The design of the SOHO Shangdu project, which will span an entire block just west of the new CCTV complex, will reflect the chaos and orders that governs our natural world, says its architect.
The architect
Australian architect Peter Davidson taught at London s Architectural Association before confounding the Melbourne-based Lab Architecture studio in 1994. However, it was not until this year that the practice edged into the limelight with their bold design for Melbourne s Federation Square, a building tat employs concepts and images from fractal geometry and complexity theory. The project was later named as the Property Council of Australia s best public building in the state of Victoria.
The specs
The SOHO Shangdu complex will resemble a massive, inverted Pi symbol, with twin towers connected by a block-long horizontal base and a crystalline fa?ade that will glow by night. The 170,000-suqare-metre development will feature one high-rise for living and studio space, one for commercial space, and a connecting galleria that will act as a stage for everything from fashion shows to concerts. The building is due to be completed in 2007.
Design history
Shangdu s designer says that since the fall of the Tower of Babel, architects across the planet have been trying to find a common language as they repeat the attempt to build into the heavens. Our common language is revealed to have been geometry, says Davidson, Scientists and architects are now searching beyond the parameters of ideal geometry to understand the inscrutable mix of chaos and order that governs our natural world, he adds. SOHO Shangdu s faceted fa?ade will mirror not only the geometry of crystals, but also ideas from the new science of complexity, which is being explored to explain phenomena as varied as the formation and movement of clouds [to] how stars form into galaxies, and how just a few sequences of DNA can account for so many different life forms, Davison says.
