Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation students David Zhai and Alexis Burson jumped way ahead of the curb with their “Ubiquitious Network” entry into the d3: Housing Tomorrow competition. Their fusion of data exchange, living space, and urban farming earned them a selection in the New York category of the competition.

The design is for an arrangement of high and low density housing to be built around a network of towers containing vertical farms and data servers.  Revenue from the servers would be used to offset housing costs for residents and their excess heat would be used like in a greenhouse to help grow food in the vertical farms.Parking is all located underground and a light rail system is proposed to run through the development.

This interwoven information grid provides a perfect system to build a smart complex on. Internal communication and socialization is encouraged by the system. Integrated biometrics provide feedback on health and lifestyle and will even be used in harmony with emergency services. When households wish for more privacy, a technology called the “Data Negation Space”, a 21^st century membrane akin to the Faraday Cage of the 19^th allows residents to filter in and out certain information or even cut off feedback altogether. Read the rest of this entry »

Power Flower is an exploration by Amsterdam based NL Architects to create aesthetically pleasing and adaptable windmills for use in all environments, particularly in urban settings. To create a design that is one part power plant one part art, NL asked themselves the question: “Can we turn windmills into objects of desire?”

NL began by examining current windmill design: the typical three-rotor, and horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) design. These windmills require a large amount of space around them to operate safely and efficiently. This of course leaves significant unworkable space between mills that could be used to capture more energy. Not to mention they must be placed at a safe distance from homes, where that energy is needed, a particular hindrance to use in urban settings. Read the rest of this entry »

Part house-part playground, the Peak series is a series of pre-fabricated summer homes by Swedish firm Visiondivision that can be placed in many environments. The Peak series homes are designed to promote close community and leisure.

The interior of the Peak series cabins is divided into three levels. At the base is the main entrance and open social space with a kitchen and living room, above the ground floor is a loft space Visiondivision calls a mezzanine-like space that holds guest bedrooms. The top floor houses the master bedroom and a bathroom.

The Peak series different from other pre-fab homes is its unique wood plank façade design. The planks are left with spaces in between so the entire structure can be climbed and essentially becomes a giant jungle gym. Hatches open up from each floor so people inside can climb out and around on the exterior structure, as well as have convenient fire escapes and views of the surrounding environment. Read the rest of this entry »

One of four entrants to the competition to envision the new Calabar International Convention Center in Nigeria, Mecanoo Architecten took placement to heart by tucking the complex underneath the hilly local topography. The design calls for a grand entrance that run north south through the hillside, feeding a plaza hosting numerous water elements.

The stitching of the convention center to the landscape is furthered by numerous openings at different elevations providing walkouts and daylight. Large skylights provide daylight to the main corridor and upper gathering areas. The main hall has a capacity of 1,500 people with a smaller exhibition area than can hold 600. A series of support rooms, meeting spaces, and a business center provide a diverse set of functions for the facility. Read the rest of this entry »

Lea Ceramiche is taking part in Interni Mutant Architecture & Design with an installation designed by Zaha Hadid.

The installation features Lea Slimtech, the ultraslim slab (just 3mm) available in large sizes (up to 3m x 1m): the chosen site is an 18th century courtyard, one of the most attractive areas at Milan’s University, where the slabs will be used to bring a three dimensional structure to life. It will be a sort of vortex made entirely in porcelain stoneware; a dynamic space demonstrating a flexible and unconventional use of this innovative material.

The project started out as a contemporary take on courtyard architecture. It is a dynamic composition that starts out at the perimeter of the space and then follows the orthogonal shape of the columns and lines, meeting at the centre, creating complex and sinuous geometrical patterns: The 800 m2 area is covered with 7 different colours of Slimtech slabs (from milk white to black coffee) that are 1 metre wide and in various heights ranging to a maximum of 2 metres. The installation transforms the courtyard into a space with a constantly shifting shape and colour depending on the many possible viewing angles. Fluorescent light tubes by Artemide run along the structure, lighting up the building and creating a link between the formal layout of the setting and the flowing lines of the project. Read the rest of this entry »

eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. The award seeks to discover young talent, whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.

The Jury of the 2011 edition was formed by leaders of the architecture and design fields including: Juan Azulay [principal Matter Management, professor at Southern California Institute of Architecture], CarloMaria Ciampoli [port director Live Architecture Network], Mario Cipresso [principal Studio Shift, professor at University of Southern California], Ted Givens [principal 10 Design], Eric Goldemberg [principal Monad Studio, professor at Florida International University], Jose Gonzalez [principal Softlab, professor at Pratt Institute], John Hill [editor Archidose], Mitchell Joachim [principal Terreform One, professor at New York University], Andrew Liang [principal Studio 0.10., professor at University of Southern California], Javier Quintana [principal Taller Basico de Arquitectura, Dean of IE School of Architecture], Rezza Rahdian [Architect, Second Place 2009 Skyscraper Competition], Michel Rojkind [principal Rojkind Arquitectos], and Michael Szivos [principal Softlab, professor at Pratt Institute]. The Jury selected 3 winners and 32 honorable mentions. eVolo Magazine received 715 projects from all five continents and 95 different countries.

The first place was awarded to Atelier CMJN (Julien Combes, Gaël Brulé) from France for their ‘LO2P Recycling Skyscraper’ in New Delhi, India. The project is designed as a large-scale wind turbine that filters polluted air with a series of particle collector membranes, elevated greenhouses, and mineralization baths.

The second place was awarded to Yoann Mescam, Paul-Eric Schirr-Bonnans, and Xavier Schirr-Bonnans from France for a dome-like horizontal skyscraper that harvests solar energy, collects rainwater, and preserves the existing urban fabric at ground level thanks to its large skylights and small footprint.

The recipient of the third place is Yheu-Shen Chua from the United Kingdom for a project that re-imagines the Hoover Dam in the U.S. as an inhabitable skyscraper that unifies the power plant with a gallery, aquarium, and viewing platform that engages the falling water directly.

Among the honorable mentions there are “waterscrapers” that clean oil spills and desalinate sea water, inverted skyscrapers for a floating Olympic villa, recycling towers, research skyscrapers that harvest lightning power, vertical cemeteries and amusement parks, sports skyscrapers, fish farms, and “living mountains” for desert climates. Other proposals use the latest building technologies and parametric design to configure environmentally conscious self-sufficient buildings.

eVolo Magazine would like to acknowledge all the competitors for their effort, vision, and passion for architectural innovation and the members of the Jury for their knowledge, time, and enthusiasm during the long review process.

eVolo Magazine is also pleased to announce the publication of a Limited Edition  book (only 500 copies) that celebrates the sixth anniversary of the prestigious international Skyscraper Competition. With more than 3,000 projects received, we are showcasing the best 300 proposals from the past six years, including 2011, in a large-format hardcover book. Our goal is to edit a true gem of contemporary architecture printed in over one-thousand full-color pages.

ORDER LIMITED EDITION BOOK

First Place
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Atelier CMJN
Julien Combes, Gaël Brulé
France

Conceived as a giant turbine the LO2P skyscraper would be located in New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world due to the exponential increase in population and cars -it is estimated that number of cars grows by one-thousand every day.

The idea behind this skyscraper is to recycle the old cars and use them as building material for the new structure. The building is designed as a giant lung that would clean New Delhi’s air through a series of large-scale greenhouses that serve as filters. Another set of rotating filters capture the suspended particles in the air while the waste heat and carbon dioxide from the recycling center are used to grow plants that in turn produce bio-fuels. Read the rest of this entry »

Second Place
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Yoann Mescam, Paul-Eric Schirr-Bonnans, Xavier Schirr-Bonnans
France

The construction of skyscrapers has been an architectural solution for high-density urban areas for almost a century for its ability to combine height with a small footprint. Today there is a constant race between large metropolises and nations to build the tallest structure, but it has been proven that this typology is sometimes not desirable for medium-size cities where skyscrapers destroy the skyline and disrupt the infrastructure of a specific location.

The Flat Tower is a new high-density typology that deviates from the traditional skyscraper. It is based on a medium-height dome structure that covers a large area while preserving its beauty and previous function. The dome is perforated with cell-like skylights that provide direct sunlight to the agricultural fields and to the interior spaces. The dome’s large surface area is perfect to harvest solar energy and rainwater collection. Read the rest of this entry »

Third Place
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Yheu-Shen Chua
United Kingdom

The current public amenities of the world-famous Hoover Dam in the United States consist of a viewing platform, a bridge, and a gallery scattered around the entire site. This project aims to reconfigure these programs by merging them into a single vertical super structure.

One of the main purposes of the project is to allow the water from the upstream river to engage directly with the visitors through a series of containers. A hanging tower above the 700-foot drop into the Black Canyon would be used as gallery and a vertical aquarium. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Studio DMTW
Marc Anton Dahmen, Rene Lierschaft, Anna-Maria Wiedekind
Germany

NeoTax is a proposal for a three-dimensional city grid as a response to dead ends, long connection paths, wasted area, and interference with surface-related bio-ecological processes generated by standard skyscrapers.

NeoTax is a three-dimensional infrastructure network organized in a horizontal and vertical street grid that offers short connection paths and higher urban density with better local communications, less social isolation, and higher number of neighbor interactions. This projects seeks to create a hyper-rectangle, where residents can occupy a building site on X, Y and Z coordinates.

The network is based on a modular system where each module can be viewed as a separate quarter or neighborhood. It is designed to be able to expand by adding new infrastructure modules with plug-in residences that are less dependent on specific terrain conditions. Read the rest of this entry »