Marina Bay Sands

Safdie's brief from Las Vegas Sands was a single building that could hold two casino-hotel towers' worth of program and still read, from across the bay, as one image. The answer sets three 55-storey towers side by side and locks them together at the top with a single cantilevered platform — the SkyPark — whose steel hull was prefabricated in fourteen sections and lifted into place, top-heavy engineering that reads, from below, as a boat balanced on three columns. The deck carries the world's largest rooftop infinity pool, a public observation deck and restaurants, cantilevering 65.5 metres past the north tower with no visible support. Below, an inverted-lotus-shaped pavilion holds the ArtScience Museum, and a wavy glass-and-steel canopy roofs the casino and shopping podium along the waterfront. Construction ran from 2006, delayed past its original 2009 target by the 2008 financial crisis and materials shortages, and the resort opened in phases from April 2010 to a full opening on 17 February 2011, at a total cost of roughly S$8 billion.