Kind of Project:

Architecture, Commercial, Hospitality, Mixed-Use, Office, Residential

Location:

Yerevan, Armenia

Site Area:

30,000 m2

GFA:

25,000 m2

Budget:

N/A

Period:

2009

ICE Design Team:

Ulrich Kirchhoff, Louise Low, Claudia Wigger

Keith Chung, Hugo Ma, Tim Mao Yiqing

The project is a feasibility study for a mixed use development with an offices, service apartments and an Intercontinental Hotel in Yerevan. Located on top of a hill above the city center and opposite Mount Ararat, the client was requesting an structure, which can become the new emblematic building for the city. As the hill plateau enjoys the unique situation, to be the only civic space with unobstructed view to Mount Ararat and the city itself, the project aims to free the ground from the building and raises the architecture way above the civic plateau. The liberated ground becomes a new urban plaza, where pavilions form a commercial village cluster (restaurants, spa, ballroom, conference) for the floating towers. The building, which hovers above the urban plaza is built upon an arch structure, in which the 'columns' are containing public services and the connected top the generic program.