Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Dimo Ivanov
Switzerland

Inspiration
Inspired by professor Donald r. Sadoway’s notion of giant container-sized liquid metal battery, Ephemere high-rise proposes the idea of a floating power station and liquid metal battery charging station.

Liquid metal battery
The team of professor sadoway – ambri aims to develop a giant battery that fits in a 40-foot shipping container for placement in the field. And this has a nameplate capacity of two megawatt-hours. That’s enough energy to meet the daily electrical needs of 200 households. Ambri’s cells are strung together within a thermal enclosure to form an ambri core. The ambri core is ‘self-heating’ when operated every couple of days, requiring no external heating to keep the batteries at temperature. The ambri system comprises multiple ambri cores that are strung together and connected to the grid with power electronics. The configuration of the ambri system is modular and can be customized to meet specific customer needs.

Offshore wind, wave and tidal energy
Ephemere high-rise uses 100% renewable energy sources for electricity production. Harnessing energy from offshore winds, waves, and tides holds great promise for our world’s clean energy future. Energy production is just one of the valuable resources our oceans and coastal ecosystems provide. We can successfully develop offshore renewable energy by ensuring that energy projects are sited, designed, and constructed in a manner that protects our fragile ocean ecosystems. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Jo Palma + Partners Corporation
United States

The Atlântica self-rising tower investigates the future of construction and explores the boundaries of automated building assembly and self-organization. Inspired by the behavior of insects like ants, termites and bees and their ability to construct large-scale habitats for their communities, research and investigations on self-assembling components demonstrate the potential future for construction. Envisioning that building parts can organically self-assemble into optimal, self-supporting configurations in an oceanic environment, the Atlântica tower concept challenges the ordinary construction process by building from top to bottom and from underwater up.

By utilizing a magnetic system embedded in the structural frame of the individual components, the building members could be joined together based on predefined and optimized geometry and construction sequencing algorithms. The building form would change based on the number of members deployed underwater, which could be continuously modified by addition or subtraction. These modular components would be produced off-site, shipped to desired assembly location and released underwater, allowing the self-assembly process to begin. Triggered by increased water entropy, the individual pieces would find their adjacent matches and start the forming process of the structure.

The modular framework of the Atlântica tower allows for different program types with easy adaptability. From housing, lodging and working uses to vertical farming and sky gardens, Atlântica could become a community within itself. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 SKYSCRAPER COMPETITION