High-Rise Design
A tower is the most visible decision a city makes. It can sharpen a skyline or scar it. It can reinforce a public space at its base or vacate it. It can hold the daylight of the surrounding blocks or steal it. The work of high-rise design begins with the question of what the tower owes the city, not the question of how many floors will fit on the site.
High-rise design at Lex te Loo Architects starts from urban responsibility and finishes with structural and economic coherence. Form, height, and floor-plate emerge from what the place can carry, not from what the brief asks for. Concept and АГО stages, fixed scope, fixed timeline.
The problem we solve
Most towers fail at the base. The brief specified 35,000 square metres above ground, the architect resolved the tower silhouette, and no one thought through what happens at street level. The plinth is dead. The entrance is hidden. The wind makes the pavement uncomfortable. The shadow falls on the wrong side of the street at the wrong hour. The tower is technically correct and urbanistically broken.
The alternative is to design the base first. Where people enter. What ground-floor program serves the surrounding blocks. How the tower lands rather than just rises. Only after the base works does the tower silhouette earn its altitude.
What you get
Concept
Tower concept booklet, 50 to 80 pages. Urban-impact study, base and plinth strategy, tower massing and silhouette, floor-plate logic, structural diagram in coordination with engineering consultants, vertical circulation, daylight and wind and shadow analysis, ТЭП.
АГО
АГО package: facade studies, urban views from approach corridors, integration with surrounding building heights, address-level entries, shadow-impact diagrams. We prepare and present.
Авторское сопровождение
10% of fee through delivery. Quarterly reviews. The right to intervene when the territorial logic is being diluted. A retained authority over the concept until the project meets the territory.
Timeline
| Phase | Duration | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Concept | 10 to 14 weeks | tower concept booklet, urban-impact study, base + tower massing, structural diagram, ТЭП |
| АГО | 10 to 16 weeks | the package the city's chief architect can sign |
| Авторское сопровождение | project lifetime, 10% | design supervision, quarterly reviews, right to intervene |
We quote a fixed price within five working days of the first call. No estimates, no time-and-materials.
Recent work
- BrainPort Tower — Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2016)
- Moscow Passage — Moscow, Russia (2018)
- The Cascade — Moscow, Russia (2025)
- Roof of Light — Sochi, Russia (2025)
- River Front — Perm, Russia (2024)