Vancouver, BC has grown into a world-class city with one of the highest standard-of-living anywhere on earth. The skyline of the city is also growing, with bold new structures that will set the tone of the skyline for decades to come. Along with the striking Vancouver House tower, a brand new skyscraper by famed designer Kengo Kuma is joining the scenery, with a curving and organic form.
Called Alberni by Kengo Kuma, the tower is 43 stories tall, and clad in glass and aluminum in panels that curve in dramatic ways that then straighten at the top. The studio calls the form “Boolean scoops”, and it certainly stands out amongst traditionally straight towers.
A partially-closed amphitheater sits at the base of the tower, complete with Kuma’s trademark stick forms that makeup the ceiling.
As described to Dezeen:
“Our decisions were less a direct reaction to the ubiquitous glass and more an intent to create a tower whose tall mass was made of smaller pieces, keeping to the realm of metal and wood,” he continued.
“The tower does not deploy glass as a mass-defining material, and more of a practical enclosure – that is, for the design, the glass is conceptually ‘not there'”.
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