TRANSMOGRIFIER
PROJECT STATUS:
UNBUILT
LOCATION:
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
TYPOLOGY:
MIX - USE
YEAR:
2015
Living in a modern city centre (particularly South Asian context) is always been assigned with the negative connotation of being be hectic, normally being portrayed as a fast-pace, unhealthy and congested lifestyle. A city is where the most concentrated of architecture, public and infrastructures come and meet, if not collide. What can architecture do to resolve this situation and instilling the potential of creating a healthy, inspiring and self-sustaining community within the busiest part of the city?
It is a challenge of looking into ways in designing a skyscraper that become an enrichment rather than just an addition, or a beacon itself that regulates the heartbeat of a city in stimulating a healthy and positive living. As such, several spaces that would help to untangle the critical knot of hectic city lifestyle are weaved together forming a new urban architectural billboard, and becoming the key of averting further psychological downfall of a city.
The tower massing is divided into 5 individual cubes rotated at all different angles and directions, each containing a program – a market that delivers fresh food to the community, a farm and plantation that supplies the market, a jungle trail that provides an escape to the urbanite, and a rain box that sets to amaze and refresh the surrounding, while cooling down the spaces below. These cubes are connect to one another by 3 huge elevator cores and a number of pillars that run vertically throughout the whole height, “floating” the cubes in the middle of the sky like a miracle. With façade that is only seen as a clear grid black lattices with pattern of textile membranes, aluminium panels, glass and voids, it creates a clean but intriguing visual experience for everyone around. The high level of permeability and airiness resulted from the interplay of opening, semi and solid allows the internal activities to effortlessly flow out and invite the participations of public - physically, psychological and visually. The presence of sculptural aesthetic is accentuated, to the extent that it is seen as an art installation rather than a permanent building itself.
Instead of structures and shells enveloping human activities, the backbone theory is to reduce the opacity of the building elements by making them as lightweight as possible, so that human activities are visible to the exterior. As such, for a city that has already been saturated with oversized and densely packed skyscrapers, it is a prevention of human being engulfed by architecture, but instead gives life to it. This paradigm shift aims to put emphasize on human scale rather than machine scale to loosen up the over-pressured city lifestyle.
