CNN
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The architect behind some of Asia’s most recognizable buildings has unveiled plans for a new skyscraper that he hopes will change the face of Vietnam’s largest city. Featuring an observation deck and an urban garden hundreds of feet above the ground, Ole Scheeren’s latest project will be built in central Ho Chi Minh City. CNN has been given an exclusive first look at the project.
Named Empire City, the complex forms part of a new development that could transform the once impoverished District 2. At 1093 feet (333 meters), the largest of the three towers, Empire 88 Tower, will become one of Vietnam’s tallest buildings upon completion.
But while the structure is likely to stand out from its urban surroundings, it was inspired by Vietnam’s geography, Scheeren said. The German architect explained that his design is intended to blend in with its tropical environment.
Buro Ole Scheeren
The building's podium is expected to host water features and a variety of local plant species.
“We want to make the earth touch the sky and vice versa – to mirror (the) nature on the ground into the sky and create a very lyrical moment for the building,” he said in a phone interview. “We’re looking at developing a very intense network of public spaces – on the ground, via the podium, but also lifting part of this urban energy up into the sky.
“(The height) is not that important in itself. But as focal point for this new city I think it can play a very important role. The idea is to not make it a marker (or) a silhouette on the skyline, but really to create a place for people to go.”
Located on a peninsula in the Saigon River, Empire City will comprise residential, commercial and public spaces. Current plans also envisage a hotel and co-working spaces, as well as outdoor areas for exercising and socializing.
One of the design’s most eye-catching features, the so-called “Sky Forest,” is an urban garden protruding from the building’s upper reaches. The building’s podium – a base from which its three towers emerge – is expected to host water features and an abundance of plant life.
Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren
One of the design's most eye-catching features is the "Sky Forest," an urban garden protruding from the building's upper reaches.
Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren
The tower Empire City, will be built in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City.
Buro Ole Scheeren
The building's podium is expected to host water features and a variety of local plant species.
Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren
At 1,093 feet (333 meters), the largest of the structure's three towers will, upon completion, become one of Vietnam's tallest buildings.
Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren
Scheeren said that the building and its urban gardens were inspired by Vietnam's geography and tropical climate.
Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren
Located on a peninsula in the Saigon River, Empire City will form part of a new development that could transform a once impoverished district.
Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren
As well as an observation deck, the building's upper floors will feature restaurants and other spaces accessible to the public.
“If you look at Vietnam’s nature it’s really incredible,” Scheeren said. “It has the power of the tropics that I’ve loved for a long time. I believe that there’s a real opportunity to look at ways in which nature, as living space, can come back into architecture – where ‘green’ is not merely a sense of alibi or a discussion of sustainability, but where it’s really about … the quality of living that we can generate.”
The building joins a growing list of high-profile “green” projects being announced in Asia, such as Italian architect Stefano Boeri’s pollution-eating “Forest City” in southern China. While accepting that the trend is growing, Scheeren said that it’s not just a matter of fashion.
Courtesy Buro Ole Scheeren
German architect Ole Scheeren said that Empire City and its urban gardens were inspired by Vietnam's geography and tropical climate.
“When architecture falls for fashion then, in most cases, it becomes problematic,” he said. “But I think that this is a very pertinent and important topic for us: How we bring the density of the city back to (being) a more liveable environment.
“In that sense, there are certainly some fashionably ‘gimmicky’ projects that have dealt with (urban gardens) and I don’t think there’s a lot of future in those. But there are a series of serious attempts to investigate the possibility for this to be a new model. And that’s really what we’re after.”
Having worked in Asia for the last two decades, Scheeren has been responsible for a number of the continent’s best-known buildings. As a partner and director of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), he designed landmarks such as Beijing’s CCTV Headquarters before launching his own firm.
Since founding Büro Ole Scheeren in 2010, the 46-year-old has completed the MahaNakhon, which became Thailand’s tallest building upon opening last year, and the Interlace in Singapore, which was named World Building of the Year in 2015. But Empire City marks his first project in Vietnam, a country that he described as having an “incredible energy.”
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“There’s an expectation to create new meaning in (Vietnam’s) own context – to look at the growing city as more than a purely economic opportunity,” he said of the country’s current architectural climate. “(Economics) is certainly part of it, but really there’s an ambition to create meaningful places for the city’s people, and to create a new identity that can be an arch between their past and their future.
Iwan Baan
"I don't have this sense of letting go or parting so much, when I design a building," says Scheeren. "I never design it for myself to begin with. I design it for the people that will ultimately own it, or inhabit it or work in it, or live in it."
Courtesy Iwan Baan
Nicknamed "big pants" by the locals, Beijing's CCTV tower house's China's Central Television station. Designed in conjunction with Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the building punctuates the skyline of the city's CBD.
Courtesy Iwan Baan
The Interlace, a residential complex in Singapore, was named World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in 2015.
Courtesy Iwan Baan
Renowned British architect Peter Cook -- who was one of the jury that decided the award -- called the building a "game changer." "The Interlace makes a major urban statement (and) gives you a horizontal city," he said.
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The 'Collaborative Cloud' was designed as the new headquarters for one of the largest digital publishing houses in Europe and consists of flexible and informal work spaces.
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A public passage that connects the two surrounding plazas traverses the building and retraces the path of the former border between East and West Germany.
Alexander Roan
Ole Scheeren's MahaNakhon will be the tallest skyscraper to punctuate Bangkok's skyline when it is completed at the end of the year.
Iwan Baan
Based on the shape of an extruded square, the building's central tower rises up and connects a large number of small-scale geometric extrusions to create the image of an unfinished building, or a Jenga game in progress.
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Although much of his work is in Asia, Scheeren designed this residential mixed-use high-rise in Vancouver, Canada. The building design is intended to incorporate horizontal living into a slender tower.
Courtesy of PACE
"MahaNakhon is a vision of a tower that is very much about process, about becoming, about developing," Scheeren says of the building.
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The tower will be built in Vancouver. Its protruding three-dimensional units are intended to maximize views of the water, parks and city.
Courtesy Piyatat Hemmatat
Scheeren doesn't just transform skylines. This floating Archipelago Cinema was designed for Thailand's Film on the Rocks Festival in 2012.
Courtesy Julian Faulhaber
Its design was inspired by techniques local fisherman use to build floating lobster farms.
Courtesy Julian Faulhaber
Guests were taken by boat to the floating cinema -- a modular structure assembled on the waters of Nai Pi Lae lagoon, Kudu Island -- and watched a film that was projected onto a screen built into the rocks.
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A combined art museum and auction house, the Guardian Art Center will be completed in 2017 near Beijing's famed Forbidden City. The hybrid space, designed for China's oldest art auction house, will also include several restaurants and a 120-room hotel.
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The building intends to situate itself among the surrounding historic courtyards and alleyways using traditional Chinese materials, colors and textures. The facade will incorporate Chinese symbols while oversized bricks -- which represent civil society and values -- comprise the upper ring of the building.
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Scheeren designed DUO, a twin tower, mixed-use, high rise development for a Malaysian-Singaporean joint venture. The architect intended for the buildings to be defined by the spaces they create.
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The two towers create a "civic nucleus" in the center of the development that connects Singapore's commercial corridor to the city's historic Kampong Glam district.
Courtesy Shu He
"As an architect you always live in a very projective world -- you have to see things that are not there yet and you have to look at things that are there," says Scheeren. "Find something in those to produce what you want to see."
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Situated beside the city's famous Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur's Angkasa Raya tower will be 268 meters high upon completion and will house a four-story tropical garden in its middle.
“On a grassroots level, you see an incredible entrepreneurial spirit in the county – a big start-up culture and even a big co-working culture. All the stuff that we’re discussing in the Western world actually thrives intensely in Ho Chin Minh City. I think there’s a really great momentum to join, and to see how, through architecture, we can make a contribution.”