EUROSCRAPER by José Muñoz Villers
by Jeremy, 06/16/07
Rem Koolhaas has been quoted saying that skyscrapers create “vertical organization and new territories.” And now, one young Mexican architect, José Muñoz Villers, has designed a building that embodies these sentiments. Muñoz Villers incorporates the latest technologies, materials, engineering, and a holistic view of urban space into his design. The building, named the Euroscraper, is such a forward-thinking design that it has garnered 3rd place in the eVolo Architecture Skyscraper competition.
Muñoz Villers says that “skyscrapers are the types of structures that can, in an exciting manner, consolidate and condense the great advances in technology and respond to the new social and spatial necessities that the city contains.” One of these needs is a heightened awareness of environmental sustainability. The building’s looping form reduces its resistance to wind, increases natural light and ventilation, and contributes to the green lung of the city by incorporating gardens into the scheme of the project.
The Euroscraper was conceived to be located in the Parisian office district of Porte Maillot and would complement the Arc du Triumph and La Défense. The concept and look of the building are inspired by Isamu Noguchi’s quest “to capture the void.” To do this, the Euroscraper is designed as a loop, generating a “growth upward of earth-generated forces.” The building would have public spaces and infrastructure at its base and offices, a sky lobby, residential space leading upwards to more public spaces and urban attractors at its crown. The intention of the structure is to “‘join seamlessly the center and intermediate zone” of Paris and “to be plugged into the tissue while redirecting all the kinetic conditions upwards uninterruptedly.”
+ Euroscraper
I get the feeling this is a bit like the nifty concept cars we never see hit production.