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Chongqing Villas
CA CAC 58-1-xx · Subseries · 2012-2018
Part of Moshe Safdie

Located on a broad hillside site adjacent to Chongqing’s well-known Eling Park, the design for the Eling Residences grows out of and echoes the dramatic natural topography of the site.

The buildings are organized with terracing villa units climbing the rock slopes and stepping up to the crest of the hill where, along the ridge line, two dome-shaped structures overlook the city. The location and organization of the low-rise terraced buildings endows each of the 126 apartments with natural daylight and affords uninterrupted views of the Yuzhong Peninsula and the Yangtze River. Interwoven with the buildings is a lush landscape comprised of cascading gardens, terraces, overlooks, stairs, and promenades for the residents to enjoy.

At the western edge of the site, a prominent 4-story clubhouse stands as a beacon for the project, signifying the entrance to both Eling Park and the development.

The terraces of the hilltop units provide uninterrupted views to the Yangtze River and city beyond. Each terrace serves as an extension of the apartment, maximizing residents’ access to light and air. Planters are integrated along the length of the terraces, and climbing plants will grow up the trellises to provide additional shading.

Safdie Architects
CA CAC 58-1-xx · Subseries · between 2011 and 2015
Part of Moshe Safdie

Located in the neighborhood of Bishan, a residential area in the suburban heartland of Singapore, this 38-story residential complex explores the balance of high-density living with humanistic concepts of community, landscape, gardens, and daylight.

Breaking down the scale of typical singular tower residential development, the community-based solution of Sky Habitat is a three-dimensional matrix of homes with private terraces, balconies, and common gardens, bringing landscape into the air and maintaining porosity on the skyline. The complex's strong stepped form recalls the community texture of ancient hillside developments and provides for lush vertical greenery, multiple orientations relative to the sun, naturally ventilated units, and generous views, all without compromising planning or structural efficiency.

Three bridging sky gardens link the two stepping towers and create a series of interconnected streets, gardens, and terraces in the air, which provide a variety of areas for common recreation and congregation. As a result, the overall mass is porous and open, allowing breezes to flow through and daylight to penetrate deep into the structure. The stepping geometry allows every residence multiple orientations and a private outdoor space, resulting in a more humane and delicate urban fabric.

At the ground plane, above a sunken parking podium, more than 70 percent of the site is developed into a series of lush gardens, which offer additional outdoor event areas, swimming pools, a tennis court, and walking paths.

Safdie Architects
Chongqing Chaotianmen Center
CA CAC 58-1-xx · Subseries · 2011-2019
Part of Moshe Safdie

Located on a prominent site at the confluence of the Jialing and Yangtze Rivers, this 9 million-square-foot mixed-use project has a strong presence as the apex of the city's peninsula. The Chaotian Gate ("gate to heaven"?), foremost of the traditional city gates, is a place of both ceremony and commerce. Recalling sailing ships on the river, the project symbolizes both Chongqing's noble trading past and its fast-growing future as one of China's largest modern cities. An ensemble of slender towers contains a mixture of office, residential, and hotel spaces. The towers, arranged in a prow-like arc, imply a great city surging forward. The outer curving glass facades, which face the water to the north, evoke an ancient sailing fleet. The south-facing facades of the interior towers center on the axis of Chaotianmen Plaza, forming stepped gardens that meet the ground. At the base of the towers, an expansive park knits together the greenery from the building facades with gardens, pools, and public circulation. This large landscaped park gently slopes to the north, offering dramatic tower-framed views of the water and more intimate views of the city to the south. Beneath the park level, a podium contains five levels of public space, including retail and cultural facilities as well as land and water transportation hubs. Bridging the center towers at level 45 is a 300-meter-long enclosed glass conservatory that contains hotel public areas and amenities, including an deck that can be enjoyed throughout all seasons of the year. Major thoroughfares feed urban activity from the south as retail streets and grand arcades, fusing the project to the city.

Safdie Architects
CA CAC 58-1-xx · Subseries · between 2005 and 2011
Part of Moshe Safdie

Crystal Bridges, both a museum and a cultural center, is located in a ravine with a creek fed by Crystal Springs. Two suspended-cable-and-wood buildings span the ravine, creating two ponds. These structures serve as dams as well as bridges.

The design protects the natural beauty of the site and emphasizes a strong sense of place, employing indigenous materials such as wood, fieldstone, and limestone aggregate. Building walls are concrete with wood inlays, and laminated wood beams compose the roofs. The liberal use of glass throughout the complex provides transparency and enhances views of the site.

The museum comprises a number of independent structures that form a series of pavilions over and alongside the ponds. The two bridge buildings are located at opposite ends of the north pond. The gallery bridge contains galleries while the entry bridge houses reception, dining, and hospitality facilities. The great hall, a multipurpose public space, is surrounded on three sides by the south pond. Additional structures, nestled into the sloping terrain on both sides of the ravine, contain galleries, function rooms, classrooms, a library, curatorial spaces, and administrative offices. In contrast to the convex roofs of the bridges, the concave roofs of these structures visually retain the steep slopes of the site.

Safdie Architects
Corrour Estate
CA CAC 58-1-524.5 · Subseries · between 1998 and 2001
Part of Moshe Safdie

Corrour Estate evokes the tradition of great Scottish houses and weaves together remnants of the original Victorian-era great house on the site, destroyed by fire in 1940. A glass-vaulted Great Hall forms the center of the house and is flanked by two masonry volumes, one rectangular, the other cylindrical. These volumes are penetrated by glass structures that are, respectively, conical and pyramidal. Surviving original granite outbuildings accommodate kitchens and other back-of-house functions. The split-face granite surfaces of the new structure match those of the original. The hunting lodge is sited so that each of the eight guest suites have views of Loch Ossian, while walkways and terraces afford views of the surrounding Highlands. In approving the design, The Royal Fine Arts Commission of Scotland noted that the complex is 'destined to become one of the few examples of world-class 20th-century architecture in Scotland.'

Safdie Architects
Taybarn
CA CAC 28-64 · File · 1997-2001
Part of John Schreiber Fonds

File includes two axonometric drawings (prints, 21 x 28 cm, 28 x 43 cm), 3 colour photographs, 1 photograph collage, 10 photocopies of photographs, 3 colour photocopies of photographs, negatives (no project file).

CA CAC 58-1-530 · Subseries · between 1995 and 2004
Part of Moshe Safdie

This new airport serves as Israel's principal gateway and represents the country's most optimistic aspirations. A landside complex accommodates ticketing, customs, immigration, and baggage claim; Safdie's airside complex includes a glazed connector and rotunda accommodating food, retail facilities, and passenger services, with concourses radiating outwards to landing gates.

More than 16 million passengers per year travel through this entry to the nation, which is expressed in a clean palette of glass, warm stone, and metal. Departing passengers check in and descend through the connector into the rotunda, then down the concourses to their gates. Arriving passengers ascend through bridges at the gates to a mezzanine level that overlooks the concourses and the rotunda, then descend toward passport control through the connector.

Traversed by arriving and departing visitors, the glass-enclosed scissor-shaped ramps dramatize the ideal of open borders and serve as a ceremonial gateway in both directions.

The airport's rotunda features an inverted dome pierced by an oculus through which a waterfall flows. Falling rain drains toward the dome's center, entering the rotunda through the oculus. In the dry season, a continuous flow of water washes the roof, helping to cool the rotunda and create a fountain through the oculus.

Safdie Architects
CA CAC 28-8600 · File · 1986-1992
Part of John Schreiber Fonds

Folder 1: see cac28/7819
Folder 2: 38 drawings: 2 site plans, 2 perspectives, 32 working drawings, 2 design development drawings (1 pencil on mylar, 1 ink on vellum, 35 pencil on print, 1 ink on mylar)
Folder 3: 33 drawings: 31 working drawings, 2 design development drawings (3 pencil on mylar, 8 pencil on vellum, 1 ink on vellum, 9 pencil on sepia, 12 pencil on trace ; 90 x 59 cm, 47 x 28 cm)
Folder 4: 17 drawings: 17 design development drawings (2 prints dated March 1986, 6 pencil on sepia dated July 1986, 7 pencil on vellum, 1 exterior perspective, 1 undated print); 5 presentation panels with 19 pictures of project as-built, 1 list of drawings and 170 drawings: 72 structural calculations, 15 preliminary design presentation drawings, 83 working drawings (5 boards, 12 pencil on trace, 15 ink on vellum, 1 pencil on vellum, 23 photocopies, 119 pencil on recycled paper [in 43 x 28 cm folder]) .

CA CAC 57-1-15.0 · File · 1985-1986
Part of Arthur Erickson fonds

File includes 15 drawings (10 plans, 1 section, 3 elevations; 1 combination drawing with 1 plan, section, detail), 105 photographs (40 prints: 24 of model, 16 miscellaneous; 65 negatives: 30 of model, 33 site), and 1 model of the building. The Etisalat Head Office Building in Abu Dhabi serves as the headquarters of the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation and provides a symbol for the corporation in Abu Dhabi and throughout the United Arab Emirates. The project was the winner of a Limited Design Competition conducted in 1985. It is composed of transmission facilities, branch office and head office functions, and public activities, all located on a prominent corner site in Abu Dhabi. The plan of the project responds to the corner site by directly addressing the traffic circle. By selecting a tower plan form, it also provides the office functions with good views of the adjacent gardens, the city, and sea to the north. A unique curtain wall system provides solar protection by a facetted arrangement of alternating opaque and vision panels, which give the façade its geometric pattern. At the project's summit is the radome, which houses the telecommunications/microwave functions. It is a unique solution to the problem of visually controlling the multitude of dishes and aerials required of Etisalat, recalling the traditional forms of Islamic design in a refreshing manner. This feature of the project has now become the identifying "image" of the Corporation in the Emirates. It was nominated for the Aga Khan Award in 1995.

CA CAC 58-1-366 · Subseries · between 1984 and 1992
Part of Moshe Safdie

This nondenominational sacred and meditative building juxtaposes two very different spaces. A terraced garden rich in flowering trees offers a place for personal contemplation. Through its glazed, pyramidal roof visitors see the changing seasons of the campus outside. A 100-seat sanctuary contained by rounded, apselike concrete walls, rises to a height of 27 feet. For maximum flexibility this sanctuary room has no dominant axis; it frequently functions as a home for musical performances of varying sizes. Skylights flood the walls with light from above and large-scale prisms fixed in the skylights refract the sun's full spectrum. The exterior of the building is a cylindrical oxidized copper drum penetrated on the west by the garden space. A tower timepiece marks the entrance to the chapel.

Simple moves of form and orientation combine to create a unique place for contemplation and gathering in a busy campus setting. Skylights and prisms wash glowing patterns of light across the chapel walls throughout the course of the day.

Safdie Architects