As we bid adieu to 2022, it’s as soon as once more time for our end-of-year annual custom. No, I’m not speaking about plotting revenge in opposition to all these individuals who despatched me fruitcake once more this vacation season. It’s lastly time to disclose ConstructConnect’s Prime 5 Coolest Buildings of 2022.
Standards for inclusion on the checklist are twofold. First, the constructing should have been accomplished, topped out, or opened inside the calendar 12 months, Second, there needs to be some side that makes the constructing cool. This may very well be the structure, sustainability components, distinctive building strategies, know-how, constructing supplies used, cultural impression, or some mixture of those components.
This is a have a look at this 12 months’s checklist.
1. 111 West 57th – New York, New York
Who doesn’t love a very good superlative skyscraper? And whereas Burj Khalifa isn’t shedding its crown because the world’s tallest, 2022 noticed the completion of the world’s skinniest skyscraper: 111 West 57th. Often known as the Steinway Tower, the brand new residential tower overlooking Central Park has a height-to-width ratio of 24:1.
Designed by SHoP Architects and developed by JDS Growth Group and Property Markets Group, 111 West 57th sits on the positioning of the second Steinway Corridor within the metropolis, which was designed by Warren and Wetmore and in-built 1925 to be nearer to the just lately opened Carnegie Corridor. The historic constructing, which served as a showroom, live performance corridor, and workplaces for the Steinway & Sons piano firm, was built-in into the design of the adjoining 1,426-foot tower, renovated, and transformed into residences.
The brand new tower, clad in terracotta, bronze, and glass, along with being the world’s skinniest skyscraper, can be the third tallest constructing in New York Metropolis. For all of the Led Zeppelin followers on the market, the tower’s pinnacle has a sequence of setbacks on the south facet, incomes it the nickname “Stairway to Heaven.”
2. DJI Sky Metropolis – Shenzhen, China
DJI, the world chief in drone know-how, opened its new headquarters, Sky Metropolis, this 12 months in Shenzhen, China. Designed by Foster + Companions, Sky Metropolis is comprised of two skyscrapers utilizing asymmetrical suspended metal buildings. Every tower options six glass volumes cantilevered round their cores at various heights which are supported by large metal trusses and suspension tubes. The dual towers are linked by a 295-foot sky bridge that sits 345 toes above the bottom on the twenty fourth ground.
The suspended metal buildings diminished the necessity for inside columns permitting for extra open and uninterrupted workplace areas. The huge V-shaped trusses have been used to create four-story tall drone testing labs. A zen backyard in every tower foyer welcomes employees as they enter the constructing, and rooftop gardens on the glass volumes and podium supply a community of inexperienced areas.
The towers have been designed to utilize daylighting, and extra sustainability measures embrace the usage of an clever management system to cut back vitality consumption, rainwater harvesting, and recycling greywater for irrigation. Along with the flight labs and workplace areas, Sky Metropolis has auditorium area, analysis and growth areas, and a group well being middle.
What higher strategy to discover DJI’s new headquarters than with a video filmed utilizing the brand new DJI Avata drone?
3. Rosewood Sao Paulo – Sao Paulo, Brazil
Subsequent on our checklist is the Rosewood Sao Paulo resort, designed by architect Jean Nouvel and creative director Philippe Starck. The brand new resort is definitely comprised of two buildings. The primary is the renovated Condessa Filomena Matarazzo Maternity, which was in-built 1943 and noticed the start of half one million infants throughout its operation. The second constructing is the Mata Atlantica Tower, a vertical forest whose exterior is roofed with interconnected picket latticework and interspersed with native timber, vegetation, and flowers all through in addition to on the tower’s rooftops.
The inside of the upscale resort is adorned with 450 items of distinctive art work from 57 native artists protecting the partitions, flooring, ceilings, and elevators. The resort has 160 guestrooms and 100 personal residences in addition to six eating places and bars, together with two pool and bar areas. Different facilities embrace a cinema, occasion area, music studio, and an Asaya well-being middle.
A part of the venture additionally included the renovation of the Chapel of Santa Luzia to its unique 1922 structure. Rosewood Sao Paulo is a part of the bigger Cidade Matazarro growth mixing the adaptive reuse of current buildings with new building.
Sustainability was an enormous a part of the venture, with all the development accomplished with regionally sourced and upcycled supplies. There may be additionally a biodiversity program aimed toward repopulating indigenous vegetation and animals from the Mata Atlantica rainforest. Inside a 12 months of opening, the resort is predicted to be powered completely by renewable vitality from on-site photo voltaic panels and different renewable measures.
4. Taipei Performing Arts Middle – Taipei, Taiwan
The Taipei Performing Arts Middle, designed by OMA’s Rem Koolhaus, is a singular tackle what a performing arts middle can appear to be, each in and out. Fairly than your typical from and again sides, every of the middle’s three theaters jut out from the constructing’s 10-story glass dice. The outside of every is clad in aluminum.
There’s the spherical 800-seat Globe Playhouse, the 1,500-seat Grand Theater, and the 800-seat Blue Field. The Grand Theater and Blue Field may be mixed to create the two,300-seat Tremendous Theater. All three theaters share a communal backstage space positioned within the central hub of the constructing partly to save lots of area and in addition to encourage interactions and collaborations between productions.
One other cool function of the constructing is the Public Loop which is open to, nicely, the general public. This loop takes guests from the bottom ground all the best way as much as a viewing platform on the highest ground, between the inside and exterior shells of the Globe Theater, after which down an elevator again to the bottom ground. Viewing home windows all through the loop permit guests a glimpse of performances, rehearsals, and the behind-the-scenes motion backstage.
The Taipei Performing Arts Middle took 10 years to finish attributable to varied delays, with building beginning method again in 2012. The venue lastly opened on August 7, 2022, with a efficiency by the Taipei Symphony Orchestra.
5. Rose Flats – Venice, California
Rounding out this 12 months’s checklist is the Rose Flats, designed by Brooks + Scarpa. All buildings serve a goal, whether or not it’s business, instructional, cultural, governmental, and so forth., however it’s at all times heartwarming to see buildings purpose-built to deal with bigger societal points. Within the case of the Rose Flats, they have been constructed to supply everlasting supportive and reasonably priced housing to deal with homelessness. It’s primarily supposed for native youths growing old out of state or foster care and for the chronically homeless.
The Rose Flats is within the courtyard housing type developed and popularized in Los Angeles within the Nineteen Twenties. The bottom ground of the constructing is business area and has workplaces for the Venice Neighborhood Housing, which owns the constructing and is the place their administrative workplaces have been positioned earlier than the positioning was redeveloped.
Above the business area is the 35-unit, U-shaped condo constructing surrounding the landscaped courtyard. The LEED Gold-certified constructing was partially funded by Proposition HHH, which was a poll measure handed again in 2016 to deal with homelessness with reasonably priced condo housing.
