Cloud Architecture Office
Clouds Architecture Office has unveiled plans for a futuristic skyscraper dubbed the "Analemma Tower." The building would hover majestically above the ground because it would be attached -- wait for it -- to an actual asteroid, in space, that is forcibly put into orbit around the earth.
courtesy Santiago Calatrava
How different Chicago's skyline would have looked if Calatrava's 2005 design had been built. One thousand four hundred and fifty eight feet (444 meters) of slender twisted steel and glass, the Chicago Spire would have knocked the Willis Tower (formely the Sears Tower) down a peg, trumping it by a whole two meters and a whole lot of style.
"courtesy Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation/Christopher Furlong/Getty/Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture/Kohn Petersen Fox
Wright's design (left) was ambitious: a mile-high skyscraper in 1956 was no mean feat. It would have been four times higher than the world's tallest build at the time, and just under twice the height of the world record holder today.
courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France
Spheres were integral to the work of mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, in life and, at one time, in death. The great scientist worked out the force holding us to the big sphere beneath our feet, and French architect Etienne-Louis Boullee thought it would be a fitting shape to remember him by. In 1784 he drew up plans for a grand, 500 foot (150 m) cenotaph -- eight meters taller than Strasbourg Cathedral, the highest building at the time.
courtesy Tchoban Foundation
Boris Iofan's colossal design for the Palace of the Soviets has become one of the finest examples of an architectural moonshot that fell to earth. The imposing design was the winning entry of an international competition in 1931 for a new administrative and congress hall in Moscow, Russia.
Courtesy Kent Fine Art/The Estate of Paul Laffoley
The late Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi's project -- the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona could be finished by 2030 -- but the one that got away was the Hotel Attraction in New York. The futurist building designed in 1908 would have been 1,246 feet (380 meters) tall, around the same size as the Empire State Building, featuring a 400 foot (121 meter) high chamber in honor of past U.S. presidents. Details surrounding the proposed building are vague -- little was known about the project until 1956 -- but it is believed that Gaudi presented the plans in person in New York.
The Library of Congress
The Coney Island Globe Tower, seen at the rear of this New York Tribune cover, was the ambitious megastructure dreamed up by Samuel Friede. Proposed in May 1906, it was to include a 700 foot (213 meter) sphere with multiple floors, containing everything from restaurants to garden to a bowling alley -- not to mention the world's largest ballroom and a theme park. All in all, it would have fitted 50,000 people and operate 24 hours a day.
Virtual Artworks/All Design
It was supposed to be the centerpiece of Liverpool, England's redevelopment as European Capital of Culture in 2008. As it stands, all that remains of the Fourth Grace (also known as The Cloud) are these beautiful renderings. The concept, which was once described as a "diamond knuckleduster" by The Guardian, won an architectural competition in 2002 for a fourth building to sit alongside Liverpool's Three Graces - the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool building.
courtesy Foster + Partners
Three miles from Red Square, a very different type of monument was supposed to have been erected. One thousand nine hundred and sixty eight feet (600 meters) high with room for 25,000 people, Russia Tower was closer to a vertical city -- over 600 feet higher than its nearest rival in Europe. It was also to be one of the most eco-friendly skyscrapers in the world: the largest to be naturally ventilated, with three 'arms' tapering towards the summit and a 'green' spine; triple-glazed to reduce heat loss and photovoltaics supplying energy demands and feeding back into the grid when in surplus.
courtesy Woods Bagot
Nakheel Harbour and Tower in Dubai failed to fly when, six years after being proposed, it was canceled in December 2009. The 3,280 feet (one kilometer) high tower was first mooted as the centerpiece of Palm Jumeirah, the vast man-made archipelago in the Persian Gulf, although it was later re-located closer to the Dubai Marina. The design for the mixed-use complex drew on Islamic monuments of the past according to the architects, invoking the Harbor of Alexandria, the bridges of Isafahan, the gardens of Alhambra and the promenade of Tangier -- but like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the plan, estimated to cost $38 billion, came crumbling down.
courtesy Private Collection/Tchoban Foundation
Little is known about Poor and Illava's concept for a Second World War memorial -- Nadja Bartels, director of the Tchoban Foundation admits as much. The Foundation, which exhibited this concept drawing by Hugh Ferriss at its show "American Perspectives" in 2015, speculated that it could have been envisioned for Central Park, New York, Bartels arguing the monolithic design invokes Boullee's concept for Newton's Cenotaph. Sketched by Ferriss, a trained architect who moved into drawing buildings rather than designing them, the monument would have been the second of Illava's in Central Park -- his memorial to the 107th Infantry was completed in 1927.

Story highlights

Analemma Tower would be suspended from an Earth-orbiting asteroid

Residents and visitors would be able to catch amazing worldwide views while traveling nearly 300mph.

CNN  — 

Feeling too fancy for normal earth-bound existence? A new skyscraper concept would elevate your living situation – literally.

Clouds Architecture Office has unveiled plans for a futuristic skyscraper dubbed the “Analemma Tower.” The building would hover majestically above the ground because it would be attached – wait for it – to an actual asteroid, in space, that is forcibly put into orbit around the Earth.

If that’s not enough to digest, consider that your exact address in this pendulous pad could be anywhere on Earth.

The tower will be suspended via high-strength cabling from an asteroid and placed in “eccentric geosynchronous orbit”. In other words, it would be always moving – residents and visitors would take a daily journey between the northern and southern hemispheres with a prolonged visit over a main “home” point like New York City or Dubai (it’s always New York City or Dubai, isn’t it?)

Advances in space tech could make the vision a reality

Clouds Architecture Office
Rendering of Analemma passing above buildings in midtown Manhattan

In 2015 the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Mission successfully landed on the surface of the comet Churyumov-Geraismenko showing that it is possible to interact with such smaller bodies in space. NASA’s “Asteroid Redirect Mission” is scheduled to send a robot to collect a boulder off an asteroid and then place that boulder into a stable orbit around the moon.

In like fashion, CAO plans to use an asteroid harnessed with high strength cabling reaching towards earth to hold the skyscraper along its journey.

Analemma Tower’s designer Ostap Rudakevych told CNN that the tower could be made of durable and lightweight materials such as carbon fiber and aluminum.

Clouds Architecture Office
An asteroid is relocated into a geosynchronous orbit and affixed with supporting cables to hold the tower below

Advances in cable engineering would be needed to achieve the cable strength required to support the structure. Power would come from space based solar panels that have a constant exposure to sunlight.

Water for the tower will be captured from clouds and rainwater and maintained in a semi-closed loop system.

As proposed the top of the tower sits at 32,000m and would be expected to reach speeds of 300mph as it travels through the sky.

How you would hang out

The design leaves some pretty important questions to be answered, like, “What do I do if I want to also have a life on the ground?” “Won’t my family and friends miss me because they will only have a finite window each day in which to see me, and even then, I will be floating above the earth, unable to make contact?”

Clouds Architecture Office
The upper reaches of Analemma would extend beyond the troposphere

If you have to ask these questions then, we hate to say it, you are probably not ready to live in a huge mobile asteroid tower, but the designers have your back nonetheless.

via lakhta center press center
According to The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a building is structurally "topped-off" when it is under construction, and "the highest primary structural element is in place."

Muscling into the top five is this ice-like shard appropriately located in subarctic St Petersburg. Originally planned for the historic city center, the 462-meter tower was relocated to a less congested (and less controversial) area where it will rise as part of a new office and cultural district.
Completion: 2018
Courtesy of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates designed Beijing's new flagship skyscraper in the form of a 'zun' -- an ancient Chinese ceremonial vessel. Climbing 528 meters, its concave shape expands office space on prime high floors. It recalls the slender hourglass figure of Canton Tower, currently China's second-tallest structure.Completion: 2018
Courtesy of SOM
With shimmering skin, this office/hotel/apartment tower in a major Chinese port city folds and tapers its way to a staggering 530-meter height. It is one of six supertalls designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill currently under construction. They are architects of the reigning world champ Burj Khalifa.Completion: 2018
courtesy of atkins
Dubbed the Pearl of the North for its giant inset 'pearl' housing an executive club, this is the first of two supertalls (> 1,000 feet) anchoring a massive mixed-use master plan at the heart of this important provincial hub. It will top out at a none-too-shabby 568 meters.Completion: 2018
courtesy adrian smith + gordon gill architecture
China-based Greenland Group is developing five of the 100 tallest towers currently under construction, including the leader of the pack racing toward a 636-meter summit. Unless Jeddah Tower mounts a miraculous late surge, Wuhan Greenland will edge out Shanghai Tower for World #2 when it tops out next year.Completion: 2018

Rudakevych said he envisions large passenger drones allowing people to move back and forth between the tower and earth’s surface along with cutting edge electro-magnetic elevators moving people throughout the this fantastic vision.

Currently the proposal calls for the tower to be constructed in Dubai which has a long history of building tall and stylish skyscrapers at a fraction of the cost of U.S. based construction.

When asked what inspired such a project, Rudakevych said, “Since humans have emerged from caves our buildings have been growing ever taller and lighter. We believe that some day buildings will break free from earths surface, releasing us from harmful floods, earthquakes and tsunamis. Analemma Tower is a speculative idea for how this might be achieved some time in the future.”