Great Design Knows No Borders: The Latest from Foster + Partners

Despite approaching the grand old age of 80, Sir Norman Foster is showing no signs of resting on his laurels. His firm recently unveiled a wave of new projects which typify their unerring ability to work on the grandest of scales, with any kind of client: whether you are a private developer or a huge governmental department, Foster is seen as a sure bet when it comes to an architect to deliver an assured exemplar of contemporary design.

Masdar City master plan, United Arab Emirates

Indeed, Foster’s rigorous realization of high-tech architecture and structural expressionism has gained such global popularity that the firm’s brand can transcend regional peculiarities in every conceivable location, from the remote hills of France, to the desert sands of the United Arab Emirates … to the lunar landscape of the moon.

Here, we dive into a trio of recent works — one built, one planned, and one envisioned for the long-term future — and analyze the ubiquitous style that has made Foster + Partners virtually indispensable to urban landscapes on three different continents.

South America: Buenos Aires Ciudad Casa de Gobierno – Completed April 2015

Following his debut project in Latin America — the beautifully layered Aleph residential scheme in Buenos Aires, completed in 2012 — Norman Foster returned to Argentina’s capital to attend the opening of the vast new city hall, designed to accommodate the mayor and some 1,500 staff.

The building is designed as a single soaring atrium with a series of terraced internal floors stepping back from a huge glazed façade. The floor plates are designed around a 26-foot grid that allows for a wide variety of layouts, meaning that open-plan office spaces can be reconfigured as needed, further down the line.

The structure’s standout feature is its undulating concrete roof, an elegant ribbed canopy that ripples far above the heads of the civil servants who will pass their days within. It is punctuated by generous skylights to allow light into the depths of the space and its rolling profile is clearly legible from the exterior, turning a relatively simple civic complex into a recognizable public landmark for the city.

North America: The One, Toronto – Design unveiled March 2015

Renders were unveiled last month for a soaring new condominium on Toronto’s skyline, set to become the city’s tallest fully functioning building on its completion (the CN Tower, of course, retaining its title as tallest overall). Foster + Partners have proposed an 80-story, 1,100-foot-tall high-rise on the corner of Bloor and Yonge designed in collaboration with luxury residential developer Sam Mizrahi.

The building reads as a modernist glazed column with diagonal bracing visible on the exterior. The distinctive bronze finish of these structural elements marks a departure from Foster’s signature white lattices, seen in the triangulated surface of the firm’s other Canadian high-rise, the Bow office building in Calgary.

Foster’s commission adds to a burgeoning collection of new skyscrapers in the city by big-name architects: Daniel Libeskind’s 700-foot-tall L Tower is nearing completion a few blocks south, while Frank Gehry’s pared-back Mirvish Towers have secured city council approval. Some have expressed concerns over the so-called “Manhattanization” of Toronto, but if the built quality of The One is anything like Foster’s previous high-rise projects, this particular condominium should not prove detrimental to Canada’s largest city.

Asia: Jeddah Metro and Future Transport Network – Contracted March 2015

Foster + Partners signed a landmark deal worth a reported £54 million to design a comprehensive transport system for Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, the first stage of which involves a revolutionary new metro system with numerous transit hubs throughout the city. The firm will also be involved in the design of the trains themselves, incorporating multiple technologies to create a futuristic traveling experience when the network opens in 2020.

Teaser images released on the firm’s website reveal characteristically sleek station interiors, with tapered concrete cores wrapped in a perforated skin of copper-colored latticework. The structural elements are comprised of swooping arches at varying scales, nodding to the rhythms of traditional Arabic architecture.

The metro system is only the first move in an ambitious vision for the city’s future, as the latter part of Foster’s latest video attests: The city of 3.4 million inhabitants (second only to Riyadh) has inspired a plethora of utopian ideas, from urban desalination plants to vertical farms, all connected by high-speed rail and a host of flying machines. Indeed, if Jeddah continues along its intended path of über-sustainable urban development, Foster will enjoy one of the longest-running commissions in the history of architecture, stretching all the way to the year 2300 …