Project: 685 First Avenue
Location: New York City, US
Scheduled completion: 2019
Located in New York City, this 42-storey residential tower designed by Richard Meier & Partners in collaboration with Developer Sheldon Solow’s East River Realty Development will be the firm’s tallest tower in NYC. For the design of the building, the architects consciously paid attention to the properties of ‘materiality, lightness, transparency and order’. The minimalist column is constructed mainly of black glass, that is pierced by modular subdivisions and metal panels that define balconies, canopies and corners, and at the levels 27 and 28, an architectural cut-out, that will be visible from across the East River.
Image courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners / Bloom images
Project: CDC Xin-Yi Residential Tower
Location: Tapei, Taiwan
Scheduled completion: 2018
Richard Meier & Partners’ first project in Taiwan, this 127 m tower – commissioned as an ‘urban landmark’ by Continental Development Corporation – is located at the east-west axis on Xin-Yi Road. The design lends itself to the urban landscape, continuing public realm through its site with an open space with trees and sculptures by international artists at its base. Characteristics of geometric clarity and openess are reflected throughout the design which consists of two volumes – the south volume is transparent and the north volume is solid. The solid volume is residential and the transparent volume holds public-facing and social community functions.
Image courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners
Project: Engel Volkers Headquarters and Apartments
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Scheduled completion: 2018
The Engel & Völkers Headquarters and Apartments in Hamburg, Germany, is located in the HafenCity district and reimagines the residential courtyard building typology. The project is made up of a courtyard building, with the organisational system of a hybrid mixed use building with a variety of functions and programmes such as apartments, a training academy, offices and retail spaces. Paying just as much attention to the interior as to the exterior, the architects worked with open, generous residential spaces filled with light through floor to ceiling windows and ceiling height doors. Working with natural light and featuring clean open-plan spaces and soft colours – a Richard Meier signature – the project showcases the architecture firm’s trademark white tones in perfect alignment with the Engels & Völkers brand, which is also dominated by the same colour.
Image courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners
Project: Oaks Prague Villas
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
Scheduled completion: 2019
Two villas designed by Richard Meier & Partners are the latest addition to the modern village of Oaks Prague in the Nebrenice countryside by Czech developer Arendon. Featuring Meier’s signature large, bright spaces and clean lines, the villas are clad in white composite panels and cedar wood. In true Meier style, large expanses of glass make up the main façades, which were designed based on an architectural grid. Referencing the pitched roofs of traditional Czech housing, these residences feature the contemporary equivalent, bringing together modern aesthetics and Meier’s geometric shapes, with an appropriate response to the requirements of the local planning codes.
Image courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners
Project: Torre Cuarzo
Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Scheduled completion: 2018
Located along the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City, the mixed-use Torre Cuarzo is the first project built by Richard Meier & Partners in Mexico. The boulevard where the site is located was designed to commemorate the history of the Americas and is a major commercial thoroughfare. Designed in collaboration with Diametro Arquitectos, also the project’s developer, the development features a 40-storey tower accommodating offices, retail, fitness centre and parking and a smaller hotel tower. The architects describe the design as ‘bold, yet simple’, referring to the massing of the towers that will create a dynamic relationship with the existing urban fabric of Mexico City.
Image courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners
Project: Vitrvm
Location: Bogota, Colombia
Scheduled completion: 2018
This the first residential project in Colombia for Richard Meier & Partners and the second project in South America after the Leblon Offices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil completed in 2016. The 13-storey building that features two towers with 37 condominiums has impressive views across the city from its location along Septima Avenida in the north section of Bogota. The first tower is ‘a prismatic structure distinctively articulated by folds, planes and carved surfaces’, while the second tower ‘almost rectangular shape... is defined by two solid punctuated planes’. The site is surrounded by the mountains and the gardens of the adjacent Chico Park and a ravine and water gorge delimits the property to the north, serving as a buffer and separation to the neighbouring property.
Image courtesy of Richard Meier & Partners