Everyone knows how much our overbuilt cities resemble a concrete jungle, but we bet that you have never heard about concrete mountains! Tonkin Liu, A London-based architecture firm has just revealed its competition-winning design, called the Cradle Towers in Zhengzhou, China. The design is a combination of five mixed-use towers surrounded by an ample green space, mimicking the nearby Songshan mountains.
The company calls the design style as “mountainscape,” which will feature greenery and a responsive facade to control solar shading and maximize the energy efficiency.
The creative design will adorn China’s “cradle of civilization,” with the 434,000-square-meter Cradle Towers complementing the city’s illustrious past, its nature-filled landscape and the move towards a high-tech future. The structure consists of five tapered towers, built at different heights, just like a podium. The five towers encircle a central park and a large human-made lake that will turn into ice skating rink in the winter season.
The towers will host all sorts of buildings, from offices and apartments to hotels. The base will feature retail and leisure outlets open to the public. Each building will have a landscaped rooftop. Besides the eye-catching structure, its fritted glass outlook has a responsive skin that helps to minimize solar heat gain.
“Its subtle color gradation and transitions from dark at the podium base to light at the tops of the building, establishes the podium as a heavy mass and blending the lantern-like tips of the towers with the sky,” write the architects.
We would like to know your thoughts on the incredible design of the towers. Comment below!
