New Designs by Foster+Partners

Info & images: Foster+Partners

Comcast Innovation & Technology Centre                                                United Arab Emirates Pavilion

Foster + Partners reveal the designs of two of their latest projects - Comcast Innovation & Technology Centre and United Arab Emirates pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo...

While the former is proposed as $1.2 billion, 59-story, 1,121-foot tower that will neighbor Comcast Corporation’s global headquarters in Center City Philadelphia, and become a dedicated home for the company’s growing workforce of technologists, engineers, and software architects, the later is a contemporary reinterpretation in the sustainable Masdar City masterplan in Abu Dhabi as a site-specific pavilion for the 2015 Milan Expo. 

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The glass and stainless steel tower of the Comcast Centre, expected to be the tallest building in the United States outside of New York and Chicago is a unique and sustainable model for mixed-use, high density development, which uniquely combines spaces for high tech research and development with recreation facilities and a significant public reception space – a window on Philadelphia. 

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While the ‘urban room’ embraces the city at the ground level; it links directly into the below-ground public transport system. Above this, the highly flexible loft-like spaces and studios are designed for a dynamic way of working – an engine for the city’s evolution as the kind of leading technology hub presently associated with Silicon Valley.

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Chosen yet again to create the national pavilion for the UAE, Foster+Partners’ design of the proposed pavilion maximizes the opportunities presented by an elongated site – the dramatic canyon-like entrance defined by two undulating 12-metre-high walls will welcome people inside, and the channels between the high walls provide intuitive circulation, naturally leading visitors to the auditorium, exhibition and restaurant spaces.

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The walls continue throughout the 140 metre site in a series of parallel waves, unifying the visitor spaces within a dynamic formal language designed to evoke the ridges and texture of sand dunes. To convey a distinctive sense of place, the texture of the walls derives from a scan taken in the desert and construction will utilize materials to represent the different shades of sand across the Emirates. The GRC panels are supported by a steel frame, which can be easily demounted and reconstructed for the pavilion’s eventual relocation in the UAE.

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The design is further enhanced by interactive displays, digital talks and augmented reality devices that help to bring the story of the Emirates to life; including a special exhibit celebrating Dubai as host city for the 2020 Expo.

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The design targets LEED ‘Platinum’ through a combination of passive principles and active techniques, from rainwater capture on the roof garden to the integration of photovoltaic cells.