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Urban Forest

By the end of 2009, MAD has completed the concept design of a 385 meter high metropolitan cultural complex in the city center of Chongqing – The Urban Forest.

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This is the third skyscraper designed by MAD following the Absolute Towers in Toronto and the Sinosteel International Plaza in Tianjin, China.

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Dezeen architecture and design magazine
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Urban Forest by MAD
December 10th, 2009

Beijing architects MAD have designed a skyscraper for Chongqing, China, with gardens at each level.

Rather than consider the project vertically, the architects envisage a stack of floors, each slice shifted horizontally to create spaces for gardens and patios.

The 385 metre-high building will be called Urban Forest.

Here’s some text from MAD:

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Urban Forest

By the end of 2009, MAD has completed the concept design of a 385 meter high metropolitan cultural complex in the city center of Chongqing – The Urban Forest.

This is the third skyscraper designed by MAD following the Absolute Towers in Toronto and the Sinosteel International Plaza in Tianjin, China.

MAD proposes a new architectural concept for the course of Chinese urban development – to actualize a sustainable multidimensional high-rise within China’s youngest municipality, where nature reincorporates into the high-density urban environment in the near future, to evoke the affection for nature once lost in the oriental ancient world and bring to the modern city dwellers.

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In the year of 1997, Chongqing became the fourth direct municipality in China.

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As an important pole of the growing economy in western China, the city area of Chongqing is more than twice of those of Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin combined.

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Such macro-scale urbanization should not only pushes economic growth and material prosperity, but also foster the evolution of the city’s cultural essence. Chinese cities have gone through the process of once starting from nothing, to following contemporary Western civilization urban pattern. Now, the overall economic infrastructure has oriented the direction of future development towards inland China.

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What lies in the future of cities? How should one grasp the concept of emerging high-density cities of China in the context of a scenic town such as Chongqing? How does one discuss the future of architecture in Chinese cities on the base of Eastern Naturalist perspective and in the new context of China’s unique economic, social environment and globalization background? How to engage the city dwellers with an experience of nature when its presence of steadily diminishes in the face of the ever intensifying concrete jungle.

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Throughout the process of contemporary Western urbanization, skyscrapers were the symbol of technological competitions, prime capitals and the formal enslavement of the powerful and the rich. Sustainable ecology became more of a demand for comfort; while the yearning of a return to nature was left ignored. The Urban Forest draws inspiration from the perspective of nature and the man-made in Eastern Philosophy, and ties the urban city life with the natural outdoor experiences.

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The shape of the architecture mimics mountain range, shifting in a dynamic and yet holistic rhythm, and becomes a continuation of nature. Unlike its preceding counterparts, The Urban Forest no longer emphasizes on vertical force, instead it concentrates on the multidimensional relationships within complex anthropomorphic spaces: multilayer sky gardens, floating patios and minimal and yet well lit nesting spaces, the architectural form dissolves into the fluid spatial movements between air, wind, and light. In this environment, people encounter nature filled with unexpected surprises.

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The fusion between Eastern humanism spirit and urban public spaces pioneers in the making of a sustainable multidimensional city – The Urban Forest will not be a piece of mediocre urban machinery, but an artificial organ that lives and breathes new life in the steel-and-concrete-filled city center.

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Chongqing, the youngest municipality in China, holds great potential in its urban planning and construction and has the capability to be built into a most livable city, a city of pleasant environments, a traffic-jam-free city, even into a city that runs into a complete urban forest. A city with aspiration and vitality shall be courageous in envisioning and designing its great future. – Bo Xilai (Mayor of Chongqing)

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In October 2009, The Urban Forest from MAD debuted in the Heart-Made, Europalia exhibition at the 2009 Europalia China. It represents the most challenging dream of the contemporary Chinese architecture — a type of urban landmark that rises from the affection for nature. It is no longer a static icon but an organic form that changes all the time with people’s perception.

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Director in Charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun
Design Team: Yu Kui, Diego Perez, Zhao Wei, Chie Fuyuki, Fu Changrui, Jtravis B Russett, Dai Pu, Irmgard Reiter, Rasmus Palmqvist, Qin Lichao, Xie Xinyu

Location: Chongqing, China
Typology: Commercial, Office, Hotel
Site Area: 7,700 sqm
Building Area: 216,000 sqm
Building Height: 385 m
Architectural Design: MAD Ltd
Structural Design: ARUP Group Ltd

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Posted by Rose Etherington

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/12/10/urban-forest-by-mad/

Incredible!

Sexy, futuristic design.

This is awesome.

I wish I could enjoy this type of architecture as much as the other 99% of you, but this is just ugly.

That's a great design! Wow!

I love the concept...
Will they dare do it ?
If they do, I hope that they won't skip the "green" features. Otherwise, it'll be a Urban Forest by name only.

So they decided to just go ahead a rip off aqua in Chicago? Excellent!

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I like it. Reminds me of absolute world going up in Mississauga (metro Toronto)

^MAD architects have been designing like that way before Aqua. Theyre famous for the kind of 'twister' towers that people are now copying round the world:

the Mississauga tower, Canada

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Sweet tower.

That tower was also designed after Aqua. I believe Aqua had already broken ground before that was even announced. Also, the construction techniques that allow these kind of forms were basically invented and developed on the Aqua site, so I don't see how they could have been building buildings like this long before Aqua... MAD wasn't even founded until 2003. Aqua broke ground at the end of 2006. So I don't see where they would have gotten the time to become world famous for wavy and twisting buildings in a matter of 3 short years...

And, for the record, I am not criticizing this building for its similarities to Aqua. I'm actually just excited to see that a mini-style of design has been formed around a building technique that largely originated in Aqua's extremely interesting and innovative design.

^Aqua broke ground in 2007, MAD won the Mississauga competition in early 2006, and had designed it the year before.

nope! this one looks just as good but the result won't disappointing.

I love it! This will take a while to make a good diagram.

Not a rip-off at all. Aqua is a rectangular box, with balconies of varying widths. This is completely different. That being said, I think Aqua is a great looking tower as well, but this will set a new standard.

Wow, what a Spooky Building for China
 

This posting may seem a bit long in length and disconnected at first, but I have to share my thoughts on this project as this building sends me all sorts of warning bells. For starters, I have about 8 years of experience with NFPA 72, NFPA 101, operated an electrical contracting company that was a distributor for Edwards (EST), Thorn EMI and in that time worked on some very large and prestigious public and private projects.

A problem I've encounter when surveying office space in Shanghai is the state of the building fire alarm systems. Although required by law, some very well known skyscrapers and hotels in China have their smoke detection circuits turned off or disabled. Yes, turned off, lives placed into deceitful risk, buildings left exposed and I have videos to back the claim. If ever in a Chinese skyscraper, look at the red LED on the outside/base of a smoke detector housing in the hallway, elevator lobby or lounge. If the LED does not blink every ~30 seconds or less, then the smoke detector head is not powered up, and for system addressable smoke detectors not communicating (polling) with the Fire Alarm Control Panel (FACP) and out of operation.

The reason being, that in the minds of a typical property manager in China, it does not make good economical sense to maintain the smoke detector heads. That financially, it is better to save the money then perform the required periodic work of vacuuming and testing with artificial smoke each smoke detector in the system. In the USA, this testing schedule varies according to building height, occupancy, use and municipality.

On my last visit to China, I had to directly order a Chinese person to put out their cigarette in the elevator. A week later, I asked a person that lit up under a smoke detector in a low ceiling hotel lounge to put out their cigarette as we were in a non smoking area. As an observation, the hotel smoke detector directly over the person smoking never activated.

Seeing how smoke detectors and life safety systems in theory would carry a higher level of importance and attention to a building owner/operator since lives at stake, that if any system in building would have preference in a building's expense budget, it would be the fire alarm system.

Now let’s take into consideration large trees on the exterior edges of high floors. Trees that by the nature of their location and placement will need to be frequently watered, maintained and very securely anchored to the floor and or deck on to which they are placed.

When Chongqing goes into water shortages during the summer, the trees will dry and turn highly combustible. If the Chinese are willing to ignore something as important as a FACP and smoke detectors, you have to wonder how much respect and attention the operators of the building are going to give to rusting and corroding cables used to anchor and hold down the trees.

I can see it now, some Chinese with a lit cigarette goes to lean over a building railing on a summer day and their hot ashes start foliage on the floors below to catch on fire. The Chinese with the lit cigarette runs away, never activating the fire alarm and later if caught, blames the owner of the building for having had the tree/plant outside in the first place. This besides the fact that the smoker knew all along that they were in the wrong for having done so, but none the less, the building operators should have had a better understanding of Chinese nature and have anticipated that some Chinese fool would break the law and light up a cigarette in a non smoking building. In the end, the building burns down and lives are lost.

If not the first scenario then this one, with the first large summer storm, it's going to be raining heavy tree branches and tree trunks throughout Chongqing’s CBD. I’m not sure which is worst, but none the less I will need a really strong umbrella from the Hotel concierge.

um....horrible design...

Ugh, it is awkward looking and from a buildability standpoint completely inefficient... never gets built. Aqua's premise was that yes it has varying balconies, but that everything else is modular inside the rectangular form.. A Supertall building with the inherent inefficiencies that this design introduces (I.E. envelope totally different on every floor, many columns don't go straight down to the ground, enormous cantilevers on every floor) has VERY LITTLE chance of getting built IMO.

taking things a bit too seriously? aqua, and this thing are more about progressive aesthetics more than any breakthroughs in construction. all those curves require a lot more rebar and formwork for the concrete. it's damned expensive but that's basically it. with both the aqua, this thing, and its predecessor in toronto, the various press releases hailed their respective buildings as the second coming. but they are/were all just catchy designs.

as for the irregular and cantilevered floors. it's inefficient and a waste of resources, but that seems to be the trend in a lot of high end highrises. they're putting things up with moving epitrochoid plans. but these wacky designs get attention, and that's their shtick for attracting buyers.

but then if gehry and libeskind have gotten attention for their even more outrageous designs...

This project reminds me of one similar for NYC.