THE GRADIENTOWER

THE GRADIENTOWER

Urban Reflection

The Shenzhen's municipality decide to implement a low-rise area with a new Masterplan of towers. This area is surrounded by mid-rise residential towers.

Within the Masterplan the eastern area is destined for office towers whereas the western one is for mixed use buildings.

The idea is to create a functional-stuck tower with houses on the lower part responding to the height of the surrounding buildings and on the higher offices according to the planned ones.

Since the modernist time the architectural market is asking for galzed towers all around the World, but this is not sustainable anymore so we decided to do not skip the market demand but to find a way to be vernacular and green.

To emphasize the quality of both spaces the glass of the building moves. It is sent back for the houses in order to create deep balconies all around the apartments that provide shades during the hot summer and a lovely outdoor space in the other periods of the year, a real extension of the indoor.

In the office part the glass is offsetted out in order to create a double-layered ventilated facade that provide a better thermal insulation. This also allows to have a better control of the quality of the light into the building.

Concept Diagrams

Pointing the sky

Silhouette

In to Out

Typical House Floorplan

Typical Office Floorplan

Concept Axo

Architect: ITA
Type: Competition 
Location: Shenzhen, China

Year: 2017 

THE EYE

THE EYE

Sunny morning

The building is located in a strategic location. All the surrounding buildings basicaly have a coutyard scheme and they are the extrusion of their site.
The general construction rules allow only this kind of situation so the aim of the project was to find out a solution, made on this scheme, that was 2.0 in terms of sustainability.
The new courtyard building is designed shifting one side in order to create a cantilevered volume that allows to have a main entrance and a covered dropoff area. Instead to have a private couryard this solution allows to enjoy the “inner” space with the city creating a new plaza for events. 
Lifting the volume, this one can receive sunlight, otherwise hidden from the building in front of it.
In this way a typical self-referential architecture scheme starts to talk with the context offering its most important character to the citizens.
The shape of the volume allows to limitate the structural needs because the 4 layers of glass (inner and outer) contribute in the static of the building. 

Diagrams

Axonometric

In the rain

Back

Winter view

Plan 0

Architect: ITA
Type: Competition 
Location: San Paolo, Brazil

Year: 2016