Iconic buildings: high-tech by sophistication or simplification

Abstract

The iconic building principal incentive is to be visually attractive or stand out, for this purpose three main features must be accomplished: have a unique design, disassociate from the surrounding by means of the scale and have a singular form or even an unjustified formalisms in many cases. Manage to accomplish as far as possible this three features is a needed requisite and so have consequences on designing the building facade. However, how the façade detail construction will be resolved is not contemplated in the design process, considering that any façade design proposal will be figured out somehow by complex technologic innovations that will emphasise even more the building attractive. Nevertheless, not always is necessary to resort to this type of technology solutions. This hypothesis is demonstrated through the research of 5 iconic case studies: Abgar Tower, Porta Fira Tower, La Querola, Isla Blanca and Mohamed IV tower; emphasizing on the construction system analysis and the revelation of the “happy idea” of each case. The “happy idea” is an author’s term to define the construction innovation that enables the detail by simplification and no by sophistication. It is demonstrated that not always in necessary a complex technologic innovation but standard systems, or elements, applied strategically, considered little innovations, to make possible the resolution of the façade complexity in the simplest manner. Many of this innovations occur during the visual and constructive prototype progress, which is needed to validate the proposed solution and verify the correct performance. For this reason, is remarkably significant the real scale prototypes development that works as a real scale laboratory where to correct and validate successive solutions.