Future Cities

Presidential Palaces

Kremlin (Russia)

The Moscow Kremlin is a historic fortified complex at the very heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River (to the south), Saint Basil's Cathedral (often mistaken by westerners as the Kremlin) and Red Square (to the east) and the Alexander Garden (to the west). It is the best known of kremlins (Russian citadels) and includes four palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers. The first recorded stone structures in the Kremlin were built at the behest of Ivan Kalita in the late 1320s and early 1330s, after Peter, Metropolitan of Rus had moved his seat from Kiev to Moscow. By 1475, the principalities of medieval Russia were united under Grand Prince Ivan III, who assumed the title of the Grand Prince of All Rus, envisioning Moscow as the only legitimate successor to Rome and Constantinople. In order to illustrate his imperial ambitions, Ivan organised the reconstruction of the Kremlin, inviting a number of skilled architects from Renaissance Italy, like Pietro Antonio Solari and Marco Ruffo. During Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, the French forces occupied the Kremlin from 2 September to 11 October. When Napoleon fled Moscow, he ordered the whole Kremlin to be blown up. The Kremlin Arsenal, several portions of the Kremlin Wall and several wall towers were destroyed by explosions and fires damaged the Faceted Chamber and churches. Explosions continued for three days, from 21 to 23 October. Fortunately, the rain damaged the fuses, and the damage was less severe than intended. After that, it took the Soviets to take the government from Petrograd to Moscow again on 1918.

The complex now serves as the official residence of the President of Russia.

Palac Prezydencki (Poland)

The Palac Prezydencki in Warsaw, Poland, is the elegant classicist latest version of a building that has stood on the Krakowskie Przedmiescie site since 1643. Over the years, it has been rebuilt and remodeled many times. For its first 175 years, the palace was the private property of several aristocratic families. In 1791 it hosted the authors and advocates of Poland's May 3rd Constitution, Europe's first modern codified national constitution, and the world's second after the U.S. Constitution.

It was in 1818 that the palace began its ongoing career as a governmental structure, when it became the seat of the Viceroy of the Polish (Congress) Kingdom under Russian occupation. Following Poland's resurrection after World War I, in 1918, the building was taken over by the newly reconstituted Polish authorities and became the seat of the Council of Ministers. During World War II, it served the country's German occupiers as a Deutsches Haus and survived intact the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. After the war, it resumed its function as seat of the Polish Council of Ministers. In July 1994 it replaced the much smaller and more difficult to protect. Belweder palace as the official residence of the Polish President.

Palácio do Planalto (Brazil)

The Palácio do Planalto (English: "Palace of the Plateau") is the official workplace of the President of Brazil. It is located at the Praça dos Três Poderes in Brasília, Brazil. As the seat of government, the term "o Planalto" is often used as a metonym for the executive branch of the government.

The architect of the Palácio do Planalto was Oscar Niemeyer, the "creator" of most of the important buildings in the new capital of Brasília. The idea was to project an image of simplicity and modernity using fine lines and waves to compose the columns and exterior structures. The Palace is four stories high, and has an area of 36,000 m². Four other adjacent buildings are also part of the complex.

Presidential Palace (Vietnam)

The Presidential Palace of Vietnam, located in the city of Hanoi, was built between 1900 and 1906 to house the French Governor-General of Indochina. It was constructed by Auguste Henri Vildieu, the official French architect for Vietnam. Like most French colonial architecture, the palace is pointedly European- the only visual cues that it is located in Vietnam at all are mango trees growing on the grounds.

When Vietnam achieved independence in 1954, Ho Chi Minh refused to live in the grand structure for symbolic reasons, although he still received state guests there, and he eventually built a traditional Vietnamese stilt house and carp pond on the grounds. Today, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum stands nearby and the Presidential Palace remains part of Hanoi's cultural core. The palace hosts government meetings.

Palazzo del Quirinale (Italy)

The palace, located on the Via del Quirinale and facing onto the Piazza del Quirinale, was built in 1573 by Pope Gregory XIII as a papal summer residence. It was also used as the location for many papal conclaves. It served as a papal residence and housed the central offices responsible for the civil government of the Papal States until 1870. In September, 1870, what was left of the Papal States was overthrown. About five months later, in 1871, Rome became the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy. The palace was occupied during the invasion of Rome and became the official royal residence of the Kings of Italy, though in reality some monarchs, notably King Victor Emmanuel III (reigned 1900-1946) actually lived in a private residence elsewhere, the Quirinale being used simply as an office and for state functions. The monarchy was abolished in 1946 and the Palace became the official residence and workplace for the Presidents of the Italian Republic.

Grassalkovich Palace (Slovakia)

The Grassalkovich Palace is a palace in Bratislava and the seat of the President of Slovakia. It is situated next to the Summer Archbishop's Palace. The building is a Rococo/late Baroque summer palace with a French garden. It was built in 1760 for Count Antal Grassalkovich, a Hungarian noble of Croatian origin serving as the head of the Hungarian Chamber (a sort of ministry of economy and finance for the Kingdom of Hungary), by architect Anton Mayerhofer. It features many beautiful rooms and an impressive staircase.

Rashtrapati Bhavan (India)

Rashtrapati Bhavan is the official residence of the President of India, located in New Delhi. Until 1950 it was known as "Viceroy's House" and served as the residence of the Governor-General of India.

During the Delhi Durbar year of 1911, it was decided that the capital of India would be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. This was announced on December 12 by King George V. As the plan for New Delhi took shape, the Governor-General's residence was given an enormous scale and prominent position. The British architect Edwin Landseer Lutyens, a key member of the city-planning process, was also given the prime architectural opportunity of designing the building. The Viceroy declared that the palace was to be classical, but with an Indian motif.

Schloss Bellevue (Germany)

Schloss Bellevue is a château in the centre of Berlin. It is situated on the north edge of the Tiergarten park, beside the Spree, near the Berlin Victory Column, with the address "Spreeweg 1". It has been the principal residence of the German President since 1994. Its name derives from its beautiful view over the Spree. It was built in 1786 for Prince Ferdinand of Prussia, the younger brother of King Frederick II of Prussia, and was designed by architect Philipp Daniel Boumann as a summer residence, on the site of a house built in 1743 by Knobelsdorff. It was the first Neoclassical building in Germany, and has three main elements: a central building of 19 bays, with a central pediment supported by Corinthian columns, with wings on either side (the "ladies' wing" and the "Spree wing"). It is surrounded by a park covering 20 hectares.

It served as the official residence of the Crown Prince of Germany until 1918. The treaty ending the Franco-Prussian War was signed here on 3 September 1870. In the mid-1930s, it was used as a museum of ethnography, before being renovated as a guest house for the Third Reich. It was damaged in May 1945, at the end of the Second World War, and refurbished substantially in the 1950s. From 1957, it was a secondary residence of the President of Germany, a pied a terre in Berlin in addition to his primary residence at the Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn. It was refurbished again in 1986/7, and Richard von Weizsäcker moved the primary residence of the President of Germany here in 1994, after the German reunification. It was reconstructed from 2004 to 2005 to remedy defects in earlier renovations. The President of Germany used Schloss Charlottenburg for representative purposes during this period. Schloss Bellevue became his primary residence again in January 2006.

The White House (USA)

The above is the White House in 1860. The architect of the White House was chosen in a competition, which received nine proposals, including one submitted anonymously by Thomas Jefferson. President Washington traveled to the site of the new federal city on July 16, 1792 to make his judgment. His review is recorded as being brief and he quickly selected the submission of James Hoban, an Irishman living in Charleston, South Carolina. The building Hoban designed is verifiably influenced by the first and second floors of Leinster House, a ducal palace in Dublin, Ireland, which is now the seat of the Irish Parliament. Construction began with the laying of the cornerstone on October 13, 1792. A diary kept by the District of Columbia building commissioner records that the footings for the main residence were dug by slaves. The foundations were also built by slave labor. The initial construction took place over a period of eight years, at a reported cost of $232,371.83 ($2.4 million in 2005 dollars). Although not yet completed, the White House was ready for occupancy on or about November 1, 1800.

Casa Rosada (Argentina)

La Casa Rosada (Spanish for "the Pink House"), is the official seat of the executive branch of the government of Argentina. The Casa Rosada was built at the eastern end of the Plaza de Mayo, a large square which since the founding of the city of Buenos Aires has contained the top political institutions of Argentina. The current building, however, dates back only to 1873 and was constructed over the foundations of an earlier customs house, post office, and fortress. Its balcony, which faces the square, has served as a podium for many figures, including Eva Perón, who rallied the descamisados from there, and Pope John Paul II, who visited Buenos Aires in 1998. Madonna sang her filmed rendition of the song "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina," for the movie Evita, from the balcony after a meeting with the then President Carlos Menem.

Eco skyscrapers

With a burgeoning global population that has ever-growing needs for both food and housing, many architects are looking up for sustainable solutions that will prevent further sprawl and provide fresh food to urban residents. Vertical farms and skyscrapers that incorporate various functions like housing, recreation, work and tourism are like miniature self-sufficient cities, complete with transit and on-site energy production, minimizing the building's carbon footprint and that of its residents.

La Tour Vivante: International Sustainable City

La Tour Vivante is a vertical farm skyscraper with a light-shading skin that wraps around the structure and admits sunlight to targeted locations for both functional and aesthetic purposes. Designed by French architecture firm Atelier SOA, the skyscraper's sustainable features include wind power, reclaimed rainwater, biogas production and on-site food production.

The architects explain, "The separation between city and countryside, urban planning and natural areas, places of living, consumption and production is increasingly problematic for sustainable land management. The concept of Tour Vivante aims to combine agricultural production, housing and activities in a single system."

Toronto Sky Farm Concept by Gordon Graff

Designed by Gordon Graff when he was a Masters of Architecture student at Waterloo University, the Toronto Sky Farm concept seeks to provide enough food for 35,000 citizens per year. Though that may not be nearly enough to feed all the residents of downtown Toronto, it's a start. Sky Farm would stand 59 stories tall with half its power produced by methane from plant waste. The hydroponic farming system would be fed with fresh water from Lake Ontario.

House of Peace Hotel in Tanzania Inspired by Nature

When WOW Architects set out to design the 'House of Peace' hotel in Tanzania, they found inspiration for its sculpted shape in the geological processes that shape rock formations in nature. With gentle slopes and greenery peeking out between floors, the concrete hotel is an interpretation of the way plate tectonics create hills, which are then molded by weather and stratified by sediments. Even the texture of the walls is drawn from that of fossils often found in such hills.

Almeisan Tower Brings Sky-High Sustainability to Dubai

Though it's unlikely to ever be built, the Almeisan Tower concept is nevertheless a fascinating peek at the ways in which we may be able to provide food for ourselves in the future. Created by architect Robert Ferry for a competition to design a tall emblem structure for Za'abeel Park in Dubai, Almeisan Tower would use solar cells and large mirrors to generate its own power as well as the power required to run the rest of the park.

Axis Mundi's Wacky Pop-Art Idea for MoMA Tower

Though it was Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, Jean Nouvel, who was actually selected to design the expansion of New York City's Museum of Modern Art, another architect almost stole his thunder. Axis Mundi submitted an alternative design idea for the tower, with a stacked design that features vegetated walls and gigantic reproductions of iconic pop art. Firm founder John Beckmann said of the concept, "Instead of disguising the rich potential of towers that have a mix of uses, we looked for a way to express that diversity." The resulting mixed-use mishmash certainly stands at a stark contrast to Nouvel's sleek, contemporary winning design.

Entangled Bank: Green-Walled Eco-City

Charlotte, North Carolina firm LITTLE designed the Entangled Bank concept, a holistic design that "combines heavy duty technological prowess with artistic integration of systems", as a juror of the Re:Vision Dallas competition described it. The concept connects various elements of community like housing, recreation, work and tourism in a sustainable shell that includes a living wall, wind turbines and an onsite biogas plant.

XERO Project Envisions Sustainable Dallas

While the Entangled Bank concept turned heads and made it to the top 3 in the Re:Vision Dallas competition, it was the XERO Project that took first place. The David Barker + Partners/Fletcher Studio design is based around the question, "What if one block in Texas became the sustainable model for the world?" The design envisions a high-density, zero-energy, agriculturally oriented pair of buildings that include public orchards, community gardens, food stalls, restaurants, retail space and housing. The design also imagines connecting the building to greater Dallas with intersecting greenways.

The Zuidkas Sustainable Tower in Amsterdam

How green can a skyscraper get? Architectenbureau Paul de Ruiter decided to find out with a design commissioned by the Government Buildings Agency of the Netherlands for a mixed-use building in Amsterdam. De Ruiter aimed to achieve the highest score possible on a range of environmental objectives to help the government determine a future standard for sustainability in architecture. The design consists of a glass envelope that accommodates a variety of 'green houses' – atria, CO2 greenhouses and hybrid greenhouses – in addition to offices, homes, a school and retail facilities.

Plantagon Geodesic Vertical Farm

Swedish-American company Plantagon has come up with an unusual twist on the vertical farm concept: a geodesic greenhouse containing a spiral ramp upon which fresh crops can be grown in urban environments. Plantagon says the farm "will dramatically change the way we produce organic and functional food. It allows us to produce ecological [resources] with clean air and water inside urban environments, even major cities, cutting costs and environmental damage by eliminating transportation and deliver directly to consumers. This is due to the efficiency and productivity of the Plantagon® greenhouse which makes it economically possible to finance each greenhouse from its own sales."

Vertical Park: Stackable Architecture for Mexico City

Not only do we need vertical buildings that bring many functions into one building, preventing the destruction of what little green space we have left, but we also need structures that can meet our needs as they evolve. The stackable 'Vertical Park' concept by Jorge Hernandez de la Garza is a modular skyscraper designed for Mexico City, where space is definitely at a premium. Each module provides spaces for living, working, urban farming, water reclamation and solar energy collection.

Pyramid Farm

Architecture professors Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier have dreamed up yet another way in which agriculture can be incorporated into urban environments in the future. The Pyramid Farm offers a self-sustaining ecosystem that are capable of producing a wide variety of food – including fish and poultry – while also minimizing waste as much as possible. It would even have processes in place to transform waste into energy sources that could run the farm.

Dragonfly Urban Farm Concept

Few urban farm concepts are quite as visually stunning as Vincent Callebaut's Dragonfly, a tall wing-like structure designed around the Southern bank of Roosevelt Island in New York City. This entirely self-sufficient concept features two oblong towers and 128 floors filled with housing, offices, laboratories and farms that would be tended by the building's occupants. The greenhouse, which defines the space of the design, supports the load and is buttressed by two inhabited rings covered in solar panels.

Harvest Green Tower

Romses Architects envisioned the 'Harvest Green Tower' for Vancouver, winning a competition held by the city of vancouver 'the 2030 challenge' to find new methods of green building that can help address climate change issues. The Harvest Green Tower produces food – including boutique goat and sheep dairy – and generates its own energy through wind and solar power. Incorporated within the tower are also residences, transit, offices, retail space and research facilities.

Aberrant Agriculture by Scott Johnson

The Aberrant Agriculture concept by Masters of Architecture student Scott Johnson not only combines vertical farming, residential, hotel and retail functions in one sustainable skyscraper, it also processes and sells the food that is produced within. The agricultural core of the building grows 12 'power foods' including berries, garlic and beans and whatever the building's residents couldn't eat would be sold to the public.

Modular Skyscraper Additions Add Garden and Power Producing Space

All of these ideas for the sustainable skyscrapers of the future are great, but what about all the waste that would be generated by tearing old buildings down, and wasting new resources to rebuild? That's where this concept by Daekwon Park comes in. It's a modular system designed to act as add-ons for existing buildings, adding space for outdoor recreation, vertical gardening and wind power generation as well as other functions as needed.

Architectural Wonders of the Natural World

So you thought the ancient and modern wonders created by mankind and creative contemporary architecture were something? From underground ant colonies that extend farther than the Great Wall of China to termite mounds that tower at nearly twice the relative height of the Burj Dubai (tallest skyscraper in the world), and from the largest multi-species spider web ever discovered to the longest beaver dam on the planet, here are seven of the most awe-inspiring animal architects and architectonic structures of the animal kingdom.

1) Towering Termites: Massive Earth Movers

Termites are amazing creatures by almost any metric. Their queens are 30 times the size of normal soldiers and workers and produce about 30 eggs per minute to keep the colony alive. Relative to their size, termites build the biggest structures of the animal kingdom – .4 inch creatures constructing towers weighing hundreds of tons and up to 25 feet in height and 40 feet in diameter (the human equivalent of 4,600 feet tall). And that is just 40 feet above the ground -  termites can also burrow as far as 225 feet underground.

2) Social Weavers: Avian Condo Architects

The so-called social (or sociable) weaver bird is one of the friendliest flyers in the sky. They combine forces and take over entire trees to make what can only be considered something like an awesome animal 'apartment' structure. Instead of building independent nests, up to 300 pairs of birds come together to build giant mega-nests up to 25 feet wide, 5 feet high and with an individual room for every couple. As with a huge condo complex, there are multiple 'basement' entrances that lead up through clusters of chambers.

3) Naked Mole Rats: Uncanny Underground Diggers

The naked mole rat goes by many names, including the potentially misleading "sand puppy" which might imply that these voracious diggers are cute and friendly fellows. They are uniquely eusocial amongst mammals, meaning they are hive-like and massively organized creatures like ants, bees, wasps and termites only much much larger and scarier looking. To add to their eeriness, they are essentially cold-blooded and feel absolutely no pain. Up to 100 of these strange creatures live together in a single underground habitat, which they dig with disproportionately gigantic sets of teeth that are placed in front of (rather than behind) their lips so they don't swallow dirt. Naked mole rats can live for up to 28 years and colonies feed on tubers (engorged plant parts) that weigh up to 1000 times as much as an individual mole rat does.

4) Ants: Super-Strong Subterranean Excavators

The largest ant colony discovered to date stretches over 4000 miles across Europe – this super-colony is suspected to have billions of ants. Everyone knows that ants are incredible builders that can carry many times their own weight but few have gotten to see inside their spectacular subterranean structures. The particular colony shown above is 500 square feet in size, penetrates 25 feet into the ground and required the displacement of 40 tons of dirt to be created. As it was dug up, transit tunnels and ventilation inflow and outflow shafts were revealed as well as fungus gardens and trash pits. 

5) Caddisflies: Unique Underwater Builders

Unlike most of the intriguing animals and animal architecture in this list the caddisfly and its buildings are not massive communally-constructed mega-structures. On the contrary, the caddisfly makes relatively minute architecture but does so with remarkable versatility and (perhaps a stretch) artistic license. Using whatever materials are available – from sand and shells to twigs and trash – the larval form of these so-called "underwater architects" build themselves mobile "shells" to protect them and provide natural camouflage (made from local materials) as they develop. Eventually, they grow mandibles and swim to the surface where they discard their unique architectural creations, flex their wings and fly away.

6) Dual-Built Beaver Dam: Longest in the World

The longest recorded beaver dam in the world spans 2800 feet and has existed for over a decade. From the aerial images it is clear that at least two beaver families have worked in tandem in the construction of the record-setting structure. The nature of the wetland is such that long dams are needed to trap broad stretches of low-flowing water. Other dams in the area have been sized at up to 1500+ feet but at nearly 3000 feet this two-family dam is a one-of-a-kind discovery.

7) Communal Spider Web: Biggest in the World

Thousands of spiders from twelve species worked together to construct this amazing web that spans over 600 feet. This is highly unusual behavior for spiders that normally fight over territory and prey, preferring to eat their enemies and build independent, solitary circular webs. However, record rainfalls provided such an abundance of edible insects that (scientists speculate) the spiders chose cooperation over conflict in this extraordinary case of evolutionary adaptation. Even more exceptional: the spiders did not just build it in the first place but have actually rebuilt the web three times after wind and rain has destroyed it.