Telus Sky Tower
Architect: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)
Client: TELUS
Location: Calgary, Canada
Completion: Fall of 2017
Danish architecture firm, the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), in collaboration with the Canadian architecture firm Dialog, has recently revealed plans for a new 750,000-square-foot, mixed-use tower set to rise in downtown Calgary. The 745-foot-tall building will be one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city, second only to the recently completed Foster + Partners–designed Bow Tower. Designed for TELUS, one of Canada’s leading telecommunication companies, the 58-story development, dubbed Telus Sky, provides 26 floors of office space, 341 rental residences, and 15,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor.
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BIG designed Telus Sky with the aim of creating a building that will use 80 percent less energy than other developments of its kind. The project will seek LEED Platinum certification. The design incorporates a storm water management system that recycles rainwater for toilet flushing and outdoor irrigation, reducing potable water use by hundreds of thousands of gallons per year. Renderings of the new building also reveal an open-air rooftop garden, and public spaces programmed to showcase art works by local talents.
“Downtown Calgary has developed as a typical North American city center with a cluster of corporate towers surrounded by a periphery of low density suburban homes,” said Bjarke Ingels in a statement. “The Telus Sky is an attempt to create a lively mixture of living and working at the intersection of lightrail and arterial roads in the heart of the center, to help create a more varied and walkable city center for Calgary.”
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The profile of Telus Sky tapers and twists as it rises. The workspaces occupying the first 32 levels are set on large floor plates. Up the elevation, diminishing floor sizes create slimmer dimensions for the residential spaces, allowing greater access to natural light. At the ground level, an undulating glass skirt encircles the building, providing a canopy for passersby and building occupants. An all-glass structurally glazed curtain wall clads the workspaces, while the apartments feature balconies that jut out from the elevation.
The project is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2017.