Development corporation BAI announced Dutch firm MVRDV as the winner of its design competition to build a mixed-use tower near the Gasometers, repurposed gas storage tanks, in Vienna. The firm’s conceptual plans for Turm Mit Taille—which translates from German as "tower with a waist"—involve a skyscraper, built in an hour-glass shape with views of the Gasometers and the rest of the city. The 110-meter (361-foot) tower’s top 20 floors are designed to maximize space with a square layout and column-free floors, while the building’s 10 lower floors are twisted to reduce the effect of the structure’s shadow cast onto neighboring areas to only two hours a day in compliance with local regulations.
"It is nice to see that if we take the two hour cast shadow regulation seriously we are able to create an unprecedented tower. A tower with a slender 'taille'. Isn’t that the classic definition of beauty?" said MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas in a press release.
MVRDV will work together with Bollinger + Grohmann Ingenieure Wien (structure) and Energy Design Cody Consulting (sustainability) on the project. Construction is slated to begin in 2016.
