NEW YORK, NY.- The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has named Steven Holl Architects’ recently completed Linked Hybrid complex in Beijing the recipient of the “Best Tall Building” in Asia and Australia award.

Annually, the CTBUH recognizes one outstanding tall building from each of four geographical regions: Americas, Asia and Australia, Europe, and Middle East and Africa. The “Best Tall Building Overall” will be selected from among these four recipients at the Awards Dinner on October 23 during the CTBUH 2009 Chicago Conference. Recipients must possess seamless integration of architectural form, structure, and building systems, as well as exhibit sustainable design qualities working to preserve the quality of urban life.

The 220,000 square-meter Linked Hybrid complex includes eight towers linked by a ring of eight sky bridges housing a variety of public functions. The complex is located adjacent to the former city perimeter of Beijing. To counter current urban development trends in China, the complex forms a new twenty-first century porous urban space, inviting and open to the public from every side. In addition to more than 750 apartments, the complex includes public, commercial, and recreational facilities as well as a hotel and school. With sitelines around, over, and through multifaceted spatial layers, this “city within a city” has as one of its central aims the concept of public space within an urban environment, and can support all the activities and programs for the daily lives of over 2500 inhabitants.

Steven Holl Architects has realized cultural, civic, academic and residential projects both in the United States and internationally. Steven Holl Architects (SHA) is a 49 person architecture and urban design office founded in 1976, and working globally as one office from two locations; New York City and Beijing. Steven Holl leads the office with partners Chris McVoy (New York) and Li Hu (Beijing). Most recently completed is the Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex (Beijing, China), third on TIME magazine’s list of Architectural Marvels of 2007. Currently in construction are the Knut Hamsun Center (Hamarøy, Norway), the Herning Center of the Arts (Herning, Denmark), Nanjing Museum of Art and Architecture (Nanjing, China), the Vanke Center (Shenzhen, China), Beirut Marina (Beirut, Lebanon), Cité de l’Océan et du Surf with Solange Fabião (Biarritz, France), and the large mixed-use complex in Chengdu, China: the Sliced Porosity Block. In 2007 Steven Holl Architects opened the highly lauded Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri). Recently the office has won a number of international design competitions including Sail Hybrid (Knokke-Heist, Belgium), Meander (Helsinki, Finland), the LM Harbor Gateway (Copenhagen, Denmark) and the new Center for Creative and Performing Arts for Princeton University (Princeton, New Jersey). Steven Holl is a tenured Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture and Planning.