Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Edwin Liu, Nathaly Der Boghosian, Felix Monasakanian, Efren Soriano, Hugo Ventura
United States

Special Mention

This project is an examination of the skyscraper typology being driven by financial and market forces. Reaching a maximum height of nearly 800 feet, the building performs as a revenue-generating billboard on an urban scale.

The envelope of the structure was generated to maximize advertising perception from key cultural and civic nodes throughout the surrounding context of the greater Los Angeles area. The invasive insertion of this massive entity into the downtown area alters or destroys existing sight lines and replaces them with corporately sponsored images. Living rent-free in the towering structure are residents that are participants in the performance of the building as advertising conduit. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Kyle Schlie
United States

Special Mention

A skyscraper does not need to be about height, or technological achievement, but should firstly strive to provide healthy and diverse spaces for living and working. Density and vertical programming do not necessitate identical isolated units.

The new skyscraper is de-objectified to foster urban connectivity, green space, and community life. It looks not just to fit within the city, but to extend new fits to nearby buildings and public spaces. The building creates new street life in the existing dead space between Michigan Avenue and State Street. The program addresses Chicago’s need for affordable housing. Failure to provide new housing as housing projects are being continually demolished is only increasing the number of people without suitable living arrangements.

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Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Carrie Norman
United States

Special Mention

The main aim of this proposal is to question the role of structure within the field of architecture. Can it have multiple roles that integrate other elements, systems, creating mutually beneficial conditions? Can it be modeled like a leaf, in which the very members that hold it together are the same that deliver its nutrients? If so, structure can be a conduit—a physical network of rigid arteries and veins that not only bear load, but also house and perform additional services and operations. This scheme proposes that a research institute become a responsive, working system that utilizes structure and technology to yield agriculture, and effectively contribute to the efforts of reducing energy consumption that results in transporting fruits and vegetables from rural to urban areas. A canopy of hydroponic garden pods is designed to function as a seasonal market for the Philadelphia community.

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Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition

Jakub Klaska
Czech Republic

Special Mention

This project focuses on the fact that a skyscraper is capable of becoming a landmark within the context of almost every European city. The project Urban Image is based upon the potential of the skyscraper to become the landmark of a particular area. Every megastructure in Holland is a highly planned act with strictly defined regulations. The extreme lack of space in cities such as Amsterdam doesn’t allow mega-developments, as seen in Asia nowadays, or in the USA through the XX Century. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Leonard Ng
United States

Special Mention

Originating from the Klein Bottle, a non-orientable mathematical surface, it is similar to a Mobius strip in that it is single-sided. Its potential for spatial application is where the Mobius strip falls short, for the Klein Bottle is fully 3-dimensional and flirts with bounding volume with an infinite, single continuous side. It can be perceived as a strange tube which, in an attempt to bend & form a normal torus/loop, self-intersects and rejoins with itself but on the wrong side. The key lies in its strange quality of self-intersection, for the self-intersection provides spatial, typological, programmatic, structural, technological, site, and sustainability opportunities. Read the rest of this entry »