Architect Designs A Beyonce-Inspired Skyscraper To Be Built In Melbourne

Just when you thought the world had seen enough of Beyonce, the hippest city in Australia is about to build a massive skyscraper inspired by Beyonce. This is not a joke! 

A 78-storey skyscraper inspired by pop star, Beyonce is due to be built near Melbourne’s Southern Cross railway station, offering up apartments, retail space and hotel rooms.

The Australian architecture studio, Elenberg Fraser who designed the edifice, named it the 'Premiere Tower', as it is not in any way connected to Beyonce. A press release about the building reads;

“For those more on the art than science side, we will reveal that the form does pay homage to something more aesthetic. We’re going to trust you’ve seen the music video for Beyoncé’s ‘Ghost.’” (That’s the one with all the swirling scarves and naked women gyrating in what appear to be giant, skintight socks.) said the architects in the statement.

The video mostly features Beyoncé flapping a swathe of billowing black fabric in front of a wind machine, and women who look as though they’re struggling to wriggle their way out of skintight sheaths. The building’s resultant “twists and turns” have been rendered life-like in a visualisation made by company Pointilism.

The twisting form of the building was developed using parametric modeling, a computer-aided process that uses algorithms to produce optimized and often unusual shapes based on specific design parameters.

As a result, the Premiere Tower bulges and bends in certain spaces to maximize efficiency. It will also respond to the weather. In the firm’s own words: “The complex form – a vertical cantilever – is actually the most effective way to redistribute the building’s mass, giving the best results in terms of structural dispersion, frequency oscillation and wind requirements.”

The project has been financed by the Fragrance Group, a real estate company owned by Singaporean billionaire, Koh Wee Meng. A 1970s-era pub, the Savoy Tavern, is due to be demolished to make way for the tower, just months after it reopened in 2014 following a 20-year closure. More photos below.