Architects perform structural gymnastics in Asia.

As the boom gathers momentum all over the world, New York architects are finding opportunities to design projects they have only dreamed about in places they never suspected they would gain entrance.

Nowhere is that possibility being felt more acutely than in China, where the quality of architecture is said to be improving by a generation every five years and western architects are being given the opportunity to perform structural gymnastics designing shapes that many would never dare to try and complete in New York.

In doing so, both Chinese culture, and the lessons learned on their projects, shifts the scope of the work they bring back home.

"Working in China gives architects a chance to branch out into new building types. If your firm is experienced in residential and transportation, maybe you will get a chance to do a cultural project. There is less pigeonholing of architects there and there are so many projects on a scale you are not going to find anywhere else. That variety is a tremendously attractive aspect of working there," said Jamie von Klemperer, principal of Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects, who have completed over 30 large scale projects in China.

One of the precariously shaped projects KPF tried was the high rise spherical shaped Museum of Science and Technology in Beijing, that was shaped in large curved sections like sections of an orange and presented significant technical challenges, particularly when it came to designing the curtain wall.

Steven Holl architects developed their Vanke Center, "a floating horizontal skyscraper," in Shenzhen, China, on the South China sea, a cluster of buildings propped up on glass and white pillars shaped like coral that make them appear like they are floating on the sea; and a special geothermal pond below that creates a microclimate that circulates throughout the building.

Robert Siegel architects also found themselves challenging structural conventions when they modeled the Korean Embassy in Beijing design after Korean palaces they had studied, rather than building a monumental structure with clear hierarchical definitions.

"Architects might not attempt to execute some of these projects in Europe or the United States," von Klemperer said. "A lot of the reason for that has to do with the cost of labor."

"US Markets are so sophisticated in their quest for efficiency that when it comes down to renting a Class A space to a top notch tenant, they are not willing to experiment past a certain point. In China, fluctuations of rates of growth and the value of real estate are harder to pin down. You can do this sort of building and still come out ahead."

Different cultural standards also change the face of what's possible.

"During one of the presentations for our project, the Linked Hybrid, in Beijing, Zhang Lei, president of the Modern Group made a simple remark. 'The spiritual is the most important aspect of this project, not the commercial. We are sure of commercial success. We want spiritual success. The thinking of life should be incorporated into the architecture," related Stevel Holl, principal of Steven Holl architects.

Opportunities for expression are also available because architecture is still in its beginning phases in many Chinese cities, von Klemperer said.

"Western cities are, for the most part, finishing themselves, where as Chinese cities are, for the most part, building themselves wholesale," he said.

Even without geometrical gymnastics, working in China presents architects with significant technical challenges. The large delta swamp Shanghai is built on, where clay and sand and silt is found as deep as the drill can burrow, requires foundations to be built in stages over periods of years rather than months.

KPF rose to the challenge in the creation of their Plaza 66, a multitower mixed use development built for the HangLung Corporation that broke engineering traditions in the city, requiring different foundation styles to support the structure's different heights and widths simultaneously. The architects also secured permission for the building to move 50% more in the process of settling than local "stiffness" laws allowed, said von Klemperer. In turn, less concrete had to be poured, making the building more efficient.

The shifting of technical laws seeps into architects when they build overseas. Robert Stern Architects found themselves challenged to create the sophisticated structure of the Korean embassy using low-tech parts that didn't need heavy maintenance if mechanics weren't readily available. The south facing double glass wall they created to improve the overall sustainability of the building was built with manually controlled leuvers rather than the mechanical ones they use in New York.

To accommodate the skyrocketing price of electricity, they created an ice storage system in the basement of the facility in an insulated tank, similar to the old ice houses people used to build to store ice by rivers during the winter. The plant makes ice during the night when electricity costs are significantly low, which is drawn off during the daytime.

In other ways, technology is more advanced in China. The scale of the Linked Hybrid project which has 660 geothermal wells providing heating and cooling would be difficult to achieve in the United States.

"My main reason for working in China is the freedom to envision and realize 2lst century aims such as renewable energy systems and hybrid urban programs with openness and new public space. Developers in the USA will have to travel to China to see the realization of real sustainable energy systems on an urban scale," Holl said.

Seemingly mundane technical challenges expanded architects perceptions. While the usage of hard metric systems which required a simple switch in the Audocad program on the computer--and ultimately made work easier by the elimination of fractions--Stern found himself walking around for months with a one inch square metric tape, measuring shapes to see what they looked like in three dimensions.

They have to surmount cultural challenges as well.

In a competition Siegel entered to design a Chinese housing project, he was challenged to understand why his proposal to incorporate significant amounts of outdoor space in the development was vehemently rejected as a radical idea until he was able to grasp the different Chinese cultural views about public and private space.

KPF had a similar problem, when in the midst of a long negotiation process to design and erect a building in Shanghai, criticism erupted that the circular crown of the building resembled the Rising Sun on the Japanese Imperial Flag and had to be redesigned. The building now has a very handsome trapezoidal crown which satisfied everyone's requirements for the building.

The work these firms do overseas informs their work in New York. von Klemperer has inducted many Chinese architects graduated from top schools in China to his New York firm.

Invariably firms venturing to countries like China, change the scope of the skyline, von Klemperer notes that mixed use buildings were jumpstarted across Asia, while it is only recently they began to take off in New York in large scale projects like the large mixed use plans for Penn District.

Ultimately, it is the hard lessons the firms learned overseas that keep them attuned to the changing nature of architecture.

"Working in China gave us some pause to figure out what was different about China, to figure out how we were going to build a Chinese building, not just an American building in China. It helps to sensitize us to regional issues that we can bring back to our work in any part of the world that is different. It helps us to remember that there is no McDonalds approach to architecture, that architecture isn't about having the same things stamped all over the world," Siegel said.