DUO Twin Tower / Buro Ole Scheeren

DUO Twin Tower 

• Architects:  Buro Ole Scheeren, Hong Kong/Beijing
• Location:  Singapore
• Client:  M+S Pte. Ltd
• Site Area:  26,700m2
• Gross Floor Area:  approx. 160,350m2 (1.73 million sq.ft.)
• Total Construction Area:  approx. 285,838m2 (3.08 million sq.ft.)
• Height:  186 meters (Residential Tower, 50 floors above ground); 170 meters (Office/Hotel Tower, 39 floors above ground)    
• Type:  Mixed-use High-rise Development, Including Premium Offices, Luxury Hotel, Residences and Signature Retail 
• Status:  Commission:  2011   Construction:  2013   Completion:  2018
• Program:  Premium Offices:  64,000m2;  Five-Star Hotel: 24,000m2 (350+ rooms);  Hotel Amenities and Ballroom:  4,750m2;  Premium Residences:  660 units;  Residence Amenities:  4,900m2;  Ground Levels:  Lobbies, Courtyard, Retail 7,400m2;  Observation Deck:  1,550m2;  Basement Parking (3 Levels); Building Services:  65,360m2
• Executive Architect:  DP Architects Pte Ltd, Singapore  
• Civil & Structural Engineering:  BECA Carter Hollings & Ferner (SE Asia) Pte Ltd, Singapore; Buro Happold Consulting Engineers (Beijing) Limited, Beijing  
• Building Services Engineering:  BECA Carter Hollings & Ferner (SE Asia) Pte Ltd, Singapore  
• Quantity Surveyor:  KPK Quantity Surveyors, Singapore  
• Facade Consultant:  ALT Limited, Manila  
• Lighting Consultant:  International Lighting Architecture Bureau Pte Ltd, Singapore  
• Landscape Architect:  Coen Design International Pte Ltd. 
• Traffic Consultant:  Vertix Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd, Singapore  
• Microclimate Consultant:  RWDI Roman Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. Ontario  
• Project Imagery:  Buro Ole Scheeren, Hong Kong/Beijing; Crytal CG, Byseijing (Computer Renderings); Glessner, Zurich (Computer Renderings); Luxihon, Paris (Computer Renderings)  

Two Towers - sculpted to generate spaces with the surrounding context - create a civic nucleus symbolically inscribed within the city.

Buro Ole Scheeren (Beijing-Based) Plans for a mixed-use, high-rise development in the modern metropolis of Singapore. Titled "DUO" the twin towers are not intended to be conceived as autonomous objects, but defined by the spaces they create around them. Their curved facades engages the city and frames a "new civic nucleus" at its base, while featuring premium offices, a five-star hotel, 660 high-end residential units and signature retail space.

DUO is lead by German-born architect Ole Scheeren, whose best known for his work with OMA on Beijing's CCTV headquarters. The design for DUO subtracts circular carvings from the allowable building volumes in a series of concave movements that generate urban spaces - a kind of "urban poche" that co-opts adjacent buildings and symbolically inscribes the two towers into their context.

By generating the massing through a subtractive process, the elevations of the new towers are reduced to slender profiles. Vertical facades rise skywards along the adjoining roads, while a net-like hexagonal pattern of sunshades reinforces the dynamic concave shapes. The duo of tower volumes is further sculpted to feature a series of cantilevers and setbacks that evoke choreographed kinetic movements of the building silhouettes.

The buildings dematerialize as they reach the ground to provide a porous permeable landscape traversing the site. Leisure zones and gardens act as a connector between multiple transport hubs and establish a flow of tropical greenery and lively commercial activity, accessible to the public 24 hours a day. A plaza, carved into the center of the towers and integrating the neighboring building as part of its perimeter, forms a new public nexus between the historic district of Kampong Glam and extension of the city's commercial corridor.

Multiple levels of vertical connectivity give access to large elevated terraces for the hotel and residents, a public observation desk and a sky restaurant atop the office/hotel tower, while establishing a direct connection to the adjacent underground MRT subway station. Vehicular traffic is lifted off the ground to allow uninterrupted pedestrian circulation. Extensive landscape areas at the ground levels, elevated terraces, and roofscapes provide accessible green space equal to 100% of the site area.

The development incorporated environmental strategies through passive and active energy efficient design and naturally ventilated spaces. The building's orientation is optimized to prevailing sun and wind angles while the concave building massing captures and channels wind flows through and across the site, fostering cool microclimates within the shaded outdoor spaces.

Embracing civic spaces in a symbiotic relationship with each other and thereby transforming the surrounding multivalent urban fabric, the two towers act as urban space generators.