Architizer's 13th A+Awards features a suite of sustainability-focused categories recognizing designers that are building a greener industry — and a better future. Start your entry to receive global recognition for your work!
Few architecture firms are designing for the future like MAD. As a practice that’s earned a reputation for experimental, inventive, and forward-looking work, the firm was founded by Ma Yansong in 2004. With offices in Beijing, Los Angeles, Rome and Jiaxing, MAD first gained international recognition for the Absolute Towers completed in Toronto. Designed to rethink urban life, the residential towers explore the question “what is the house of today” and what message should contemporary architecture convey.
Looking to create a new identity for the fast developing suburb of Mississauga, the design team took the project as an opportunity to respond to the needs of an expanding and growing city. The result is a residential landmark that was nicknamed the “Marilyn Monroe” by locals for it’s curving, dance-like forms.
Working with structural engineers Sigmund, Soudack & Associates, the team was able to address two key challenges in the project: the rotation of every floor meant that the engineers had to calculate the maximum load on every structural element. In addition, to address the thermal transfer between the open balconies and the interior, a new kind of thermal break was devised where the balconies meet the wall in two-foot segments alternating with four-foot gaps.
The walls and columns of each had to be designed separately to bear the loads. When the team designed some of the columns, they needed to account for non-linear behavior of materials. Because of the shape of the walls, and because the column is curved, the building has additional forces that create tensions throughout the structure.
In so doing, MAD imagined how architecture can form a stronger relationship between humans and nature in connection to history, and in turn, challenged people’s emotions and feelings through the Absolute Towers design.
Architizer's 13th A+Awards features a suite of sustainability-focused categories recognizing designers that are building a greener industry — and a better future. Start your entry to receive global recognition for your work!