Los Angeles-based architects Studio Shift have designed Miyi Tower as part of a new town south of Miyi County in China.
According to the architects, the tower is “designed as an educational building for residents and the multitude of tourists that visit every year,” and will comprise an auditorium, exhibition spaces and restaurants.
These enclosed elements will make up half of the building, alternating with open-air floors for event spaces, gardens and observation decks.
Studio Shift and landscape architects SWA Group designed the masterplan for the developing area.
A promenade consisting of a series of parks and public spaces designed by SWA Group will lead to the tower.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
–
Miyi Tower
Through an RFQ process, the New South Town of Miyi County in south eastern China selected the Los Angeles based team of Studio SHIFT and SWA Group to create a master plan for the developing area. As part of the new plan, Studio SHIFT has designed a tower containing various programs aimed at promoting the region’s heritage and natural amenities.
The tower sits at the edge of the Anning River and will mark the transition between the new development to the north and the new wetlands, leisure and agricultural districts to the south.
The Miyi Tower rises from the southern end of a kilometer long promenade that stretches from a high density residential and cultural hub devoted to regional arts. The promenade itself consists of a series of parks and public spaces designed by SWA Group to highlight accessibility to the river. It then tapers between rising paths which form the amphitheater at the tower’s base. The paths converge and then continue as a bridge across the river and as an overlook affording views of reclaimed wetlands and the lake beyond. The designers were intent on utilizing natural and mechanical means of filtration to produce clean water, converting a highly polluted river into a usable amenity for residents and visitors. This new amenity takes the form of a series of lakes, wetlands and waterways which lend form to the new districts in the master plan.
The tower itself, which is to act as a major landmark per the Miyi government’s request, is designed as an educational building for residents and the multitude of tourists that visit every year. Because the town is known for its abundance of sunshine and temperate climate, only half of the building’s program elements are enclosed. These double height spaces alternate with unenclosed areas and rise around a vertical core, their alignment shifting toward different views at every floor.
An auditorium, exhibition spaces and restaurants featuring local cuisine can be found on the interior while open-air floors are used as event spaces, gardens and an observation deck. The pairs of lower and upper enclosed spaces are joined by structures which act as light monitors. These light monitors, of which there is a third at the highest level, are aligned to take advantage of different lighting conditions throughout the day.
The tower is sheathed in a very porous yet continuous skin that gives the various programs their unified form. As porous building skins are often treated as opaque modules with subtracted holes (i.e. perforated skins) Studio SHIFT deliberately created the inverse. On the Miyi Tower, rather than defaulting to a technique of perforation, they created a pattern of objects in space mounted to a light frame. This inversion allows the skin to take on a rather ethereal effect and evokes the shimmering surface of the river below.
Architect: Studio SHIFT
Principals: Mario Cipresso and Chris Warren
Project Assistants: Chris Hyun and Andrew Kim
Landscape Architect: SWA Group Los Angeles
Gerdo Aquino, Ying-Yu Hung, Patrick Curran and Alex Robinson
Chris Warren and Mario Cipresso formed Studio SHIFT after long tenures with Morphosis in order to further explore methodologies in various design fields including architecture and urban planning. Both currently teach architecture studios at the University of Southern California. Mario is also the founder of the competitions website Death By Architecture.
–
Posted by Rose Etherington
January 16th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
These renderings seem pretty ominous, like a hi-tech Minas Tirith.
January 16th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
this is probably the coolest building i’ve ever seen
January 16th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
memorexe… +1 for the Lord of the Rings reference.
Cool diagrams. They explain the project well.
I would like to know more about the skin systems beyond “a pattern of objects in space mounted to a light frame”. The renderings seem just fuzzy enough to blur out the details.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
the real deal won’t be seen as clearer. it’ll be blurred by a thick fog of pollution sadly.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Awesome! Diagrams are crisp. Love the red people in the sections!
January 16th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
A building as haute couture in modest person. Interesting outfit which oddly shows off pedent or otherwise customary inside.Bbit more effort inside would give better impression.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
nice design.
nice elements (alternating open air floors, “light monitors” )
skin seems under worked/ under planned. the idea of adding material is nice and smart however their end result needs more work and character.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Gratuitous Mayne_esque formalism. Its a global recession, hopefully that will eventually get rid of such shameless, image-based conc0ctions.
January 16th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Wow, this is extremely impressive… and a little creepy, in a Tim Burton kinda way…
January 16th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Congratulations Chris!
January 16th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
really nice renderings, shame about the section though-doesn’t seem as exciting as the exterior
January 17th, 2009 at 12:52 am
a koolhaas wrapped into a mayne.
nice diagrams and renderings, but compared to the originals the section is disapointing..
still nice tough.
January 17th, 2009 at 3:02 am
gorgeous! I guess I need to wait to go to China until I can see this building while I’m there. I hope you show your students these drawings!
January 17th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
yay for this!
Double yay for Minas Tirith!
January 17th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
@k. rimane: i don’t know if you’ve been to china but not ALL of china is covered in pollution and smog. if that was the sentiment of your comment…
January 17th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Well represented project. The renderings, drawings, and diagrams are all pretty clear and convincing. Good Job!
January 17th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
this building is pretty sweet!!!
January 17th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
kick-ass building!!! im glad to see these guys doing well
January 18th, 2009 at 3:18 am
this is awesome, mario.
congrats.
January 18th, 2009 at 4:42 am
Congratulations Chris and Mario!
I hope everything will go smoothly for the rest of the project!
January 18th, 2009 at 9:41 am
The moves on the ground plane in terms of relating to path and circulation are extremely intelligent. Why didn’t you also let them inform the fracturing of the skin? Also, the comments above that refer to this as Mayne formalism are somewhat unfounded and precipitant I feel…this language is different and approaching something signature. Congratulations
January 19th, 2009 at 6:59 am
cool facade, but plain section…
seems no connection between 1 floor to another..
January 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Fantastic, imaginitive building, if a little ominous, especially in the visus with al l the ghosts walking around!
January 19th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Congrats Shift! What a fantastic forward-thinking ephemeral project with a very strong concept. Can’t wait to see it built!
January 19th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Great stuff studio shift……………………………….
Great concept and location, i would love to
see how the skin of the building will function.
The blurring effect really smudges the building
into the context, a heavy rainstorm would totally
accentuate the image you guys are trying to create.
Nice one boys.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Beautiful promenade! It’s great to see how the tower developed from its original parti. The facade’s porosity compliments the site well.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:30 am
I wonder how they do the cleaning and the maintenance later.
January 20th, 2009 at 6:17 am
Catwalks would work!
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:46 pm
nice work Chris!
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 am
Like that section. I’ll be interested to see how that skin is constructed. Are those panels going to be individually attached?
April 8th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
A highly ambitious and ephemeral piece of architecture. Hope the construction process is underway soon!