Lecture: Anthony Wood at IIT

Lecture: Anthony Wood at IIT

I recently attended Anthony Wood‘s lecture in Crown Hall (IIT) on 28 March. He spoke about how tall buildings should respond to context (site, environment, and culture), and how as tall buildings rise up they should react differently to changing contexts. (Anthony Wood is the Executive Director of the CTBUH)

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Image from CTBUH

Perhaps most interesting was his list for
“A new Vernacular for the Skyscraper”:

1. A skyscraper should not be a vertical extrusion, but the facade should vary as it rises.

2. A skyscraper should contain varying texture and scale

3. A skyscraper should introduce new hybrid functions to the city

4. A skyscraper should provide new vertical communal spaces

5. A skyscraper should have attention paid to facade opacity/transparency, skin/cladding

6. A skyscraper should use organic matter as an architectural material.

7. A skyscraper should be linked to others with skybridges

8. A skyscraper should bring all the normal functions of the city up in to the sky.