A novel concept for a sort of leaning skyscraper has won this year's DawnTown design competition, which asked entrants to dream up iconic landmarks for the city of Miami.
Making Pisa's famous leaning tower look positively staid by comparison, Studio Dror's winning Miami Lift concept (pictured above) would seem to defy physics, sweeping outwards and upwards over Biscayne Bay. The mixed-used concept is primed mainly for cultural pursuits, with exhibition space accounting for more than a third of the floor area, and retail limited to one tenth. The main draws, apparently, would be the views of both the city and the ocean from the top floor viewing deck and balconies on the city side.
The equally novel Lemonade Square designed by Remed took second place. Also vying for a place along Miami's shoreline, the concept is a 57,600-sq ft (5,400-sq m) elevated yellow platform with a huge paddling pool on top, and shaded, stepped boardwalk below. There.
Had height been the sole criterion, Torre De Las Américas would almost certainly have been the winning design. As it is, designers Mauricio Gonzalez and Alfredo Andia will have to settle for third place. Described as a "spatial deluge," a "vertical flood," and, perhaps most informatively, a "hiking museum," Torre De Las Américas would (presumably) see visitors climb up its variously-angled platforms. That it also appears to ensnare meteorites is merely a bonus.
Great Spirit Woods by Frolík & Kolář and VIZarch.cz received an honorable mention. Though it may look uncannily like Superman's Fortress of Solitude, the concept is actually a gigantic water dispersal system, ejecting droplets from its many columns to create a cooling mist along the waterfront. As if that wasn't remarkable enough, it's also a lighthouse, apparently.
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Source: DawnTown, via Arch Daily
