Steven Holl’s Horizontal Skyscraper Wins Coveted 2011 American Architecture Award!

It is not at all surprising that <a href="http://www.stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?id=60&amp;type">Steven Holl Architects</a> will receive the 2011 American Architecture Award for their groundbreaking Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen. When the design for <a href="http://inhabitat.com/steven-holls-horizontal-skyscraper/">Vankey's Platinum LEED certified Headquarters in China</a> was first unveiled, it created a collective "aha!" moment: of course it makes sense to flip a vertical tower on its side and prop it up on blocks so that life can still proliferate underneath it. Only, nobody had done it before. By suspending the tower on eight cores 50 meters apart using cable-stay technology usually reserved for bridges, the firm found a way to displace very little of the building site while still creating a generous amount of office space. More details about the Horizontal Skyscraper and images from Matthias Wolff are available after the jump.

As long as the Empire State Building is Tall, the Horizontal Skyscraper by Steven Holl will receive the American Architecture 2011 Award

The building is propped up on 8 cores spread 50m apart

And covered in green roofs

This ensures that most of the footprint displaced by the building is restored

It is LEED Platinum certified

And receives 12.5% of its energy from photovoltaic panels