Hong Kong High-Rises Containing Multi-Story Homes

Laurence Grigorov, as director of a residential property development company, constantly looks for inspiration from international architectural designs and trends in order to keep the development projects that the company is involved in, relevant and modern. Laurence Grigorov is well aware of space constraints around the world especially in modern dense urban areas and believes that novel and creative methods and designs are required to cater for future urban growth.
A new proposed project by Chicago studio Kwong von Glinow has caught Laurence Grigorov’s attention as it deals directly with this issue.
Apartments are made up of rooms stacked on top of one another in this extreme vertical housing proposal titled Tower within a Tower, the scheme tries to solve an issue that is typical in traditional "pancake stacks" of apartments – the lack of opportunity for neighbourly activity.
Kwong Von Glinow's proposal, which won a challenge to create new housing typologies for Hong Kong, reimagines the apartment unit as a collection of spaces stacked on top of each other vertically rather than arranged on a horizontal plane.
Each customisable apartment would be assembled off-site from a selection of modules, chosen according to the needs of future inhabitants. These units would then be brought to the site and stacked on top of each other to form an apartment building. Each successive floor of every unit would have a smaller footprint, causing the vertical apartments to take on a pyramid-like appearance and opening up space between the upper floors of the homes.
Alison Von Glinow, co-founder of the studio alongside Lap Chi Kwong, emphasises that the spaces between units have been opened up to foster community amongst the building's residents. "We realised that corridors are often an unused space," she said. "In Tower within a Tower, means of access double as a space for communal activity."
The pyramid-like arrangement of rooms in each living unit would create an internal network of corridors and landings between the homes. "Sometimes these spaces could be used as private balconies for owners of the tower units, or they could be be used communally as gardens, or places where people can hang their laundry between units," explained Von Glinow.
The modular proposal has been designed to offer residents of the buildings flexibility in the design of their homes. "The units would be assembled and brought to the site, and then more or less stacked on top of each other" Von Glinow said. "The interior could be manufactured level-by-level off site, almost like a custom kind of container box."
"The interiors are very simple fit-outs that allow the resident to customise their space in their own way."
This project is part of Dezeen x MINI Living Initiative, a collaboration with MINI Living exploring how architecture and design can contribute to a brighter urban future through a series of videos and talks.

Words and photo courtesy of www.dezeen.com

Luka Modric Voted World’s Best Player

As director of a leading real estate development company based in Johannesburg, Laurence Grigorov is involved in all aspects of the development process, including land acquisition, rezoning applications, architectural design as well as the finance and legal components of these complex projects.

In order to relax and unwind, Laurence Grigorov enjoys watching football and watched with keen interest who would win the FIFA Best Player fo the Year award for 2018.

Luka Modric ended Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi’s decade-long domination of football’s individual awards by being crowned Fifa’s best player of the year recently.

Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah picked up the Puskas award for best goal of the year for his strike against Everton in the Merseyside derby last December.

Midfielder Modric starred for both Real Madrid and Croatia as his club won a third straight Uefa Champions League, and he inspired his national team to reach the World Cup final for the first time. He beat Ronaldo and Salah to the prize.

Modric’s success means Ronaldo remains tied with Messi having won Fifa’s award in different guises five times each.

Croatia’s run to the final was the culmination of a brilliant career for 33-year-old Modric that had often been overshadowed by Ronaldo’s goalscoring in their time together in the Spanish capital, before the Portuguese left for Juventus in July.

Modric scored twice and also netted in penalty shootout wins over Denmark and Russia, but it was his playmaking ability that caught the eye in winning the Golden Ball for the best player at the World Cup.
“It was an unbelievable season, the best season in my life,” said Modric. “I’m still not realising how good a year I had collectively, individually, and I’m very proud for everything I achieved this year and it will be remembered forever.”

For a sixth straight season, Ronaldo was the Champions League’s top scorer with 15 goals and also scored four times at the World Cup, including a hat-trick against Spain in a thrilling 3-3 draw to open Portugal’s campaign.

Modric was joined by Real team-mates Sergio Ramos, Raphael Varane and Marcelo in the FIFPro team of the year, also featuring David De Gea, Dani Alves, N’Golo Kante, Eden Hazard, Kylian Mbappe, Messi and Ronaldo.

Laurence Grigorov is pleased to see a new winner of the prestigious award after the recent domination by Ronaldo and Messi.

Words courtesy of www.thenational.ae

BIG, MAD, MVRDV and OMA on shortlist to design Australia's tallest building

Laurence Grigorov, who is director of a Johannesburg-based property development company, often looks for inspiration from international architectural design trends. This allows Laurence Grigorov to continually keep the development projects that the company is involved in, fresh and current.

A new project which is Laurence Grigorov believes is significant is a competition, run by developer Beulah International, to design a £1.1 billion mixed use development in the Australian city of Melbourne which has drawn entries from some of the world's best-known architects.

Supertall skyscrapers with rainbow facades and shaped like a mountain piercing a light-up cloud are on the shortlist for Southbank – a new tower in Melbourne, which if built would be Australia's tallest building.

Six designs for supertall towers have been shortlisted from the following teams: Bjarke Ingels Group with Fender Katsalidis Architects, Coop Himmelb(l)au with Architectus, MAD Architects with Elenberg Fraser, MVRDV with Woods Bagot, OMA with Conrad Gargett, and UNStudio with Cox Architecture.

The developer purchased over 6,061 square metres of land on the Southbank Boulevard last year, and plan to turn it into a new "lifestyle precinct" with a hotel, shops and apartments along with cultural and public spaces.

Beijing-based MAD Architects and local architecture firm Elenberg Fraser have proposed Urban Tree, a 360-metre-high "mountain village" surrounded by foothills, with a hotel shaped like an illuminated cloud near its summit.

Green Spine is the competition entry from Dutch architectural practice UNStudio and Australian firm Cox Architecture. It features two twisting towers with glass facades on their outer edges and terraced gardens on the inner sides. The 356.2-metre-high residential tower would be topped by publicly accessible botanic gardens. A shorter office and hotel tower would be 252.2-metres high.

Copenhagen and New York-based BIG and Melbourne's Fender Katsalidis Architects have proposed two 359.6-metre high interlocking blocks. Called the Lanescraper, its stacked shape would provide both stability and natural points of connectivity between the towers.

A two-tiered concentric auditorium in one section would be able to hold 3,000 people, while a BMW experience centre would span four floors with a central void filled by a car lift surrounded by a spiral staircase.

The Beulah Propeller City is the shortlisted entry from Viennese architecture firm Coop Himmelb(l)au and Melbourne-based Architectus. Shaped like a tri-blade propeller, the 335-metre-high tower would be topped by a penthouse with its own private landscape garden and pool.

Residential areas would be prioritised, with 46 floors of apartments featuring high ceilings and full length glazing. The hotel would comprise 15 floors and have its own winter garden complete with tropical vegetation and a swimming pool.

Dutch firm MVRDV and Australian architects Woods Bagot have proposed Stack, an "interconnected vertical city" that would rise 359 metres above the city. Stacked neighbourhoods in the city would be demarcated by different textures in the facade

In the centre of the tower a hotel pool with an underwater glass window would be surrounded by stepped terraces. Elsewhere in the skyscraper visitors could enjoy a tropical garden where residents would be able to job or walk their dog along treetop walkways.

Rotterdam-based OMA and Brisbane architecture practice Conrad Gargett's unnamed proposal for the Southbank is a colourful take on the traditional vaulted markets and arcades found in Melbourne.

Emphasising the foot of the tower rather than the top, a "vertical city" would be built between arches supporting a rainbow-coloured facade. All the cultural, commercial and educational functions of the development would be located here, with the hotel, residences and offices placed in the tower above to give them the most light.

The winning design will be announced 2018.

Laurence Grigorov is often influenced by modern design trends and ideas and uses these as inspiration in the company’s architectural style.

Melbourne Australia