Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition
Kinchun Ma, Chiawei Liao
United States
Cities are aggressively expanding its size and population; Urban
Swirl is a new design concept that re-thinks the relationship between
skyscraper and its immediate urban context.
In metropolises like Tokyo and New York City, the shortage of land is
the major reason for vertical developments, but skyscrapers are
increasingly becoming isolated islands within the cities – disconnected
from the horizontal plane.
Urban Swirl examines the opportunity to connect the vertical with the
horizontal by building connections between towers, as well as
connections between the towers and the ground plane.
The project is a ‘cluster’ of buildings composed of three major
towers and connection spaces between them which provide a smooth
transition between the vertical and the horizontal plane while creating a
multi-layered experience of urban life.
Instead of traditional program organization, different programs are
categorized and nest to each other throughout the whole site. Starting
from the edge of the site, the program intensity gets stronger as the
program swirls into the buildings. In general, the base is the least
rotated part of each building. The base is more ‘loosen’, and the space
is open up to accommodate public programs. In the upper floors, rotation
becomes vigorous, space tightens, and partitions are formed along the
rotation axis – spaces become more private and rooms for offices and
residential are created. Therefore, the building with a more drastic
rotation, the shortest one, would have more individual spaces, and will
serve as hotel building while the least rotated one would serve as
office building.
Источник: http://www.evolo.us/architecture/urban-swirl/ | 
