VAULT REINVENTION HIGH-RISE

Multi-functional Exhibition High-Rise

 

Manhattan is a paradise of skyscrapers, which not only decorate the city’s skyline but also provide more usable space for people living there. This design scheme starts from a most basic architectural component, an arch that undergoes transformations through the changes of light, human behavior, and other factors to form different spaces/units, which overlap one another vertically to form the final design.

 

Arch and hidden transportation
In both, Middle Ages cathedrals in Europe and ancient pagodas in China, we found that double-layer arches could create a mezzanine, which we cunningly combined with vertical transportation, which works exceptionally well to service spaces. This hidden space inspire us to invent a new relationship between arch and transportation.

 

Arch and spatial transparency
Either in a Gothic cathedral or a Chinese Buddhist pagoda, lighting is altered by the height and span of arches. In this project, we re-consolidate the acknowledged form of the arch and tend to reinvent a new arch system that is defined by direction, dimension, and memorial distortion. The vault shape has been extracted from the most primitive and fundamental architecture elements as the prototype, reshaped and made into rich vertical exhibition experience. The familiar classical component has been changed and reproducing the desired meaning and special experience in the new environment. Different layouts between the vault and high rise create a new unfamiliar continuity in this project.