MVRDV, the Rotterdam-based architectural firm that caused an uproar last week when they unveiled plans for a building that reminded a lot of people of 9/11, would like it very much if you would stop calling their offices and threatening their lives, please. Well, not you per se — because you presumably do not breathe exclusively through your mouth and have a "United We Stand" tattoo etched across your torso — but whoever has been leaving those kinds of messages, kindly stop.

From their Facebook page:

A real media storm has started and we receive threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse.

MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud projects evokes regarding 9/11, it was not our intention.

The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city. It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper. It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, the design was not meant to provoke this.

The design inspiration of The Cloud is visualised in the image here.

Got that? These Dutch design nerds were simply trying to evoke a fluffy little cloud in the sky, not a jetliner making impact with a high-rise. It might seem a strange choice, but that's just what design nerds do. They wear black Agnès B. suits and Alain Mikli glasses and love putting weird, squared-off things where they aren't supposed to be. Now everyone just quit hyperventilating — unbutton your pants, crack open a fresh can of Sour Cream & Onion Pringles, whatever — and just chill. [Photo via MVRDV/Facebook]