See the Final Presentations 2008

"Gateway Tower" by Wonwoo Park, featuring the skybridge that acts as the expansion of urban pattern and gateway for sustainable future urban fabrics.  

In the need for denser, more concentrated sustainable cities which reduce the loss of green space and energy-intensive transport and infrastructure networks, tall buildings have an opportunity to reinvent themselves as the typology for a sustainable urban future – focused centers of live, work and play with innovative forms, technologies and environments to face the challenges of the future climate- changed world. This design module seeks to explore these themes to find alternative design approaches for tall buildings; to create high-rise buildings that are inspired by both the physical and environmental aspects of place.

The site for this project was on the site of the proposed Chicago Spire by Santiago Calatrava, on the lake-front in Chicago. The brief asked for a mixed-use (predominantly residential) building of 60-100 stories in height, which makes fundamental decisions on form, layout, skin, material, construction and incorporated technologies so as to create a sustainable, ‘carbon-neutral’ tower which relates physically to place. The project began with a significant period of research (conducted in student pairs / small groups) – of site and of precedent; buildings and technologies – which informed the detailed programme for the building as well as strategies for both site and building.

Students were free to determine the size, height (number of floors), and specific accommodation of the building, according to their site studies & research. It was intended that the building would be predominantly residential, but other associated functions (e.g. leisure, recreational, retail) might also be incorporated. Possible influential factors on the detailed brief for the building (in no particular hierarchy) might be: site area, urban grain, neighbouring buildings, city requirements, community requirements, the commercial market, social responsibility, sustainability, aesthetics, proportions, plot ratios etc.