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Posts Tagged ‘Deconstructs’

Two World Trade Center: BIG Redesign Deconstructs Skyscraper

24 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

two wtc stacked boxes

A long-standing design proposal from Foster + Partners has been scrapped by developers in favor of a new scheme from BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) that presents a different face to viewers depending on their approach or view within the city, rejecting conventional skyscraper typology and cultivating visual transitions between neighborhoods on all sides.

two world trade stack

As the last project slated to be built on the World Trade Center site, the would-be 2 WTC skyscraper is a critical piece of the Lower Manhattan landscape, but its future tenants wanted something that stood apart from the more straightforward tall buildings associated with finance and Wall Street.

two tower foster partners

The prior scheme, shown above, featured four connected verticals, each terminating in an angled plane at the top, essentially a tower with slots centrally located along each face. The new scheme, endorsed by occupants including 21st Century Fox and News Corp and shown below, intentionally shies away from the skyscraper aesthetic and creates space for greenery on a series of platforms created by recessed sections of structure.

two memorial site view

two box tower view

Its facade shows off a slim and modest structure when viewed from the memorial site on one side below but creates a stacked-box effect when seen from adjacent lower-rise parts of the city above like Tribeca: “From Tribeca, it will appear like a vertical village of singular buildings each tailored to their individual activities stacked on top of each other, forming parks and plazas in the sky.”

two platforms gardens levels

two interior exterior bridge

two wtc interior

two news media studio

two news broadcast pit

two newsroom open space

By keeping larger boxes at the base and similar overall square footage (nearly 3,000,000 square feet), the building also is designed to accommodate sizable studio spaces for the aforementioned media companies. Lower levels will be occupied by these giants while upper floors will be rented out to smaller commercial clients. Set alongside One, Three and Four World Trade Center, this structure will stand apart, its broken-down scale visually bridging the gap between the southern tip of the island and the rest of the city to the north.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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Building Eraser: Smart Robot Scans & Deconstructs Concrete

17 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

building deconstructing robotic system

Whether the building is a bare-bones warehouse or five-star hotel, demolition is an equally messy business – but perhaps it does not have to be. What if demolition teams could precisely separate the component parts of the concrete forming the walls, floors and ceilings of a structure?

building erasing robot design

ERO is an award-winning robotic solution that strips concrete on-site and step-by-step, saving time, energy and copious amounts of water (used to reduce airborne particulates) in the deconstruction process. It parses the pieces back into cement, aggregate and water as it goes, literally erasing a building rather than demolishing it.

building demolition robot

The robot scans sections and identifies the best ways to break them down into constituent parts for reuse or recycling. This approach switches the literal sledgehammer with a proverbial scalpel – the latter taking the form of a concentrated high-pressure water jet that cracks the concrete and allows it to be more carefully removed.

building deconstruction smart system

In the end, the graywater is reused, the particulates turned into aggregate for fresh construction applications and the rebar cleaned and sorted as well. This systematic recycling saves materials not just for future uses but also reduces waste along the way by mitigating the need to actively blanket the building demo site with water and saves time in terms of sorting through the rubble.

building compact eraser robots

From the  2013 International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) awards page: “The challenge with this project was to separate materials concurrent with deconstruction. Concrete is usually reinforced with a metal mesh inside. Common techniques involve using brute force to pulverize the concrete, which creates a mixed mound of waste material that needs to be separated before it can be reused or sold as second-grade metal or as a filling material. In order to overcome later separation and ease the transport of materials, the process had to start with separation on the spot. It was a challenge to switch from brutal pulverizing to smart deconstruction.”

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[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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