing activities of the river. The plot’s gently undulating topography forms a basin at the confluence of two small watercourses. Placing the aquarium at the edge of this quasi-natural retaining lake brought together the fundamental relation between its thematic contents and the presence of fresh water.

Given the blazing Alentejo sun and the need to create shade, the building was devised as a compact and monolithic volume with a pitched shelter of thin white pre-cast concrete porticos with single spans of 33 metres, evoking the profile of the canonical Alentejo whitewash barns known as “montes”. The shading and cross ventilation systems along with the water circuits foster the reduction of cooling energy, the sustainable increase of humidity and the wellbeing of animal and plant life.

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