Beach Towers
January - May 2014
Beach towers is a multi-program, 500 foot skyscraper on Fort Lauderdale's prime beach front property. The site is located at the intersection of Las Olas and A1A. One critical issue for the users of the site is transportation. Currently there are five means of transportation, bus, sun trolley, vehicular, bike, and water taxi. An additional water taxi stop at the North West corner of the site was added, inviting a whole new class of users to the site. This was done because both the site and Ft. Lauderdale get their distinctive identity from the water. The initial process collage explored the separation of program, elevated parks, and the bridging of two towers. The process begins with analyzing the typical high-rises on Barrier Island, typical tower and podium configuration. Taking into consideration for the high forces of wind the program divides up into four separate masses per tower. While investigating the beach, a design began to emerge from the sand dunes patterns, which are created by the ocean winds moving individual grains of sand into dunes. The sand dunes pattern was then analyzed and implemented as the towers exoskeleton structure. This pattern, or structure, allowed the building’s masses to form a less symmetrical shape and connect to one another, the sky, and the ground.
The primary structure is derived from the central circulation core in each tower. Then the floor slabs are arranged on the cores and separated according to the program diagram. The floor slabs are then connected to the secondary structure, the exoskeleton. There is a total of 615,000 sq\ft of floor area in the skyscraper. 310,000 sq feet of Public space and 305,000 of private space. Not including the public parks. The interior lobby is where all public and private pedestrian traffic meets. The lobby divides the users with a core of elevators leading to sky lobbies. The site’s design creates five distinctive separations. The residential levels will hold 75 luxury condos and range from 1,250 square feet to 3,500 square feet. The hotel levels will hold 200 rooms ranging from 800 square feet to 1,250 square feet. Both the hotel and residential have views to the city and water of Ft. Lauderdale’s barrier island.
I have been studying architecture at Florida Atlantic University for the past 5 years, during this time I devoted part of my studies to innovated design and construction methods. One of the methods explored was 3D printing. 3D printing is a process of model building designed to create a three dimensional product the instant it has been designed in a 3D modeling software. While at FAU, I built their first 3D printer and designed and built the much improved second 3D printer for the students and faculty. I have designed a construction method in which the entire exoskeleton can be printed by a 3D printer. This printer will be housed inside of the core of the building, as well as move vertically with the construction of the skyscraper. The proposed construction method has the ability to print itself out of recycled plastic and concrete mix using 3D printing technology. The site will consist of a mechanism that has all the resources for reprocessing plastic waste. The cost of this form of construction is minimal compared to normal means of construction. This is due to the fact that while using this method there is no need for full time construction crews, parts of construction of the tower can be controlled by a few men on computers. Even the cost of material would be less expensive than normal construction material due to that fact that the floors, exoskeleton, walls and cores can be built with hollow spaces. Promoting the recycling of material waste into a new system which creates a product that can perform a superior long life span function, keeps plastic waste away from our landfills and oceans.
Floor Plan and Fire Stair Detail
Renders
