"'Home' in the true sense should be warm hearted… A place of refuge. A place of intimacy, domesticity, meaning and freedom." Sarah-Jane Pyke discusses the two points of inspiration behind the Alex Hotel's design: the concept of the hotel as home, and a curious character named Alex...
"We want to humanise tall buildings, to celebrate the pedestrian level and consider how people experience it.” In AR, Koichi Takada discusses the importance of connecting tall buildings with the surrounding screetscape, and their groundbreaking design for Sydney's Infinity building.
The Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building in the world, features significant technological innovations, including a tapering asymmetrical form designed to reduce wind loads and a double curtain wall that creates space for garden atrium sky lobbies. The latest issue of AR explores the intimate elements of this giant, spiralling structure.
“From a distance the building appears to ripple and bulge, while close-up the individual apartments become legible. The undulating form has a performative effect by minimising the wind downdraft at street level.” AR magazine talks to Caleb Smith of Elenberg Fraser about the studio's golden tower, Abode318.