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Craziest skyscrapers in development across the US - from the Big Bend to 'poop emoji' HQ
A horseshoe-shaped skyscraper that curves back to scrape the ground.
Dizzying top-heavy buildings that seem to defy gravity.
And Amazon's plan for a 'poop emoji' HQ.
Architecture firms have proposed an incredible array of bewildering 'statement buildings' for cities across the US - striving for, as one architecture professor put, 'a shot of true beauty, and maybe a bit of nonsense.'
Some designers want to make a name for themselves with an ostentatious pitch that goes viral like a 60-story, city-long snake or a 'bat cave' lair.
Promising to be the 'longest building in the world' at 4,000-feet long, Oiio Studio's 'The Big Bend' (pictured) would sit right near Central Park along Billionaire's Row in Manhattan
Others are hoping to provoke city planners and the public into rethinking what buildings ought to be, reimaging how homes and offices can be more responsible and sustainable, like eco-friendly bendable concrete and high-rise urban farms.
Here are six of the most unbelievable, reality-bending architectural plans on offer for construction in America's cities.
The Big Bend - Manhattan, NY
Promising to be the 'longest building in the world' at 4,000-feet long, Oiio Studio's 'The Big Bend' would sit right near Central Park along Billionaire's Row in Manhattan.
The studio billed their plans as a canny strategy to break architectural records without lobbying to rewrite New York's strict laws on maximum construction heights.
'If we manage to bend our structure instead of bending the zoning rules of New York,' as Oiio's team explained it, 'we would be able to create one of the most prestigious buildings in Manhattan.'
When the proposal was announced, project designer Ioannis Oikonomou said he was inspired to create the Bend's U-shaped rollercoaster arch after reading about new elevator tech that could 'travel in curves, horizontally and in continuous loops.'
Oikonomou has been seeking investors for the project since 2017, however, and not everyone of The Big Bend's would-be neighbors are impressed.
The chair of one local community board, Layla Law-Gisiko, called Oiio Studio's design 'silly' and 'out of touch.'
The most visually arresting structure at Amazon's HQ2 - a spiraling, treelined tower called 'The Helix' (pictured) - remains on the drawing board, even though the Arlington County Board approved construction over two years ago
Amazon's HQ2 - Arlington, VA
Amazon unveiled the first phase of 'HQ2,' in Arlington, Virginia last June - the first finished portion of a project has been in the works since 2018.
The twisting building is set to be the e-commerce giant's new $2.5 billion headquarters.
But the site's most visually arresting structure — a spiraling, treelined tower called 'The Helix' — remains on the drawing board, even though the Arlington County Board approved construction over two years ago.
Once described as a 'glass poop emoji covered in trees,' the Helix may be a design that Amazon or its billionaire founder Jeff Bezos have had second thoughts about.
Billed as an 'alternative work space' by the company, in contrast to the more traditional office space in the three 22-story buildings that will surround it, the Helix would boast more greenery, meeting space and studios for an artist residency.
It will be like a Garden of Eden, year round, according to the architect paid to design the swirling headquarters, Dale Alberda.
'You feel like you're in a lush garden in the middle of winter in DC,' Alberda said. That is, of course, if the Helix ever gets built.
Turkey-based Hayri Atak Architectural Design called their proposal the Sarcostyle Tower (pictured). It was named after a sinewy filament common to most animal's muscle tissue
The firm described their goal with the proposal as casting 'a transparent, ghostly stance in the city skyline,' but there are no official plans to construct the otherworldly waterfront edifice
Sarcostyle Tower - Manhattan, NY
One Turkey-based architecture firm's eye-popping renderings for a 688-foot sci-fi-style New York skyscraper almost looks like the whole thing had been sculpted from Play-Doh, with twisting tube-like structures coiled inside a towering frame.
Hayri Atak Architectural Design calls their proposal the Sarcostyle Tower, named after a sinewy filament common to most animal's muscle tissue.
The firm described their goal with the proposal as casting 'a transparent, ghostly stance in the city skyline,' but there are no official plans to construct the otherworldly waterfront edifice.
But the Turkish design house has made a name for itself with similarly elegant, yet jaw-dropping designs — including its breathtaking concept in 2019 for a gravity-defying hotel that hangs off the 1,982-foot-high Preikestolen cliff edge in Norway.
This past December, California design practice Architects Orange (AO) put forward a moonshot proposal for a modest metropole in the heartland of America: build the second-tallest building in the United States - a 1,750-foot skyscrape - right in Oklahoma City.
Boardwalk at Bricktown - Oklahoma City, OK
This past December, California design practice Architects Orange (AO) put forward a moonshot proposal for a modest metropole in the heartland of America: build the second-tallest building in the United States, right in Oklahoma City.
The 1,750-foot skyscraper would tower above a planned $1 billion entertainment district, just two blocks away from the proposed future stadium of the city's hometown NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
'We're going to build it in phases,' local real estate developer Scot Matteson told the city's ABC affiliate KOCO.
But it remains unclear if locals will want a structure this big where they live, right near the middle of 'Tornado Alley,' according to the National Weather Service. Matteson told KOCO that the project - dubbed Boardwalk at Bricktown - could be built with a less record-holding tower
'We assessed the market, demand and growth of population and employment growing in Oklahoma City,' Matteson asserted.
The mixed-use, megastructure, dubbed Boardwalk at Bricktown, would have a hotel, two condo towers, an LED-lit multilevel, tree-lined highline, a pool, and other publicly accessible walking areas, if it is all approved by city planners.
But it remains unclear if locals will want a structure this big, right near the middle of 'Tornado Alley' where they live, as the area is officially designated by the National Weather Service.
Matteson told KOCO that the project could be built with a less record-holding tower.
Unlike some of the equally wild designs proposed for major American cities, Miami's Waldorf is approved for construction. It should open in 2026, if it stays on schedule. A Miami penthouse in the building is now up for pre-sale for $50 million
The Waldorf Astoria Miami - Miami, FL
Miami's first stab at a skyscraper that meets the industry's definition of 'super tall,' the 1,049-foot high Waldorf Astoria Miami will offer 100 stories of space in southern Florida with the name of New York's venerated luxury hotel and apartment complex.
True to its name, Waldorf Astoria Miami will be home to a five-star Waldorf Astoria hotel as well as private homes, just like its sister structure in New York.
Uruguayan-Canadian architect Carlos Ott collaborated on the building's messy 'nine cube' building block design with Sieger Suarez Architects.
Unlike some of the equally wild designs proposed for major American cities, Miami's Waldorf is approved for construction. It should open in 2026, if it stays on schedule.
A Miami penthouse in the building is now up for pre-sale for $50 million, as of last October.
And, since no other structure in the glitzy, south Florida city comes close to this proposed structure's height, its makers are leaning in to that scenic view in their marketing.
'Even with the great skyscrapers of the world — in Dubai, Hong Kong, New York — there'' a lot of towers,' Ryan Shear, a managing partner with the building's developer, told CNN.
With the Waldorf Astoria Miami, he said, 'you get to be on top of a world-class city.'
Affirmation Tower's approximately 1,660-foot height would hold hotels, offices, and an observation deck, as envisioned by the firm Adjaye Associates. The tower looks like an acrobatically balanced stack of boxes that gradually increase in size and volume
Affirmation Tower - Manhattan, NY
A 95-story skyscraper proposed for near New York's midtown-area 'Hudson Yards' development, you might think the Affirmation Tower's top-heavy structure would be entirely unique and never-before-tried.
The tower, which looks like an acrobatically balanced stack of boxes that gradually increase in size and volume, actually resembles one quashed proposal for Two World Trade Center, which had been proposed to rebuild the structure destroyed on 9/11.
Affirmation Tower's approximately 1,660-foot height would hold hotels, offices, and an observation deck, as envisioned by the designing firm, Adjaye Associates.
Here too, however, planners might be having second thoughts about what such a building's center of mass might do in a crisis, like this spring's surprise 4.8-magnitude earthquake in New York and New Jersey.
A proposal to redesign the tower, created by firm OMA and published by Peebles Corporation, was made public just this past March.
Although some of these proposals might strike the average person as silly, Virginia Tech architecture professor and critic Aaron Betsky has argued that the industry has not gone far enough.
'Even McDonalds [...] looks decent now, and most developments follow all the correct rules as to how to make something that functions and does not curse its surroundings,' Betsky wrote in Architect Magazine, calling for more 'nonsense.'
'The results are profoundly depressing, leaving us engulfed by sameness,' he said.
'Let's not forget about one other thing designers do, by the way: they make things beautiful.'