philadelphia PENNSYLVANIA

suckerPUNCH: describe your project.

chia wei LIAO + kin chun MA: In metropolitans, Skyscrapers grow up and become isolated islands in the cities. Urban Swirl is seeking a new design concept about the relationship between skyscraper and its surrounding urban context.

In this project, we offer a design of a building complex which compose of 3 towers. On a site size of 360,000 square feet, it serves multiple programs which include, cultural, recreational, business and residential. By building connections in between the towers, Urban Swirl aim to connect the vertical and the horizontal space.

Three buildings belong to a same family. They share the same concept of spatial organization as well as façade composition. The three buildings rotate in different speed, most vigorous in the shortest and the least vigorous in the tallest one. The vertical space in each floor also corresponds to the rotation. The vertical space becomes more tighten up and hence more private when rotation gets more drastic.

sP: what or who influenced this project?

cwL+kcM: Ali Rahim, morphology in nature and biology, hallucination from sleep deprivation

sP: what were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?

cwL+kcM: Kunstformen der Natur by Ernst Haeckel, Generative Order by Toyo Ito, TWA Terminal by Eero Saarinen music: Rachmaninoff, Mozart Requiem, Chopin Piano Concerto No.4, Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony, Jay Chou

sP: whose work is currently on your radar?

cwL+kcM: Toyo Ito, Steven Ma, Hernan Diaz Alonso, kokkugia, Karim Rashid, Ross Lovegrove, National Geographic