Towers and skyscrapers are iconic structures that play a massive role in defining their city’s skyline. These structures are often achieved by parametric design tools that enable the execution of complex, visionary projects and design ideas. Parametric design in towers not only facilitates the creation of striking forms but also aids in crafting more sustainable and energy-efficient buildings.
Let’s explore some parametric towers and their intricate design.
MahaNakhon
Architects: Büro Ole Scheeren
Location: Khet Sathon, Thailand
Year: 2018
MahaNakon, which translates into the “great metropolis,” represents an example of architecture’s potential to interact and engage with its surroundings, creating urban and social spaces promoting public interaction and a prosperous environment.
It engages with Bankok’s rich urban fabric and dynamism by breaking away from the conventional monolithic tower design, instead integrating pixelated, carved forms, including terraces, stacked surfaces, balconies, and floating rooms, that connect with the surroundings, creating a sense of openness and interaction while revealing the building’s inner.
MahaNakhon intricately connects with Bangkok through a variety of urban elements.
The development includes MahaNakhon Square, a public outdoor plaza that serves as a new destination for the city, promoting cultural and social interaction and a retreat and escape from Bangkok’s busy rhythm; MahaNakhon Terraces, a 10,000-square-meter retail space with lush gardens and terraces for dining and a 24-hour marketplace; The Ritz-Carlton Residences, featuring 200 customized homes with penthouse-like atmospheres and managed amenities; and The Bangkok Edition, a boutique hotel with 150 rooms, developed in collaboration with Marriott and Ian Schrager.
The podium, known as The Hill, dissolves the typical tower-podium design, blending the skyscraper with the urban fabric through cascading terraces that evoke a mountain landscape.
Meanwhile, The Cube, a separate 7-story building, features indoor and outdoor terraces that complement The Hill and connect the development to the city via a pedestrian link to the CBD (Central Business District) Skytrain station.
One Thousand Museum
Architects: Zaha Hadid Architects
Location: Miami, United States
Year: 2020
One Thousand Museum in Miami is a striking example of futuristic architecture and engineering innovation. Its most distinctive feature is the iconic exoskeleton, a web of curvilinear supports that wrap around the exterior, enhancing the building’s aesthetic appeal and serving as a structural marvel. This unique design blends fluid, sculptural forms with functional stability, addressing the city’s climatic challenges, especially Miami’s heavy wind loads. While the project is called One Thousand Museums, the building serves as a residential tower,and its architecture makes it stand out amidst the more rigid surrounding towers.
Engineered with high-strength concrete and advanced parametric design, the exoskeleton not only offers a dramatic appearance but also ensures the building’s resilience. The structureis extruded as a sturdy tube designed to withstand Miami’s intense wind loads, supported by curved elements that create hurricane-resistant diagonal bracing.
The skyscraper redefines luxury living with expansive floor plans, panoramic views of Miami and Biscayne Bay, and high-end amenities. One Thousand Museum also incorporates smart systems for energy efficiency, including climate control and lighting solutions, while its design maximizes natural light, reducing energy use.
30 St Mary Axe Tower
Architects: Foster + Partners
Location: London, United Kingdom
Year: 2003
The 30 St Mary Axe Tower, also known as the Gherkin and London’s first environmental tower, is a tower with a unique, smooth, rocket-like appearance. The tower’s aerodynamic shape is not just an architectural feature but also an advanced environmental strategy designed to enhance natural lighting and ventilation, remarkably reducing the building’s overall energy consumption.
The sustainability approach in the Gherkin helps it use half the energy of a typical air-conditioned office tower or building. This is done through spiraling light-wells, which naturally ventilate the interiors by channeling fresh air through them. These light-wells also maximize natural daylight, minimize artificial lighting, and offer expansive views from deep inside. Office areas feature double-glazed outer layers and a single-glazed inner screen, creating ventilated cavities with solar-control blinds, which help regulate temperature.
The exterior is defined by progressive curves, developed using parametric computer modeling, with a shape reminiscent of natural forms like the spiral of a pinecone, which responds to weather changes. This smooth design not only enhances airflow around the building but also reduces wind at the plaza level, improving pedestrian comfort.
The diagonal steel structure, using a triangulated geometry, ensures strength and lightness while allowing for flexible, column-free interiors. The façade comprises 5,500 triangular and diamond-shaped glass panels, varying by level.
The Gherkin reflects the integration of environmental considerations, biomimicry, and architectural and spatial innovation, seamlessly achieved through parametric design and parametric tools.
Absolute Tower
Architects: MAD Architects
Location: Mississauga, Canada
Year: 2012
The Absolute Towers break away from conventional rectilinear skyscraper designs with their dynamic, twisting form, driven by organic design principles, emotional resonance, and contextual response. MAD Architects sought to move away from the conventional boxy skyscrapers by creating a fluid, natural shape that evokes movement and life inspired by the curves found in nature. In Mississauga, the towers were conceived as landmarks to redefine the city’s skyline and offer a distinctive architectural identity. The Towers are even dubbed the Marilyn Monroe Towers by locals, reflecting their uniqueness in shaping the city’s silhouette.
Each floor plate rotates 1-8 degrees, creating an organic, fluid silhouette reminiscent of natural shapes and offering residents unique, panoramic skyline views from every level. These varying angles for each floor were carefully studied to maximize the balconies’ viewing angles. The towers’ signature continuous balconies wrap around each floor, enhancing the buildings’ appearance while fostering community interaction and providing natural shading to reduce energy costs.
Beyond aesthetics, the aerodynamic design efficiently handles wind loads, ensuring balcony comfort. Structurally, the towers are supported by simple concrete bearing walls that expand and contract to accommodate the rotation, while cantilevered slabs form the balconies. These innovative elements make the Absolute Towers a bold reinterpretation of urban high-rise living.
Valley Towers
Architects: MVRDV
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Year: 2022
Valley Towers, designed by MVRDV in Amsterdam’s Zuidas district, is a bold architectural project that seamlessly blends nature, technology, and sustainability. The complex comprises three towers, standing 67, 81, and 100 meters tall, linked by a terraced platform resembling a natural valley.
Its distinctive design features cantilevered apartments and irregular facades, evoking geological formations, with a mirrored glass exterior reflecting the corporate surroundings, while the rugged stone interior, adorned with 13,500 plants, shrubs, and trees by landscape architect Piet Oudolf, fosters a sense of greenery and biodiversity.
Sustainability is at the heart of Valley Towers, with the building surpassing energy regulations by 30%, earning BREEAM-NL Excellent certification, and incorporating extensive greenery, an automated irrigation system, and public spaces focusing on living, entertainment, and work life to promote community engagement.
Advanced parametric design software, developed in collaboration with Arup, optimized the tower’s layout, ensuring ample daylight, structural integrity, and unique apartment designs, each with a different floor plan. This method enabled real-time modifications throughout the design process, ensuring that each unit had sufficient natural light while preserving a visually appealing, intentional irregularity in the façade’s design, composed of almost 10 different angles that work together like a puzzle, along with the natural stone cladding.
The building’s innovative cantilevered structure and sustainable features make Valley Towers a striking example of modern architecture’s harmony with nature and technology.
Beyond aesthetics, the aerodynamic design efficiently handles wind loads, ensuring balcony comfort. Structurally, the towers are supported by simple concrete bearing walls that expand and contract to accommodate the rotation, while cantilevered slabs form the balconies. These innovative elements make the Absolute Towers a bold reinterpretation of urban high-rise living.
Morpheus Hotel
Architects: Zaha Hadid Architects
Location: Cotai, Macao (SAR)
Year: 2018
The Morpheus Hotel is a groundbreaking architectural achievement that redefines high-rise design. As the world’s first free-form high-rise exoskeleton, its structural innovation eliminates the need for internal walls or columns, creating expansive, uninterrupted spaces that enhance the guest experience.
Drawing inspiration from traditional Chinese jade carving, the building features a fluid, sculptural form with a striking figure-eight exterior, symbolizing good fortune in Chinese culture. Its rectangular footprint rises vertically, with dramatic voids carved through the structure, allowing natural light to flood the interior and creating “urban windows” that connect the hotel with the city. A soaring atrium runs the full height of the building, interspersed with bridges that house restaurants and lounges, fostering a sense of openness and social interaction.
Parametric design software was critical in shaping Morpheus, integrating complex aesthetic and structural requirements to optimize form and function. The exoskeleton, which varies in density across different levels, ensures structural integrity and creates a visually arresting appearance.
Its column-free interiors provide flexible spaces that enhance guest comfort, while its connection to the City of Dreams Resort strengthens its role as an integral part of the urban landscape. By incorporating public spaces such as restaurants, lounges, and event venues, the hotel serves as a social hub for guests and locals. Morpheus pushes the boundaries of design, blending advanced engineering with artistic vision, and sets new standards for high-rise architecture globally. With sustainable features like high-performance glazing and localized air conditioning, it exemplifies a commitment to eco-conscious design without sacrificing aesthetic appeal.
IQON
Architects: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
Location: Quito, Ecuador
Year: 2022
IQON is a tower with a remarkable silhouette in the Amsterdam skyline. Characterized by its 32-floor high twisting form, its building units or “pixels” are stacked in a rotating manner, forming vistas towards La Carolina Park, the city, and over the Pichincha volcano. This stacking process resulted in terraces that blur the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces by accommodating greenery that integrates nature into the building’s vertical form. The integration of greenery in its design was also a response to Ecuador’s unique climate and biodiversity, making the tower appear like a vertical garden rather than a conventional skyscraper. Its form actively engages with Quito’s topography and urban landscape, primarily since it was envisioned as an extension of La Carolina Park.
The building was also designed as an urban tree farm where vegetation on the terraces can be replanted in the city’s parks, ensuring its contribution to a sustainable green cycle. The building also offers public spaces at its base, integrating the vibrant park with the surrounding neighborhood through its plaza and public functions, including retail and art spaces.
“We’ve tried to take all the iconic qualities of Quito – such as the enjoyment of living in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, in a city on the equator where the seasons are perfect for both human and plant life – and bring that experience into the vertical dimension. IQON is an entire vertical community of individual homes; an extension of La Carolina Park that now climbs all the way up to the rooftop,” says Bjarke Ingels, founder and Creative Director of BIG.
The Canton Tower
Architects: Information-Based Architecture
Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Year: 2010
The Canton Tower is the world’s tallest TV and Sightseeing tower, the tallest building in China, and the third tallest tower in the world, with a height of 600 meters (1969 feet), including its antenna. Designed for an international competition, it took years to complete the tower and ensure the quality delivery of each stage, including safety and structural stability, foundation construction, and steel structure construction.
The tower is an exciting contribution to Guangzhou’s progressive, dynamic nature. The architects envisioned it as a more feminine tower, appearing curvy, gracious, and slender, compared to other more masculine, straight, and rigid skyscrapers. The architects accomplished their feminine tower vision, resulting in its “super-model” nickname.
Advanced fabrication techniques and computerized analysis played a crucial role in creating the intricate structure and design of the Canton Tower. The tower’s form, volume, and structure are generated by two rotated ellipses, one at the base and the other at a horizontal plane 450 meters high. This rotation creates a tightened “waist” effect, resulting in a denser concentration of materials. The structure is composed of an open lattice framework made up of 1,100 unique nodes and the same number of connecting ring and bracing components, forming a complex 3D puzzle with 3,300 unique pieces.
Shanghai Tower
Architects: Gensler
Location: Shanghai, China
Year: 2015
Located in the heart of Shanghai’s Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, adjacent to the Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center, the 632-meter Shanghai Tower is China’s tallest building. Its striking, transparent spiral form not only defines the city’s skyline but also integrates cutting-edge sustainability features and public spaces, setting new benchmarks for green architecture.
The Shanghai Tower exemplifies vertical urbanism through its innovative sky gardens. It creates stacked gathering spaces incorporating public amenities like shops, restaurants, and communal areas at various atrium levels. It offers a new experience for living and working in a super-tall structure.
A range of software was utilized to refine the curtain wall’s unique geometry and finalize the design, incorporating parametric flexibility in the analysis. Early tools included Revit and Generative Components, but later studies of the exterior wall were carried out primarily using Rhino with Grasshopper’s parametric capabilities alongside 3D Max and AutoCAD. This combination enabled a precise survey of various exterior wall options and their integration with the building’s form.
The tower spans 127 stories and includes Class A office space, entertainment venues, retail, a conference center, luxury hotel accommodations, and cultural amenities. Recognized for its sustainable design, Shanghai Tower has earned both China Green Building Three Star certification and LEED® Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Capital Gate
Architects: RMJM Architects
Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Year: 2011
Capital Gate, a 165-meter skyscraper in Abu Dhabi designed by RMJM, holds the Guinness World Record for the farthest manmade lean at 18 degrees. Inspired by the surrounding desert and nearby sea waves, the building features 35 floors—offices occupy the first 18 levels, while the upper floors house the Andaz Hotel. Each floor’s unique layout adds to the inclined tower’s architectural appeal.
To achieve its dramatic lean, engineers implemented innovative structural solutions, which would have been impossible without utilizing BIM and parametric software. The foundation is divided into two sections: 20-meter piles on the leaning side to handle compression and 30-meter piles on the opposite side to counteract tension and prevent overturning. These piles support a raft foundation that stabilizes the entire building.
The core structure was pre-cambered, meaning it was initially tilted in the opposite direction to the lean. As floors were added, vertical post-tensioning helped the core gradually straighten, preventing excessive bending and structural failure. A combination of internal and external diagrid systems and interconnecting girders transfers loads to the core and reduces the need for columns, ensuring the tower’s stability.
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