Nowhere to go but up: A vertical history of the skyscraper

The modern skyscraper has its distant origins in antiquity and the middle ages, with its precursors in the insular apartments of Rome and the mud-brick residential towers of the city of Shibam in Yemen. However, even these buildings were limited by structural integrity as masonry constructions. Indeed, few buildings matched the height of the Great Pyramid in Egypt until well into the industrial age.

The industrial age signaled the true beginning of the skyscraper, which allowed buildings to go up beyond twenty storeys and remain practical. The safety elevator, structural steel frames, and reinforced concrete all led to the construction of the opulent high rises that dominated the major cities of the U.S. at the turn of the 20th Century.

Image source: cnn.com

The skyscraper truly came into its own in the 20th century as the world's powerhouse economies began seeing value in building up. Throughout the world, wealthy cities started to resemble the tower-studded metropolises of New York and Chicago.

Those two cities remained the leaders of the race for height, first led by New York with such structures as the Chrysler, the Empire State, and the former World Trade Center, and Chicago countering with what is now known as Willis Tower. The race for the world's tallest building went to Asia, with the construction of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan, and finally the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates.

Image source: travelingmyself.com

Of course, one secret to the world's tallest buildings is that their height is not based on the number of floors but on the total height of the structure, including spires (antennas don't count). The Chrysler Building even “cheated” its way to the record books through its spire. In their respective tenure as the world's tallest building, the Taipei 101 and Petronas did not have as many floors as the Willis Tower. The title “tallest building” with “most number of usable floors” was once again held by the same building upon the completion of the Burj Khalifa.

There's more to the story of the skyscraper than can be comfortably fit in a single post. Follow me, William B. Lauder, on Twitter for more topics on architectural history.

Stylish, efficient, sustainable: The world's greenest sports facilities

Sports facilities, such as stadiums and arenas, often host high-energy events that are attended by thousands of people. They require high maintenance and proper management to ensure the safety of each spectator. However, stadiums have traditionally been negligent about their environmental obligations. They use a lot of energy and resources, be it in the form of electrical power or water supply.

Nowadays, thankfully, developers are becoming more creative and environment-conscious with their projects. Below are new or repurposed stadiums considered to be some of the planet’s most eco-friendly:

Image source: wikipedia.org

Estadio Nacional de Brasilia Mane Garrincha
Located in Brazil, this stadium has solar panels that supply all its energy needs, rainwater catchments to supply water to bathrooms and other facilities, and photo catalytic membrane that breaks down the level of pollution. The result is the world’s first net zero (carbon footprint) stadium. Mané Garrincha was one of the venues used during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

National stadium of Taiwan
There are many “national stadiums” in the world but this one found in Taiwan could be the most environmentally innovative of all. This stadium has plenty of installed solar power panels arranged in a way that resembles a dragon’s scales. More than two-thirds of the structure’s power needs come from these solar panels that consist of woven grid of pipes wrapped around the crowd.

TFC Bank Stadium
The TFC Bank stadium in Minneapolis is one of the most eco friendly stadiums in the U.S. It was built with mostly recycled steel and is served by the light transit that connects it with other Minneapolis venues.

Highbury Square
While no longer used as a sporting venue, Highbury Square is reputed for its state-of-the-art architecture and landscaping. After Arsenal FC moved to their new home stadium, the now-residential complex underwent major redevelopment. Today, it features well-landscaped gardens, large green spaces, and Art Deco apartments.

Image source: byrnegroup.co.uk

William B. Lauder here, designer and architect based in New York City. For more articles on eco-friendly architectural projects, subscribe to my other blog.

Three artsy things to do in New York City

For years now, I have regarded New York City as my muse. While it may not be the birthplace of my favorite artists, its beauty, creativity, and surroundings are three of the greatest things that have kept me hooked since I moved in.

If you are planning for an artsy New York adventure, free your soul with these three amazing activities:

Image Source: hqhdwalls.com

Street photography. Explore the city through the lens. NYC is one of the most beautiful places on earth and is the center of much activity. From arts and culture to business and science, many photographers go have gone to NYC to explore its wonders.

Image Source: tripadvisor.com

Dive into Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market. Skip Fifth Avenue and explore Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market, which is home to myriad boutiques, bazaars, and shops. Running every Saturdays and Sundays between Ninth and Tenth Avenues on 39th Street, the place offers a nice mix of antique sellers, vintage-housewares hawkers, locally-grown produce, and street-food vendors. It’s the perfect place for a shopping adventure. Take note that bartering is standard practice in the area, so it’s important to bring your best negotiating skills when shopping.

Image Source: petapixel.com

Museum-hopping.A home to hundreds of cultural institutions and historic sites, NYC is one of the best places in the world to explore art, culture, and innovation. Most of its museums, many of which are internationally known, have large collections of ancient art, including Greek, Roman and Near Eastern. Some of the most popular sites to visit are the American Museum of Natural History, Guggenheim Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is home to over 2 million works of art from around the world.


So what are you waiting for? Shake up your itinerary by adding these artsy activities in your New York visit!


William B. Lauder here, an avant-garde architect and art lover residing in New York City. Subscribe to my blog for my latest adventures in the Big Apple.

Statuesque, peculiar, and grand: A look at Dubai's architectural designs

When you see photos of how Dubai looked like 25 years ago and compare them to how the place is now, you’d be amazed at the huge difference. From being a desolate geographical location, Dubai now has made a noteworthy metamorphosis by constructing astonishing buildings and structures, including the tallest hotel worldwide.

Ambition turned into fruition. This is how an architect would describe the foundation of the existing structures in the city. It could be said that Dubai has set the benchmark on architectural designs and aspirations by forming these ambitious assemblies one pillar at a time.

First, there is the Burj al-Arab hotel. Dubai takes pride in this tour de force, as it holds an arguable repute for being the only seven-star hotel, and the tallest at that, in the world-over.

Image Source: inzumi.com

As if Burj al-Arab’s height was not enough, another titleholder in the tallest category is Burj Khalifa, a tower that’s 828 meters high, which has broken records such as tallest free-standing structure in the world, with the highest number of floors, and with an elevator that is said to have the longest travel distance in the world.


Dubai’s dream of transforming every bit of space into an art piece doesn’t end with its statuesque establishments. In fact, there are more to its lineup of future contemporary structures, such as:

Image Source: elitemgtservices.com

The Da Vinci Rotating Tower – The idea is for a loft to have a 360-degree view of Dubai through its green energy generated wind turbines and solar panels that would enable each floor to rotate.


The Cloud – Designed by Nadim Karam, the Cloud is described by The Guardian as " a poetic but preposterous scheme imagining a resort landscape of lakes, palaces, and floating gardens, raised 300 meters in the air on slanting columns."

The Opus - A commercial space made of two structures that formed a cube.

Image Source: hotelclub.com

The Hydropolis – As if to swerve from just owning splendid skyscrapers, Dubai will soon be having its underwater hotel, which would be the world’s first yet again. The Hydropolis Underwater Hotel would have 266 suites, situated 66 meters below the surface.


The Dubai Towers – A design that resembles candlelight, this four-piece structure is intended to be the centerpiece of The Lagoons, a real estate development covering 70 million square feet or seven artificial islands, which will hold various commercial and residential facilities like shopping malls, five-star hotels, offices, resorts, a museum, and the like.


Some critics call Dubai’s structures as impractical, and that the city preferred "style over substance." Although this might be, true that an architect would go berserk over the outlandish creations in the city, it only proves that Dubai’s pizzazz can never be repudiated.


William B. Lauder is an architect from New York. More articles on architecture and designs can be read on his blog.

REPOST: Eileen Gray’s E1027: a lost legend of 20th-century architecture is resurrected

The E1027, an architectural masterpiece by respected designer Eileen Gray, was a pioneering and accomplished work of the modernist movement in architecture. Read the article below to know the interesting story behind this project:

‘A dwelling as a living organism’: Villa E1027. | Image source: theguardian.com



I don’t know exactly how Howard Carter felt when he entered Tutankhamun’s tomb, or what it would be like to meet the Queen of Sheba, and it is possibly excessive to compare these experiences to a visit to a small holiday house on the Côte d’Azur, but there is still something of the same magic in seeing E1027, a building brought back from near death, a lost legend of 20th-century architecture. It never quite disappeared, but for decades it was as good as nonexistent, inaccessible and overrun by decay.

E1027 was the first architectural work of the designer Eileen Gray, completed in 1929 when she was 51 years old. It was a pioneering and accomplished work of the modern movement in architecture, putting into practice ideas that were still new. More than that, it brought essential qualities into building that other modernists lacked. Gray talked of creating “a dwelling as a living organism” serving “the atmosphere required by inner life”. “The poverty of modern architecture,” she said, “stems from the atrophy of sensuality.” She criticised it for its obsession with hygiene: “Hygiene to bore you to death!”

E1027, which was built for Gray and her lover, Jean Badovici, grows from furniture into a building. She created a number of pieces of loose and built-in furniture for the house and installed others that she had previously designed, always with close attention to their interaction with the senses and the human body. She created a tea trolley with a cork surface, to reduce the rattling of cups, another trolley for taking a gramophone outside, and the E1027 table, whose height can be adjusted to suit different situations.

The house contained the Transat, a kind of exalted deckchair, and the Bibendum, which engulfs you in thick squishy tubes. She built a series of cupboards and storage units with minute consideration of such things as the way that the light falls on their contents, the integration of electrical fittings and radiators, the way that drawers might open on a corner, the arrangement of mirrors that would allow you to see the back of your head.

Such thinking expands into the building, with small windows located to allow a view when lying down, shutters allowing complex modulations of shadow and breeze, and the positioning of a fireplace next to large glass doors so that you can see firelight and natural light at once. A water tank, a humble functional thing, is placed so that it forms a shelter for an external dining area underneath. A rooftop glass enclosure for a spiral stair is a delicate work of steel and glass, also furniture-like.


The living room of E1027 with furniture and rugs designed by Eileen Gray – and, on the far wall, Le Corbusier’s mural. | Image source: theguardian.com



The organisation of the house as a whole is then based on her studies of wind and sun, and on its position on a steep slope descending to the sea. The building is mostly white outside, its interior modulated with planes of slight pink or eau-de-nil, or a nocturnal blue or black. These colours are maritime, but subtly so, such as you might see in deep water, inside a seashell or after sunset. There is an acute awareness of surfaces, both inside and out, and their degrees of shine or roughness. On the back wall of the main living space, playfulness being part of her armoury, she placed a large nautical chart. This, she said, “evokes distant voyages and gives rise to reverie”.

The basic form of the house is a simple cuboid, raised on pillars, but within that she created a series of layers that filter the progression from land side to sea side and from shadows to light. And although its boundaries seem quite definite at first sight, they are dissolved in places by networks of routes and steps that run through the landscape into the house and out again. The building is solid, but can be considered a series of screens placed over the landscape.

Gray, never keen on self-promotion, faded from view for the last decades of her long life. From the late 1960s, articles and small exhibitions started her rediscovery. In 1973, Zeev Aram, designer and founder of the Aram furniture store, approached her to ask if her furniture designs, which were originally made in small quantities, could be put into production. “In her very quiet voice,” he now recalls, “she kept asking, ‘Do you think it’s worthwhile to do?’” He convinced her and she worked with him on the pieces until her death aged 98 in 1976. They have not stopped being made and sold since.

The house, meanwhile, a fragile-looking thing, endured several forms of violence. Le Corbusier visited and, apparently outraged that a woman could have made such a significant work in a style he considered his own, assaulted it with a series of garish and ugly wall paintings, which he chose to execute completely naked. He would later build a retreat for himself nearby, and drowned in the sea next to E1027 in 1965.

One of his efforts was shot up by soldiers during the second world war. It was recreated by an artist called Jean Broniarski in 1978, but altered so as to bring out a swastika that he thought was latent in the drawing. A murder took place in E1027 in 1996.

Hi! I’m William B. Lauder, an Avant Garde architect based in New York City. Follow me on Twitter for more amazing stories about architecture.

REPOST: Latin American Design and Architecture Through the Years

Central and South American countries are seeing drastic advancements in their urban landscapes, thanks in part to an increasing number of local talents who are introducing new and innovative ways to represent Latin American cultures in various architectural projects. The following article discusses further how the region's architecture has been evolving for the past few decades.

Lina Bo Bardi in her Glass House in São Paulo, Brazil. | Image source: nytimes.com

THE well-worn phrase “Mi casa es tu casa” may be a perfect expression of Latin American warmth and hospitality, but it leaves some basic questions unanswered, especially if you are interested in architecture and design. What kind of house? And what is inside that house?

Three exhibitions, two already underway and a third, “Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980,” opening on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, aim to address those issues. Though organized separately and somewhat different in focus, they collectively provide a comprehensive picture of trends in Latin American architecture and design since World War II while suggesting a pattern of regionwide innovation that did not receive full recognition while it was occurring.

“The main verb here is ‘recalibrate,’ ” said Barry Bergdoll, the chief curator of the MoMA exhibition, which will run through July 19. In common with the other two shows, which focus more on design, its goal is to challenge orthodoxy and, he said, make “a big polemical point, showing Latin America as a center of experimentation and originality, with as many ideas going out as coming in.”


A Mexican rug, at the Americas Society. | Image source: nytimes.com


In one way or another, each of the shows refracts off a 1955 MoMA show that looked at the past decade of Latin American architecture. At the Americas Society, an exhibition of furniture, ceramics, glassware and other objects called “Moderno: Design for Living in Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela,” which runs through May 16, covers 1940 to 1978, while the Museum of Arts and Design focuses on the past 25 years in “New Territories: Laboratories for Design, Craft and Art in Latin America,” which closes on April 5.

Though the Museum of Arts and Design exhibition is organized around paired “urban hubs” that include Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires; and San Salvador and San Juan, Puerto Rico; developments in Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela dominate all three shows. The construction of Brasília in the late 1950s came to symbolize Latin America’s outsize ambitions and pioneering spirit, but the MoMA show emphasizes that the Mexican and Venezuelan governments also used their new wealth from industrialization and oil to stimulate the construction of housing, universities, hospitals, libraries and museums with local characteristics.

I am William B. Lauder, a New York-based architect and photography buff. Share with me your insights about the future of architecture on Twitter.

REPOST: Free Online Architecture and Design Courses

Want to learn more about architecture but do not have the resources to enroll in a university program? These online platforms, which are free MOOCs and accredited by well-known universities across the globe, are ideal for you, then:

Image source: archdaily.net

Thanks to the increasing popularity of massive open online courses — or MOOCs as they’re commonly referred to — learning has never been easier (or more convenient). Sites like Coursera and edX offer free classes online from accredited and well-known universities across the globe, including Harvard, MIT and the University of Hong Kong. While some classes are more structured and include a set lesson plan, homework assignments, quizzes and the option to receive a certificate at the end, others can be set at your own pace and approached more independently.

Following our wildly popular article on Four Ways to Learn About Architecture for Free, we’ve compiled a list of upcoming online classes related to architecture, engineering, urbanism and design. So whether you’re looking to embark on a new topic or dive deeper into an already familiar subject, take a look at these free online courses after the break.

Coursera: An online platform that partners with top universities and organizations across the globe, Coursera offers architecture and design courses in several different languages, including Chinese, Spanish and French. An optional Verified Certificate is available following completion of the class. Below are descriptions of some of the upcoming architecture and design classes.

Re-Enchanting the City-Designing the Human Habitat (April 2015- June 7th 2015): This eight-week course is taught by professors from the University of New South (UNSW) Australia. The class looks at the “interdisciplinary nature of city making,” seeking to answer the question: How do we make hyper-dense cities of the future green, livable and poetic? Specifically, the class looks at the development of Central Park in Sydney as a case study. The course materials include a series of interviews by lead academics and designers, interactive activities, and case studies.

L’art des structures 1 : Câbles et arcs (The art of structures 1: Cable and arcs) September 12, 2015- November 21, 2015: Taught in French (with English subtitles) by professors from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, this course looks at the design principles behind cables and arches. It will be followed by a course on lattice structures, beams and frames later in the year.

For Chinese speakers, the National University of Taiwan has a CAD /BIM Technology and Application Specialization program on Coursera, which includes several courses:

• CAD 3D computer graphics (June 1, 2015 – July 24, 2015)
• BIM project information management application (June 2015 – November 2015)
• CAD 2D computer graphics (June 2015 – July 29, 2015)

edX: Started as a non-profit initiative between Harvard and MIT, edX offers classes from top universities and institutions. Classes can be audited or taken to earn a Certificate of Achievement, and some courses are offered in Spanish and Chinese. Below are descriptions of two of the classes beginning this month.

The Search for Vernacular Architecture of Asia, Part 1 (starts March, 14): Offered through the University of Hong Kong, the five-week class seeks to explore vernacular architecture – “the subject and study of everyday buildings, landscapes and sites which are not designed by professional architects.” The class will look at native building materials as well as the relationship between vernacular architecture and culture and traditions across Asia. Part 2 will be offered during the summer.

Introduction to Metrics for Smart Cities (starts March, 23): Organized through IEE, a technological innovation professional organization, the class seeks to both understand what components make up a “Smart City” and how to use “metrics to measure its performance.” Although open to anyone, the class is recommend for students in their last year of urbanism, architecture or information technologies.

Other upcoming classes on edX include:

• Liderando el Desarrollo Sosentible de las Ciudades (Leading Sustainable Development in Cities) starts March 17, 2015
• Future Cities (Starts April, 1)
• Urban Water – Innovations for Environmental Sustainability ( starts May, 5)

Iversity: A European-based site, Iversity features classes from universities across Europe in both English and German. The site offers the option to audit the class for free or pay a fee to receive a certificate. Although only one architecture-related course is set to begin in the next couple of months, keep an eye out for future classes in the second half of the year as past classes have included Contemporary Architecture and Designing Resilient Schools.

Architecture 101 – Part III, From Space to Architecture (begins April 27, 2015): Although part of an ongoing three part introductory class, participation in the first two parts is not required. The class is taught by teachers from the Academia di Belle Arti Abadir and course materials include videos, reading and design assignments.

Canvas: Developed and supported by learning technology company Instructure, the site offers classes from professors around the world. Below is an upcoming design class being offered in March.

Biomimicry: A Sustainable Design Methodology (March 23, 2015 – April 20, 2015): This online class looks at how to effectively apply biological information to design, providing an introduction to the tools and principles of biomimicry. Taught by a professor from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the class will focus on a different biomimicry design concept each week, taking participants outside to explore the concept firsthand and to develop their own biomimetic design.

For classes from Open Online Education, Delft University of Technology OpenCourseWare and MIT OpenCourseWare, make sure you check out our previous article Four Ways to Learn About Architecture for Free.

I am William B. Lauder, a freelance architect based in New York City. Follow me on Twitter for more links to articles about architecture.