建筑大师对未来摩天大楼的宏伟抱负

From the Lighthouse of Alexandria through the spires of the medieval cathedrals and the Tuscan towers of San Gimignano, the building that aspires to the heavens keeps on coming back.

从亚历山大灯塔，到中世纪大教堂尖顶，再到圣吉米尼亚诺的托斯卡纳塔楼，向往天空的建筑总是不断回归流行。

Cass Gilbert, the architect of one of the first modern skyscrapers, New York’s 1913 Woolworth Building, called the form a “machine for making the land pay”. Yet the idea of the tall building as a product of land value was always questionable. It might have made sense in Manhattan but in Chicago, spiritual home of the skyscraper, in the middle of the great plains of the Midwest? Or in Saudi Arabia, home to the skyscraper that will surpass Dubai’s Burj Khalifa as the tallest building? The Jeddah Tower, to rise more than 1km, is due to be finished in 2019 and will be further proof that height is only tangentially related to land value. It is an expression of desire.

1913年在纽约落成的伍尔沃思大楼(Woolworth Building)是第一批现代摩天大楼之一，其建筑师卡斯?吉尔伯特(Cass Gilbert)称这种建筑是“让土地物有所值的机器”。不过，将高楼看作土地价值的产物的想法总是有问题的。在曼哈顿或许还算合理，但是在位于中西部大平原中间的芝加哥（摩天大楼的精神家园）呢？或者在沙特阿拉伯呢（马上将有一座摩天大楼超过迪拜的哈利法塔(Burj Khalifa)成为全球最高建筑）？吉达塔(Jeddah Tower)高度超过1千米，定于2019年建成，它将进一步证明楼高与土地价值几乎毫不相关。摩天大楼是一种欲望的表达。

“You can rationalise anything,” says Lord Foster, architect of London’s Gherkin and New York’s Hearst Tower, “but you don’t have to go up to achieve high densities — look at London’s densest neighbourhoods, Notting Hill and Kensington. Really, skyscrapers are built for the hell of it. They’re much more about civic pride. If you cluster skyscrapers together you can make instant urbanity and intensity and create a civic identity.”

伦敦“小黄瓜”(Gherkin)和纽约赫斯特大楼(Hearst Tower)的建筑师福斯特勋爵(Lord Foster)表示：“你可以把一切事物合理化。但你没必要非得追求高密度，看看伦敦最密集的社区，诺丁山和肯辛顿。真的，建摩天大楼只是为了好玩，它们更多是关于市民的骄傲。如果你将摩天大楼集中到一起，你可以立即实现城市性和密集性，创造出民众认同。”

Foster admits that in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, the future looked uncertain. “There was a fundamental questioning of the skyscraper,” he says. “But the groundbreaking ceremonies for both the Gherkin and the Hearst Tower happened very soon afterwards.”

福斯特承认，2001年世贸中心( World Trade Center)遇袭的直接后果就是导致摩天大楼的未来扑朔迷离。他说： “当时对摩天大楼提出了一场根本性的质疑。但小黄瓜和赫斯特大楼的破土动工仪式都是在那之后不久举行的。”

The skyscraper dream seems impossible to destroy, but how is it changing? How are technology and concerns about climate, security and energy affecting it?

摩天大楼之梦看来无法打消，但它是怎么变化的呢？科技，还有气候、安全和能源等问题又是如何影响它的呢？

Steel frames and elevators made these towers possible. Without them, building more than six or eight storeys was impractical. But then lift runs became limited by the weight of steel cables. The development by Finland’s Kone of carbon fibre “ultra rope” will allow a doubling of runs to about 1,000m, which may transform the heights of towers that now rely on people switching between lifts midway.

摩天大楼之所以成为可能，靠的是钢架和电梯，没有了它们，只要是6到8层以上的楼房都是不现实的。但电梯移动受钢缆重量的限制。芬兰的通力(Kone)研发的“UltraRope”超轻质碳纤维曳引机绳可以将移动距离翻倍，达到约1000米，这或许能改变大楼高度——现在的摩天大楼靠人们自己中途换乘电梯。

Sir Terry Farrell, the architect of the 100-storey Kingkey 100 tower in Shenzhen, reinforces the idea that the future may be all about elevators. “In Hong Kong,” he says, “there’s a culture of lifts so that they become, in effect, a part of the public transportation system.” In the Mid-Levels, a district with many towers, “people use lifts as an extension of the street”, he adds. “The interiors of high-rises become vertical streets and public spaces, there are barbers and doctors’ surgeries 50 floors up.”

深圳百层大厦京基100(Kingkey 100)的建筑师特里?法雷尔爵士(Sir Terry Farrell)也强调了这一理念，即摩天大楼的未来可能完全在于电梯。他说：“在香港，有种电梯文化，它们实际上成了公共交通系统的一部分。”他还表示在大厦林立的半山区，“人们将电梯当作街道的延伸，高楼里面成了纵向的街道和公共空间，那儿有50层楼高的理发店和诊所。”

So could the city be connected at high level? Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers are linked by a bridge but US architect Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid Building in Beijing with its tangle of “skybridges” suggests a more radical future.

那么城市可以在高层连接吗？吉隆坡的双子塔(Petronas Towers)是由一道桥连接起来的，但美国建筑师斯蒂文?霍尔(Steven Holl)在北京的当代万国城(Linked Hybrid Building)以其错综复杂的“天桥”展示了一个更加激进的未来。

The Empire State Building, completed in 1931, had a mooring mast for airships. Only one docked there and the idea was largely forgotten, bar a few helipads, but the advent of delivery drones raises the question of whether it might be revived. Some recent skyscrapers, such as Herzog & De Meuron’s 56 Leonard in New York, have protruding bays and balconies. Could these accommodate a new, 3D view of urban transport? The increase in home deliveries may make docking stations a necessity and this in turn might affect the appearance of the skyline, transforming smooth-sided towers into more complex clusters.

帝国大厦(Empire State Building)落成于1931年，楼顶有一个飞艇系留塔。因为只停靠过一艘飞艇，于是这个想法也基本被遗忘了——除了少量直升机停机坪——但快递无人机的出现提出了一个问题：这个想法会不会再度复兴？最近建的一些摩天大楼，比如赫尔佐格和德梅隆(Herzog & De Meuron)设计的纽约56 Leonard大楼，有伸出楼体的房间和阳台。这些设计能适应新的、立体视角的城市交通吗？由于送货上门服务增多，系泊站或许将成为必需品，这反过来可能会影响城市天际线的景色，将楼体平滑的大厦变成更复杂的建筑群。

Underground, too, skyscrapers are linking in to public transportation. Foster’s new Comcast Building in Philadelphia has a huge underground transport interchange — part of a growing trend.

在地下，摩天大楼也正在连接到公共交通工具。福斯特在费城的新康卡斯特中心(Comcast Building)拥有庞大的地下交通枢纽，这也是个日益盛行的趋势。

Sir Terry also raises the possibility of the greening of skyscrapers: “[Stefano Boeri’s] Bosco Verticale in Milan is remarkable because it isn’t just a series of shelves for plants but a complex ecosystem. You might also see urban vertical farms appearing, functional not just decorative green.”

特里爵士还提出了摩天大楼绿化的可能性：“斯特凡诺?博埃里(Stefano Boeri)在米兰设计的垂直森林(Bosco Verticale)举世瞩目，因为它不仅仅是一系列植物架子，而是一个复杂的生态系统。你可能还会看到城市垂直农场的出现，不仅起到了绿色装饰的作用，还有实用价值。”

Green in a different way is the proposal for a timber skyscraper in London from architecture firm PLP. At 80 storeys, it would be the first real structural innovation since the steel frame. Still a speculative project, the design is a focus for discussion and serious research into the use of strong and sustainable cross-laminated timber.

PLP建筑事务所设计的伦敦木结构摩天大楼提出了另一种环保方式。这栋80层楼的建筑将成为钢架结构之后第一个真正的结构创新。该设计仍是纯理论项目，它既是讨论重点，也是对坚固、可持续的交错层压木材(CLT)使用的认真研究。

Some innovations in form are still driven by economics. The newest is the “skinnyscraper” or “pencil” tower. Rafael Vi?oly’s 432 Park Avenue and Christian de Portzamparc’s One57 are made viable by real estate prices around New York’s Central Park. Often with one or two apartments per floor, they are architectural expressions of wealth.

一些形式创新仍然受经济驱动。最新的创新是“摩天瘦楼”(skinnyscraper)或“铅笔”大楼。拉菲尔?维诺里(Rafael Vi?oly)的派克大街432号(432 Park Avenue)和克里斯蒂安?德?波尔藏帕克(Christian de Portzamparc)的One57因纽约中央公园周边的房地产价格而变得可行。这些大楼每层通常只有一到两套公寓，是财富在建筑上的体现。

Hanif Kara, co-founder of AKTII, the structural engineering firm, and professor of design engineering at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, says: “We’re past simply extruding towers and into an era of data which will allow us to build better and more forensically, grabbing energy at high levels — the wind and the light and converting them to power.”

结构工程事务所AKTII的联合创始人、哈佛大学(Harvard)设计学院的设计工程教授哈尼夫?卡拉(Hanif Kara)表示：“我们已经过了简单竖起高楼的日子，进入了一个数据时代，它将让我们盖出更好的建筑，更细致地挖掘高层的能量——高层上的风和光，并将它们转化成动力。”

But Mr Kara also asks: “What are we going to do with the existing towers? In China and Turkey, we have 20-year-old towers which are out of date — can we give them new functions?” An important concern for architects looking to a sustainable future will be the repurposing of older towers — even if it is more expensive in the short term. Future skyscrapers might be built in a modular manner so that their cladding and systems can be upgraded as technology changes.

但卡拉也提出了问题：“对现有大楼我们该怎么办呢？在中国和土耳其，有些楼龄20年的大楼已经过时，我们能赋予它们新的功能吗？”一些正在寻求可持续未来的建筑师的一个重要关注将是改造旧大楼，虽然在短期内这种做法较为昂贵。未来的摩天大楼可能以模块化方式建造，这样它们的覆面和系统可以随技术变化而随时升级。

The architects and engineers agree on the importance of mixed-use towers. “The tower should be like a club,” says Lord Foster, “with housing, work, leisure and retail totally integrated, and it should be open and accessible to the city.” Sir Terry, meanwhile, refers to buildings like his own Kingkey 100 and London’s Shard, which might have hotels as well as retail, commercial and residential space, much as the architects of the early skyscrapers envisaged.

建筑师和工程师们均赞成多功能大楼的重要性。福斯特勋爵说：“摩天大楼应该像一个俱乐部，将居住、工作、休闲和零售完全融合在一起，而且它应该是向城市开放的、可进入的。”特里爵士也提到了自己的京基100和伦敦的碎片大厦(Shard)，里面可能除了有酒店以外，还有零售、商业和住宅空间，这与早期摩天大楼建筑师的设想十分类似。

Architect Rem Koolhaas noted the intensity of activity squeezed into 1920s skyscrapers, including athletics clubs, hotels, shops, pools and apartments. When Renzo Piano designed London’s Shard he talked of it as a “vertical city”.

建筑师雷姆?库哈斯(Rem Koolhaas)注意到挤进1920年代摩天大楼的活动的密度，包括体育俱乐部、酒店、商店、游泳池和公寓。当伦佐?皮亚诺(Renzo Piano)设计伦敦的碎片大厦时，他称其为“垂直城市”。

Sir Terry and Lord Foster also seem to concur that future of the skyscraper resides in its integration into the urban fabric at different levels and in escaping the idea of the exclusive ivory tower. To avoid the impression of the imposition of the power of wealth on a city, designers of the next generation of skyscrapers may need to find ways for them to open up and become public at every level.

特里爵士和福斯特勋爵似乎也同意摩天大楼的未来在于从各个层面上融入到城市结构中，而且逐渐摆脱那种功能单一的象牙塔的概念。为了避免财富力量对城市强加干预的印象，下一代摩天大楼设计师可能需要寻找思路让摩天大楼更开放，并在各个层面上变得更公共化。