10.) China Central Television Headquarters
The only standing design on our list, this structure is not a traditional tower but rather a loop of six horizontal and vertical sections. The building has more than million and a half feet of floor space spread over 44 floors, and was completed on May 16th of this year.
9.) My Dream, Our Vision
A finalist for the World Expo 2010 Singapore Pavilion, Design Act’s permutated cube design looks like a giant cubist cloud floating over green pastures. With over 3800 individual modules, the structure has eight separate ‘experiential’ chambers for visitors, making use of illumination, sounds, and various art installations.
8.) Dynamic Architecture’s Rotating Tower
With independently rotating floors, the Tower will be able to morph into many stunning shapes. Dynamic Architecture, the firm behind the unique design, was initially planning for the first project to take place in Dubai, but because of financial concerns and other factors the team decided to focus instead on the London project.
7.) Songjiang Hotel
Outside Shanghai, plans for a 400-bed luxury resort are in the works for a 100-meter-deep exhausted quarry, transforming an environmental blight and eyesore into a lush, natural paradise complete with manicured gardens and cascading waterfalls. Geothermal energy and green roofs will provide a template for future extreme ‘brownfield’ renovations.
6.) Vertical Village
A multiple-use development planned for Dubai, the Vertical Village is designed to harness the maximum solar energy from the desert sun, with large solar collectors that track the sun’s movement across the sky, integrated shading and solar-heated water systems. Architects for the building expect it to earn LEED Gold.
5.) Cybertecture Egg
The 32,000 square-meter egg-shaped building will contain 13 floors of offices bringing together iconic architecture, environmental design, and intelligent systems. With 20 percent less surface area than traditional structures, the building’s unique architecture will make it a symbolic installment to Mumbai’s central business district.
4.) City in the Sky
Inspired by the lotus flower, these Hrama-designed towers represent a world of purity and harmony far above the polluted city streets below. With glass and steel shaping its leaves, the City in the Sky towers make use of gardens and water elements to create a genuine oasis in the clouds.
3.) Hydropolis
Initially pitched for 2006, this $300 million hotel complex has yet to see ground breaking in Dubai, but it’s imaginative and ambitious designs are intriguing nonetheless. With a central structure of Plexiglas walls reinforced with steel and concrete, the underwater portion is connected to a land-based entry portal via 500 meter tunnel.
2.) Regatta Hotel Jakarta
Taking on an iconic nautical theme, the main ‘lighthouse’ tower is surrounded by ten smaller towers representing sailboats. Designed by Atelier Enam, each tower is named after and oriented towards a major port city from around the world, with the aerodynamic lighthouse tower towering making a striking addition to the shores of the Java Sea.
1.) UN Memorial
Designed by London-based architecture firm ACME, this design for the centerpiece of the United Nations Peace Park in South Korea is comprised of a 1,500 seat assembly, two conference halls, a theater and exhibition spaces. The individual cells within the structure are to represent the members of the United Nations, who come together to form an organic whole. Each cell provides a different function for the overall structure, with an open-air embedded staircase meandering through the building up to a rooftop garden area.
An ACME spokesperson said that the “memorial should represent the nature of the United Nations, where many individual nations come together to create one entity, but without losing their individual identities.”
