Urban Mountain Tower
Lao Zi, a Chinese ancient philosopher, once said:”天人合一“，which means the highest state of the relationship between human and nature is in harmony. Architecture is the space for human activities which should provide human with more natural space.
As a typical industrial and plain city, Manchester need vertical greenery space in the urban place that outstanding from nearby high rise concrete jungles and connect to the green surroundings of the city and the natural landscape of the further suburban peak district. Therefore, the design aim for this "Urban Mountain Tower" project is to build a high-rise building in urban placebased on the concept of a mountain in nature, Which transfer a series of spatial language in the mountain into the architecture language, so as to build a new type of 21C ecological sustainable high-rise office building in Manchester.
The building's appearance is like a “mountain’ made of a series of “rocks”. When people enter into this building, they will see an atrium in organic shape with vertical greenery, sunlight comes from the top and side of the atrium which reminds people of “canyon” in mountains. The public space is integrated with private office space with circulation bridges designed between different interstitial spaces that connect but also support ancillary and ‘break out’ activities. Within those Public spaces, there are natural landscapes filled with water bodies and vegetation growing naturally on steel frameas if entering the “jungle” in the mountains. People can experience different natural spaces when journey through this building, that remind people of the comfort and beauty that go back to nature. The design will bring more green, public, and happiness space in the city, aim to become a new landmark building in the centre of Manchester.
