At a time when earthquakes dominate the headlines, we think it’s more important than ever to highlight architecture that keeps potential quakes in mind. So it goes with OFIS Architecture‘s All-Seasons Tent Tower, a concept project that features two solar powered, cylindrical towers filled with restaurants, apartments, shops, a business center, spa, pool, bar and garage.
OFIS’s Tent Tower is ultra energy-efficient. The towers’ external facades are covered in a mesh skin outfitted with a shading device to keep sun out in the summer, while a concrete slab-embedded pipe system provides cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Solar cells are embedded into the atrium’s roof for year-round power production. During the summer, the mesh facade is covered in greenery planted on the tower terraces.
The most important part of the Tent Tower, which is an entrant in the Mercedes Benz hotel tower competition for Yerevan, Armenia, it its resistance to earthquakes. The structure resists quake shaking using a system of concrete cores and composite columns that supposedly ensure structural stability. Regardless of whether the Tent Tower is actually earthquake resistant, we have to give kudos to OFIS for taking Armenia’ quake risks seriously. Because as we’ve seen, that can be the difference between life and death.
Via designboom
Structure? I’m working on a similar project for a competition in Los Angeles. By problem with the voronoi diagram is when it is brought vertical the loads radically change the shape of the voids. Also kind of a shame that the interior doesn’t mimic the pattern on the exterior, how can the design of the skin carry over to the spatial planning and what not? I’m really just being nit picky, great project!
Really good project, beautiful too