建築大師對未來摩天大樓的宏偉抱負

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.

從亞歷山大燈塔，到中世紀大教堂尖頂，再到聖吉米尼亞諾的托斯卡納塔樓，嚮往天空的建築總是不斷迴歸流行。

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年在紐約落成的伍爾沃思大樓(Woolworth Building)是第一批現代摩天大樓之一，其建築師卡斯?吉爾伯特(Cass Gilbert)稱這種建築是“讓土地物有所值的機器”。不過，將高樓看作土地價值的產物的想法總是有問題的。在曼哈頓或許還算合理，但是在位於中西部大平原中間的芝加哥（摩天大樓的精神家園）呢？或者在沙特阿拉伯呢（馬上將有一座摩天大樓超過迪拜的哈利法塔(Burj Khalifa)成爲全球最高建築）？吉達塔(Jeddah Tower)高度超過1千米，定於2019年建成，它將進一步證明樓高與土地價值幾乎毫不相關。摩天大樓是一種慾望的表達。

“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.”

倫敦“小黃瓜”(Gherkin)和紐約赫斯特大樓(Hearst Tower)的建築師福斯特勳爵(Lord Foster)表示：“你可以把一切事物合理化。但你沒必要非得追求高密度，看看倫敦最密集的社區，諾丁山和肯辛頓。真的，建摩天大樓只是爲了好玩，它們更多是關於市民的驕傲。如果你將摩天大樓集中到一起，你可以立即實現城市性和密集性，創造出民衆認同。”

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.”

福斯特承認，2001年世貿中心( World Trade Center)遇襲的直接後果就是導致摩天大樓的未來撲朔迷離。他說： “當時對摩天大樓提出了一場根本性的質疑。但小黃瓜和赫斯特大樓的破土動工儀式都是在那之後不久舉行的。”

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

摩天大樓之夢看來無法打消，但它是怎麼變化的呢？科技，還有氣候、安全和能源等問題又是如何影響它的呢？

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.

摩天大樓之所以成爲可能，靠的是鋼架和電梯，沒有了它們，只要是6到8層以上的樓房都是不現實的。但電梯移動受鋼纜重量的限制。芬蘭的通力(Kone)研發的“UltraRope”超輕質碳纖維曳引機繩可以將移動距離翻倍，達到約1000米，這或許能改變大樓高度——現在的摩天大樓靠人們自己中途換乘電梯。

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.”

深圳百層大廈京基100(Kingkey 100)的建築師特里?法雷爾爵士(Sir Terry Farrell)也強調了這一理念，即摩天大樓的未來可能完全在於電梯。他說：“在香港，有種電梯文化，它們實際上成了公共交通系統的一部分。”他還表示在大廈林立的半山區，“人們將電梯當作街道的延伸，高樓裏面成了縱向的街道和公共空間，那兒有50層樓高的理髮店和診所。”

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.

那麼城市可以在高層連接嗎？吉隆坡的雙子塔(Petronas Towers)是由一道橋連接起來的，但美國建築師斯蒂文?霍爾(Steven Holl)在北京的當代萬國城(Linked Hybrid Building)以其錯綜複雜的“天橋”展示了一個更加激進的未來。

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.

帝國大廈(Empire State Building)落成於1931年，樓頂有一個飛艇繫留塔。因爲只停靠過一艘飛艇，於是這個想法也基本被遺忘了——除了少量直升機停機坪——但快遞無人機的出現提出了一個問題：這個想法會不會再度復興？最近建的一些摩天大樓，比如赫爾佐格和德梅隆(Herzog & De Meuron)設計的紐約56 Leonard大樓，有伸出樓體的房間和陽臺。這些設計能適應新的、立體視角的城市交通嗎？由於送貨上門服務增多，繫泊站或許將成爲必需品，這反過來可能會影響城市天際線的景色，將樓體平滑的大廈變成更復雜的建築羣。

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，摩天大樓也正在連接到公共交通工具。福斯特在費城的新康卡斯特中心(Comcast Building)擁有龐大的地下交通樞紐，這也是個日益盛行的趨勢。

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.”

特里爵士還提出了摩天大樓綠化的可能性：“斯特凡諾?博埃裏(Stefano Boeri)在米蘭設計的垂直森林(Bosco Verticale)舉世矚目，因爲它不僅僅是一系列植物架子，而是一個複雜的生態系統。你可能還會看到城市垂直農場的出現，不僅起到了綠色裝飾的作用，還有實用價值。”

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建築事務所設計的倫敦木結構摩天大樓提出了另一種環保方式。這棟80層樓的建築將成爲鋼架結構之後第一個真正的結構創新。該設計仍是純理論項目，它既是討論重點，也是對堅固、可持續的交錯層壓木材(CLT)使用的認真研究。

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.

一些形式創新仍然受經濟驅動。最新的創新是“摩天瘦樓”(skinnyscraper)或“鉛筆”大樓。拉菲爾?維諾里(Rafael Vi?oly)的派克大街432號(432 Park Avenue)和克里斯蒂安?德?波爾藏帕克(Christian de Portzamparc)的One57因紐約中央公園周邊的房地產價格而變得可行。這些大樓每層通常只有一到兩套公寓，是財富在建築上的體現。

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.”

結構工程事務所AKTII的聯合創始人、哈佛大學(Harvard)設計學院的設計工程教授哈尼夫?卡拉(Hanif Kara)表示：“我們已經過了簡單豎起高樓的日子，進入了一個數據時代，它將讓我們蓋出更好的建築，更細緻地挖掘高層的能量——高層上的風和光，並將它們轉化成動力。”

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.

但卡拉也提出了問題：“對現有大樓我們該怎麼辦呢？在中國和土耳其，有些樓齡20年的大樓已經過時，我們能賦予它們新的功能嗎？”一些正在尋求可持續未來的建築師的一個重要關注將是改造舊大樓，雖然在短期內這種做法較爲昂貴。未來的摩天大樓可能以模塊化方式建造，這樣它們的覆面和系統可以隨技術變化而隨時升級。

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.

建築師和工程師們均贊成多功能大樓的重要性。福斯特勳爵說：“摩天大樓應該像一個俱樂部，將居住、工作、休閒和零售完全融合在一起，而且它應該是向城市開放的、可進入的。”特里爵士也提到了自己的京基100和倫敦的碎片大廈(Shard)，裏面可能除了有酒店以外，還有零售、商業和住宅空間，這與早期摩天大樓建築師的設想十分類似。

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”.

建築師雷姆?庫哈斯(Rem Koolhaas)注意到擠進1920年代摩天大樓的活動的密度，包括體育俱樂部、酒店、商店、游泳池和公寓。當倫佐?皮亞諾(Renzo Piano)設計倫敦的碎片大廈時，他稱其爲“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.

特里爵士和福斯特勳爵似乎也同意摩天大樓的未來在於從各個層面上融入到城市結構中，而且逐漸擺脫那種功能單一的象牙塔的概念。爲了避免財富力量對城市強加干預的印象，下一代摩天大樓設計師可能需要尋找思路讓摩天大樓更開放，並在各個層面上變得更公共化。