Tall Buildings with Unique Shapes

Joshua Sayson Casio
Aug 20, 2024
6 min read

Beyoncé-inspired skyscraper to be built in Melbourne

Australian firm Elenberg Fraser has won planning approval for a 226-metre-high Melbourne skyscraper that will feature a curvaceous form taken from a music video by Beyoncé.

The new Premiere Tower at 134 Spencer Street will boast a series of curves and bulges designed to make it as structurally efficient as possible, but that also reference one of Beyoncé's music videos.

The shape is an homage to the undulating fabric-wrapped bodies of dancers in the singer's music video for Ghost – a song from her self-titled 2013 album, which was originally published as one half of track called Haunted but released as a stand-alone music video.

Snapshots from Beyonce music video “Ghost”

The 68-storey structure, which was approved by planning officials in May, will be located at the west end of the city's central business district. It will contain 660 apartments, as well as a 160-room hotel.

Parametric modelling – a type of computer-aided design that allows complex shapes to be created in response to data constraints – was used to develop the unique form, which will swell in and out at various points around the facade.

According to Elenberg Fraser, the shape of the Premiere Tower also responds to climate, wind and the particular limitations of the site.

"This project is the culmination of our significant research," said the firm. "The complex form – a vertical cantilever – is actually the most effective way to redistribute the building's mass, giving the best results in terms of structural dispersion, frequency oscillation and wind requirements."

It follows in the footsteps of MAD's hourglass-shaped skyscrapers in Mississauga, Canada, which were dubbed the "Marilyn Monroe towers" by local residents.

The project is backed by Fragrance Group, the property development arm of Singapore real estate tycoon Koh Wee Meng. Public house the Savoy Tavern, which reopened in 2014 after laying derelict for nearly 20 years, will now be demolished to make way for the tower.

The aim is to eventually replan the entire precinct, whilst also respecting its heritage buildings. "The whole precinct is designed with a more long-term view to urban design, creating a self-sustaining development," added the architects.

Project credits:

Client: Fragrance Group

Council: Melbourne City Council

Project manager: PDS Group

Town planner: Urbis

Building surveyor: PLP Building Surveyors and Consultants

Civil engineer: WSP Structures

Fire engineer: Omnii

Land surveyor: Reeds Consulting

Quantity surveyor: WT Partnership

Services engineer: Murchie Consulting

Acoustic engineer: Vipac

Landscape architect: Oculus consultants

Heritage consultant: Trethowan

Waste consultant: Leigh Design

ESD consultant: Ark Resources

Wind engineer: MEL Consultants

Traffic engineer: Cardno Limited

Structural engineer: WSP Structures

Fire services engineer: Murchie Consulting

Geotechnical engineer: Golders Associates

Facade engineer: Inhabit

Facade access consultant: Altitude

Overshadowing consultant: Orbit Solution

Aviation consultant: Thompson GCS

Al Tijaria Tower

The form of Al Tijaria Tower (also known as the Kuwait Trade Center) is inspired by a spiral or helix. The body of the tower “twists” by 80 degrees as it climbs from the ground level to the top-most occupied floor. The tower plate is organized with a circular-shaped core located in the center of the floor. A concentric ring of structural columns allows for variation in slab edge location while keeping columns vertically aligned from floor to floor. This slab edge adjustment creates a twisted exterior massing for the tower. The tower features internal, vertically stacked, six-story-high atrium gardens rising through the height of the tower. The stacked atrium gardens spin around the center of the plate, creating a dynamic twisted space rising through the tower.

The exterior cladding design of the tower is a smooth aluminum and glass unitized curtain wall system. Materials include insulated, blue-tinted vision and spandrel glass with selected use of silver aluminum panels. Glazing the atrium is insulated “clear” low-E glass (with custom ceramic frit pattern to control solar heat gain) supported by a stainless-steel point-fixation system. Contrasting the tower, the podium is clad in a combination of natural stone and pre-cast concrete.

The Tower is composed of a five-story podium shopping mall, with an open-to-sky garden terrace on the podium roof, and an office tower rising above. The structural system of the shopping mall is a waffle slab with columns located on a 9m x 9m (29.5ft x 29.5ft) grid. Office floors are reinforced concrete slabs supported on structural steel beams. The floor plates rotate 2.0 degrees clockwise as they rise. Horizontal stability was provided using a number of strong core walls together with a 21m (69ft) diameter core wall in the tower area. The twelve equally spaced tower columns are reinforced concrete, or composite with steel built up sections.

Guangzhou Twin Towers

Guangzhou Twin Towers are a pair of skyscrapers in Guangzhou, China, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and Wilkinson Eyre respectively. They are situated in Zhujiang New Town, the city's central business district, in Tianhe District.

The 432-metre West Tower located in Guangzhou's Zhu Jiang New Town was topped off at the end of 2008. As the city's new landmark, the East Tower, "sister tower" of the West Tower, is set to be at a height of 488 metres, with quadrate shape, while the West Tower is in a round shape.

The institutional framework of the traditional skyscraper is fixed; they are nothing but simple linear structure and regular duplicating or superposing. As the height record for the building is instantly replaceable, its significance wanes with more of higher buildings rising up. Therefore creating space, realizing high-level complexity and expressing the relations of modern city become indispensable. New Guangzhou twin towers will not turn out to be an office machine, instead, it will become a living mixture. The commerce, service, amusement space are improved and linked to offices and hotels in the sky form a three-dimensional urban condition, incorporating metropolitan life into the tower itself.

Cobra Tower

This huge tower is supposed to be a construction project in Kuwait. Some say it is a hoax.

The Kuwait Cobra Tower or Burj Cobra is a concept generated by a CGI firm (CDI Gulf International). The tower is supposed to rotate to give a cool spiral effect. There are questions like “How will the elevator work?” so and so forth. Expert says they will use air pressured tubes instead. That’s what new-age design is supposed to do, blend creativity with utility.

The news that this was an actual project to be started in 2008 near gulf street remains dormant, without concrete follow ups!

This marvelous looking building that exist as a futuristic design idea and is just like other equally great looking building that is out there as concept and is not to be mistaken for a real one. It's not, and is actually not much more than a computer generated concept at the moment, without any plans to actually go for a detailed design, let alone construction.

But when completed, Cobra tower would make a fascinating building!

Crescent Moon Tower

Dubai has accustomed us to fantasy construction developments to say the least. This moon shaped building, which literally cuts across the skyline with its beautiful form certainly succeeds in exceeding our high expectations.

The tallest skyscraper in the world Burj Khalifa, and the huge shopping center Dubai Mall are respectively found in Dubai. The Crescent Moon Tower is the latest gem to add to Dubai’s collection of cutting-edge construction challenges, which via Transparence House will be presented in the 11th edition of ThyssenKrupp Elevator Architecture Award.

The Crescent Moon Tower is to represent a moon shape covering 33 floors. It is expected to be constructed in Za’abeel Park, a park north east of Dubai World Trade Centre, not far from the desert.

The project, which is awaiting approval, has two main important objectives. Firstly, it wishes to underline Dubai’s association with the Islamic world. Secondly, it is determined to demonstrate the level of technological and economic development reached by this Arab emirate, the most populated of the seven United Arab Emirates. Dubai is in fact one of the most actively committed places in the world in investing in technology and architecture.

This extraordinary skyscraper should be complete in around five years’ time, and it is to house luxury Dubai properties, a children’s library, a restaurant, a conference room, bars, and in the upper part of the structure an outdoor platform is to be created. The Crescent Moon Tower is to be a multifunctional building, for both tourists and locals, a place to attract scientific, recreational and cultural activities.