Saturday, November 10, 2007

Aspire Tower

The Aspire Tower is a 318 meter structure located in the Sports City complex in Doha, Qatar. Designed by architect Hadi Simaan, Aspire Tower served as the focal point for the 15th Asian Games hosted by Qatar in December 2006. The Aspire Tower is currently the tallest structure in Doha, but it is expected to be surpassed by the Dubai Towers and the Barwa Tower.


The tower was a landmark of the 2006 Asian Games due to its size and proximity to the main venue, the Khalifa International Stadium. The tower housed the Olympic Flame during the games and holds the record for tallest ever Olympic Flame and highest positioning of the Flame, which was visible throughout Doha for the duration of the games. The design employs a concrete core which acts as the primary support. The remainder of the building is a steel structure that cantilevers out from the concrete core. The exterior of the building is covered in a steel mesh which, during the Asian Games, was festively illuminated by vibrant LED lights. One of the most interesting features of the tower is the broadcast of videos which was carried out around an 8 meter section of the tower; this was done through the use of Color Kinetics, Inc.'s Chromasic technology.


Monday, November 5, 2007

New York Times Building

Recently New York Times Building was completed. The project was announced on December 13, 2001, shortly after the Hearst Corporation was given approval to construct a tower over their landmark six-story headquarters. In conjunction with the Hearst Tower, the site selection represents the further westward expansion of Midtown along Eighth Avenue; a corridor that had seen no construction following the completion in 1989 of One Worldwide Plaza.


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Design

The tower rises 228 m (748 feet) from the street to its roof, but the exterior curtain wall extends 28 m higher to 256 m (840 feet), and a mast extends up to 319 m (1,046 feet). The building has 1.54-million square feet (143,000 square meters) of gross space. On November 11, 2006, the building reached its pinnacle height of 319 m (1,046 ft.) when the remaining piece of the spire was assembled. The building is currently tied with the Chrysler Building as the second tallest building in New York and the 6th tallest in the United States. The tower was designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboraton with FXFOWLE Architects.


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Facade

One of the New York Times Company top priority was to create a energy-efficient building. An unusual feature of the building is its fully glazed curtain wall. Thin horizontal ceramic tubes placed on a steel framework one and a half feet in front of the glass will screen the double glazed, spectrally selective, low-emissivity, full-height glass wall around the building, thus reducing the building's cooling loads.


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Interior

Gensler Associates
provided interior design.

Cafeteria

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Newsroom

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Fire gate

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Desks

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Few other photos, enjoy!


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