The Architecture of the City

Construction has started in Chengdu, China, on a 468-metre-high crystalline skyscraper by the architects behind the current and future tallest buildings in the world.

The Greenland Tower Chengdu was designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill – the former SOM architects responsible for both the Burj Khalifa and the forthcoming Kingdom Tower – and is set to become the tallest building in south-western China. According to the architects, the faceted-glass form of the office and hotel tower was "inspired by the unique ice mountain topography around Chengdu".

"Like the mountain ridges reflecting the light of the sky and the valleys reflecting light from the earth, the iconic tower will perform as a light sculpture to diffuse light from 360 degrees, creating a connection between sky and earth," said the studio in a statement.

The Pertamina Energy Tower's curved façade is precisely calibrated for Jakarta's proximity to the equator to mitigate solar heat gain year-round.

The world's first net-zero energy skyscraper soon will grace the center of Jakarta, Indonesia — the Pertamina Energy Tower. When it's finished in 2019, it will be 99 stories high and serve as the headquarters of the national energy company. In addition to the 20,000 people who will work there, it will be the centerpiece of a campus that has a mosque, a sports center and a 2,000-seat auditorium for the performing arts.

Shaped like a funnel, the top of the tower opens at the top, capturing wind and sucking it inside to run a series of vertical wind turbines that provide 25 percent of the building's electricity.

The building is designed to be a symbol of Indonesia's commitment to sustainable development. Find more details at the link.

Sky City in Changsha, China, will be 2750 feet tall, 220 stories, housing 30,000 people in 4450 apartments, with excavation and construction slated to begin in June, 2013.

Aiming to accommodate a growing population, the skyscraper is considered a "pragmatic" building, designed for efficiency, affordability, replicability.

The Sky City concept significantly reduces the per capita use of land, and the associated CO2 emissions generated, thus providing a means of large-scale development with a significantly lower impact on the environment.

As a result, a resident of Sky City will be using 1/100th the average land per person- learn more about this innovative building concept and its sustainable features at Treehugger.

A new breed of high-rise architecture is in the process of being born, thanks to the collaborative efforts of modern design pioneers. Envisioned as the best sustainable option for meeting world housing demands and decreasing global carbon emissions, wooden mega-structures are now one step closer to becoming a reality.

“Big Wood,” a conceptual project to the eVolo 2013 Skyscraper Competition, builds on the premise that wood, when harvested responsibly, is one of the best tools architects and engineers have for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating healthy communities. Aspiring to become one of the greenest skyscrapers in the world, Big Wood challenges the way we build our cities and promotes timber as a reliable platform to support tomorrow’s office and residential towers...

Mexican design firm Studio Cachoua Torres Camilletti has designed and developed an ambitious concept that reimagines skyscrapers. 

The concept skyscraper, which is meant to be located in Hong Kong, is 92-stories-high and consists of two parts—for housing and for commerce that are linked by bridges for vehicles to transport commuters around the building itself. 

Aside from its fascinating structure, the architects also have an unusual plan to install rice paddies on the roof of the commercial side of the skyscraper. Additionally, they also proposed to use nuclear energy to power the building. 

Office space, retail shops and lifestyle amenities will occupy most of the commerce area, making it extremely convenient for residents. 

One of the architects, Adrian Cachoua Oropeza explained that “the farming on the top of the building is an important symbolic gesture as well as an environmental one,” as rice is a staple in Asian countries. 

This idea was submitted for the 2014 World Architecture Festival. 

This conceptual skyscraper for Berlin has a twisted figure-of-eight structure that curves around elevated gardens and greenhouses.

Agnieszka Preibisz and Peter Sandhaus, architects based in Berlin, developed the design to contribute to a new masterplan being put together for the eastern quarter of the city.

Describing the building as a "vertical garden city", the architects have planned a network of gardens and greenhouses that would slot into the two hollows of the figure-of-eight, intended to serve a growing desire among city dwellers for self-sustaining gardening.