TEDA Landmark Towers

I think my heart skipped a beat when I set eyes on this latest skyscraper set to join the skyline in Tianjin, China. Composed of three towers made up of stacked and slightly rotated eight-story blocks, Atkin’s TEDA Landmark towers (appropriately nicknamed “the pile of boxes” by Tianjin residents), will make use of a geothermal heating/cooling system and an in-house turbine system (encased in the crowning mesh-like structures) to help supply electricity. The three towers will also display sky-gardens in rotating corners of the glass blocks that will “light up the corners of each tower, creating an illusion of glowing lanterns rising up into the sky,” a feature that I’m anxious to see executed by virtue of its potential surreality. The towers will hold (in their over 400,000 sq. feet) residential apartments, retail shops, office space, and – yay for us – a luxury five-star hotel. No word on date of completion as yet, but once we know, I think a field trip may be in order.