M-City: An Interesting Design by MVSA for Moscow, Russia
By Lucas on Oct 29, 2012
As architecture enthusiasts, we’re always on the hunt for the latest in tower designs, specifically residential buildings. Well, we came across a very cool one designed by Meyer en Van Schooten Architecten (MVSA) for Moscow, Russia, called M-City.
M-City is MVSA’s submission for a design competition held to find the best mixed-use building for a triangular plot of land along the Moscow River.
The structure of your average mixed-use development either calls for a number of different buildings accommodating respective purposes, or a tall tower, with certain floors doing the same. With M-City, MVSA has separated office space, residential, retail, and a hotel into a series of stacked blocks.
The shared podium rises nine storeys, with three 23-storey blocks resting on top of it, two of which are offices, and one is residential. Atop these three blocks are two more, each reaching 19 storeys and featuring apartment units. The hotel and retail components of M-City will be within the podium, along with a significant amount of parking.
What we love about MVSA’s design is that they made the podium triangular to match the site, rather than trying to fit your typical rectangular template on it. Also, the blocks are all triangular, which looks very sleek, especially with the slices running through each floor. These slices, along with the stacking of the blocks, create an abundance of outdoor space, more than you can achieve with a single tower.
Why don’t we see more triangular buildings? Probably because a triangle is essentially half a square, so you cover way more space with a cube. MVSA could have decided to make all the blocks rectangular, creating way more space, but then the design wouldn't be quite as striking.
Is it okay to sacrifice space for more eye-catching design? Would a design like this work in Toronto?
