Moscow’s skyline will soon be home to Earth’s largest building. Dubbed “Crystal Island“, the 450m tall superstructure will occupy an area just shy of half a million square meters.
The inside will be home to theaters, art exhibition space, a hotel with 3,000 rooms, 900 fully serviced apartments, retail space, a school for up to 500 students, a sports complex and more.
Numerous sustainable design features have been incorporated into the buildings overall stratagem. Solar panels and wind turbines will be used to generate power and strategically positioned atriums will provide natural ventilation.
Personally, I think the dynamic enclosure panels that will be slotted into the buildings structural framing are the most interesting. They allow daylight to penetrate deep into the heart of the structure and can be controlled to modify internal temperature. In the winter the slots will be closed to trap in warmth and in the summer opened to promote natural ventilation.
This oversized building could go from concept to reality as early as 2012.
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Norman Foster does it again! Not to be outdone by Rem Koolhaus and his CCTV headquarters. This thing is 750M wide ath the base! I was going to revive my blog when I heard about this thing last month - it’s almost safe to say it could be the world’s first arcology if built. Have you seen the render of the interior? It really gives you a sense of scale.