Standing at the entrance to historic Keppel Harbor, six undulating towers and 11 low-rise villa apart­ments offer sustainable living, views and privacy for residents in 1,129 apartments. The artful composition of the sleek curving towers that opened in 2011 affords the delight of visual complexity and provides enough spatial gaps and shifting orientations to multiply the views of the ocean, Sentosa Island, the golf course and Mount Faber. Two distinct typologies of housing—along the waterfront the lower Villa blocks and, set just behind, the towers ranging from 24 to 41 floors—create an airy, light-filled grouping of short and tall towers,…

Studio Libeskind viewed the repurposing of a mid-modern theater into the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts as an opportunity to integrate city life with culture and the arts in Toronto, Canada.  Working as part of a public/private partnership, the firm situated a 58-floor condominium tower next to the performing arts center and created a public plaza along the west side of the redevelopment. The L Tower extrudes upward, with bold, clean lines, until it expands with a dramatic backward curve at the top of the tower that prevents its shadow from being cast onto the adjacent Berczy Park. Inset…

The Sapphire (Chau 43) residential development brought Daniel Libeskind back to Berlin for his first residential project in the city. The project, located on a busy corner in the Mitte neighborhood in central Berlin, transformed a derelict, diminutive and seemingly unusable site into landmark residences. The design carves out 73 one- to four-bedroom apartments on a plot measuring less than half an acre. Studio Libeskind incorporated large angular windows and canted walls that bring in natural light and invoke a feeling of spaciousness. Atop the roof and visible above the façade is the upward sweep of a double-height glass ceiling:…

Daniel Libeskind returned to his native country to create this residential tower in central Warsaw. The tower offers residents an unmatched living experience, providing world-class amenities and services that create a community and lifestyle that is unprecedented in the Polish property market. Zlota44 was Europe’s tallest high-rise residential tower when the building was completed. The 54-floor tower created a new model for luxury living in one of Europe’s fastest growing economic centers. To preserve precious daylight amid a dense and historic urban fabric, the team meticulously sculpted the buildings’ form with the arc of the sun path, allowing for maximum daylight…

Vitra is a luminous glass-clad, high-rise residential project in the Itaim Bibi district of São Paulo, near a number of the city’s main thoroughfares and to the popular Ibirapuera and Do Povo parks. It is the Studio’s first built project in South America. The bold, sculptural design features a multi-faceted glass façade embedded with balconies that form a geometric pattern across the façade. The building is engaged in a play of transparency and opaqueness: with the progression of the sun, the glass shifts between a perfect mirror of the sky and dynamic São Paulo city life, and a transparent geometric composition. Vitra…

Here, on the waterfront of the southern city of Busan, the largest city in South Korea after Seoul, Studio Libeskind created the tallest residential tower in Asia*. The Haeundae Udong mixed-use project encompasses residential towers, a hotel, an office tower, and a three-floor retail building with residential units—altogether a 4 ½ million-square-foot development. Instead of a simple extrusion of the footprints of these oceanside buildings, Studio Libeskind varied the heights, curved the façades and tapered the profiles to create a sculptural composition on the horizon.  The curvilinear geometry serves a sustainability strategy, harvesting and modulating natural light.  The concept is…

The residences designed by Studio Libeskind employ the classical courtyard configuration and naturalistic materials of an historic Milanese neighborhood, while presenting an asymmetrical layering of the façade. The residential buildings are sited on the perimeter of the site to the south and rise towards the park to the north. The facades are clad in a finely textured, light grey tile, developed for the project by the Italian tile company Casalgrande Padana. Undulating outdoor spaces create a rhythmic pattern and are draped with a brise soleils, made with new, highly-sustainable composite wood. Each building is topped off by double-height penthouses, conceived…

This gleaming, chocolate-colored structure was designed as one folded plan, and takes its name from the number of the planes (18), points (36), and lines (54) that the spiraling ribbon makes as it defines the living space of this 2,000 square foot dwelling. Challenging both traditional and modern notions of “the house in the landscape,” this bold design does not sacrifice itself to its natural setting, but selectively incorporates the elements therein for the enhancement of both house and its Connecticut environs. Studio Libeskind was approached by a client that wanted a mixture of the avant-garde and the cozy. The…

The Museum Residences sit directly across the plaza from the iconic extension to the Denver Art Museum, also by Studio Libeskind. The design employs the soft qualities of the translucent glass skin, combined with metal-clad geometric forms to complement the titanium-clad Museum. The syncopated rhythm of windows and loggias, and the geometric façade elements are among the qualities that earned this 127,000 square-foot residential and retail building an Award of Honor for design excellence from the American Institute of Architects (2008). The project came to be shortly after Studio Libeskind was hired for the museum commission, when the project expanded…

Corals is a highly sustainable mid-rise residential complex situated on the historic King’s Dock on Keppel Bay in Singapore. The 11-building complex ranges in height from 4 to 12 stories and is comprised of 366 luxurious waterfront homes. In contrast to the conventional approach of building up the along the shoreline, Studio Libeskind carefully sited Corals in a V-formation, keeping the ocean frontage open, and  thus allowing for spectacular views of the bay from the furthest set back units. The seaside living experience is further infused into the site by way of a series of reflecting pools that run the…

This four bedroom, two-floor home while completed in Germany can be constructed and shipped to almost any location in the world within months and assembled by a team of experts within weeks. Made of wood from renewable sources, zinc, and aluminum, the 5,000 square foot, German-made structure meets the highest standards of design and craftsmanship and complies with the highest energy-saving standards in the world. The prefabricated structure is composed of three interlocking ribbons with striking angles, creating an asymmetrical, double height, and dynamic interior.  The Villa fills a niche in the residential market between the one-off custom home and…

Studio Libeskind’s first project in Albania, the Magnet housing development, consists of a master plan for a new residential neighborhood within walking distance of Tirana’s city center, along with the design for the first 13,000 square meter tower within the master plan to serve as a catalyst for revitalizing the entire district. The masterplan was tailored around a complex site that lacked any public streets. Studio Libeskind opted to keep the site car-free and created a system of interconnected green courtyards linked by pedestrian and cycle paths. The buildings around each courtyard are varied in scale, orientation and typology to…

The Ascent at Roebling’s Bridge in Covington is a stunning testament to the vitality and rebirth of the greater Cincinnati area, bridging the gap from the area’s industrial roots to its contemporary identity. Situated on a 1 acre site adjoining the slipway to Roebling’s Bridge, the building reaches 300 feet at its pinnacle and is a departure from the surrounding waterfront buildings. Even so, the building features a color palate that echoes the trusses and cables of the bridge, paying homage to Roebling while also suggesting the promises of a digital future. The ascending crescent form and sloped rooflines offer…