Boston architecture studio Safdie Architects has designed a reimagined downtown "urban heart" for Portland, Maine, USA, centred around a 30-storey skyscraper designed to reference coastal architecture.
Located on four acres in the historic Old Port neighbourhood of Portland, the Old Port Square development will include the addition of a 380-foot tall (115 metre) mixed-use tower and a glass "retail pavilion" designed by Safdie Architects, as well as surrounding site improvements in collaboration with Michael Boucher Landscape Architecture and graphic design agency Pentagram.
Safdie Architects has released designs for a mixed-use development in Portland, Maine
"Portland is a city with a powerful history and heritage," said Safdie Architects founding partner Moshe Safdie. "Designing a tower in a city that's generally low rise, at the heart of downtown, we asked ourselves: what are the elements that are going to make this really belong to Portland?"
"The project's breakthrough was the day we latched onto the idea that this is a beacon. It's a lighthouse in the tradition of the lighthouses of Portland, those slender, beautiful structures that rise out of the land or out of the water, that become icons in the landscape for good purpose."
The development will centre around a 30-storey tower. Renderings show the tower clad with "layered, warm and textured" panels and capped with a timber structure that splays outwards. This uppermost volume, wrapped in glazing, pays homage to a lighthouse beacon, according to the studio.
It’s warm-toned materials were designed to reference the area's fishing piers and the surrounding 18th and 19th-century brick buildings. It’s warm-toned cladding pays homage to the surrounding brick buildings and fishing piers
The tower will rest on a 33-foot-tall (10 metre), elevated base containing two lobbies and a cafe. Nine storeys of the tower will be dedicated to a hotel, while the upper 14 storeys will contain residential units. A restaurant will be located on the uppermost floor.
