International update

Shanghai ripple effect. Reflecting the technical nature of its client's work, Chicago-based Leo A. Daly designed the façade of a 36-story office tower for software developer Goyeah Group, Shanghai, China, to ripple at the top. "This is a metaphor of the digitization process," says Michael Winstanley, Daly's director of design. "The top of the building delaminates and dematerializes much like the process of images and information being translated into '1's and '0's, transmitted through space, only to rematerialize," he explains.

China's Olympic bouquet. Known as the "Flower City," Guangdong, China, is a 2,000-year-old city with a balmy climate that stays green year-round. Mimicking its dense natural vegetation, the new 80,000-seat Guangdong Olympic Stadium "grows out of the ground to a sculpted upper edge, like the petals of a flower," comments Gordon Wood, principal in charge with A/E Ellerbe Becket, Kansas City, Mo. The firm designed the stadium in conjunction with Nixon & Nixon, Oklahoma City.

German skyscraper will breathe rarefied air. Architect Murphy/Jahn Inc., Chicago, is re-examining the nature of high-rise enclosures with its design of the 63-story Deutsche Bank Tower in Frankfurt, Germany. The tower will have operable windows behind vertical panels of stainless steel and an outer glass façade, providing naturally ventilated air space in between.