Uploaded on 2014-10-22 by CarlesTuca

Cricket players at Shivaji Park, Mumbai. Mumbai is an urban agglomeration of more than 20.5 millions people in the north of the equator belt. Shivaji is the largest park of South Mumbai (Island city). It is located in an upper middle class residential zone, considered an upscale real estate cluster in the city. Kohinoor square tower construction, presiding the background of the photograph, is the latest witness of the area's urban development. Kohinoor square tower is the tallest (203 m) mix-use building in South Asia. Over 70 years passed since the firsts modern designs of glass curtain walls by Walter Gropius or the latest significant advances in reinforced concrete by August Perret. However, this tower is still being built with the same technology: tones of concrete, steel and glass. The material triad which reigns contemporary global architecture. While India is a self-producer of these building materials which it even exports to other Asian an Middle East countries, technology and knowledge has been imported from the west. Indian architects and engineers partnered with an US architectural consultancy and a German engineering company in order to complete the commission. Yet building certification is foreign, it is one of the firsts Indian skyscrapers to obtain a LEED gold certificate. ---------- Skyscrapers are a global symbol of economic power which necessarily involves global economy. How can we detach global building technology from the ideas that they represent? Localised materials don't seem to be appropriate to built skyscrapers. Why do we need skyscrapers? Is there any other way of constructing high-rise buildings? - [Wooden skyscrapers.][2] ---------- *sources:* - *Kohinoor Square Tower:* [*Wikipedia,*][3] [*ggkkWorks,*][4] [*Ssaarchitects,*][5] [*southmumbaifloor,*][6] [*Fairwood*][7] *and* [*www.kohinoorsquare.in*][8] - *Others:* [*Mumbai Population,*][9] [*Indian steel industry,*][10] [*Indian cement industry,*][11] [*Steel 360*][12] *and* [*Forbes India.*][13] [1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14139705403035973.jpg [2]: http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_why_we_should_build_wooden_skyscrapers [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohinoor_Square [4]: http://gkkworks.com/projects-commercial/item/47-kohinoor-square-tower.html [5]: http://www.ssaarchitects.com/portfolio/kohinoor-square/ [6]: http://southmumbaifloor.blogspot.com.es/2013/03/shivaji-park-dadar-kohinoor-square-34.html [7]: http://fairwoodgroup.com/project/kohinoor-square/ [8]: http://www.kohinoorsquare.in/residential/index.php [9]: http://www.geohive.com/ [10]: http://www.ibef.org/industry/steel.aspx [11]: http://www.ibef.org/industry/cement-india.aspx [12]: http://news.steel-360.com/steel/rising-rebar-import-from-china/ [13]: http://forbesindia.com/article/briefing/cci-the-cement-cartel-of-india/33354/1