Over the past few years, through the innovative use of green and open spaces, the architectural firm WOHA have defined a new type of tropical skyscraper which, despite all its connection to nature, made no secret of its machine aesthetics. For this work, they were already honoured in 2010, receiving the International Highrise Award for The Met in Bangkok. With the bold colours of their Oasia hotel and office tower, theyare now forging a new path in terms of design.
The red façade consists of thin, perforated aluminium panels over which creepers grow and spread. In front of the window bands, where the panels appear only widely interspersed, the greenery remains restrained but it is allowed to proliferate lavishly on the four enclosed corners, since each of these contains a service core. This design principle, which makes a central core unnecessary, allows for the inclusion of three sky gardens over the entire surface of one storey and with unobstructed views in all four directions. They divide the building by grouping the storeys into three clusters and by extending upwards as atria through the full height of each. On each of the square floor spaces, the offices or hotel rooms occupy only an L-shape. The quantity of open space – more than 40 percent of the building’stotal volume – provides natural cross-ventilation and light to the offices and hotel rooms, which are arranged in double rows opening either to the outside or onto an atrium. In the midst of the densely developed downtown of Singapore, the Oasia HotelDowntown thus creates what WOHA call a ‘biophilic environment’.
