2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Lee Geon Yong, Lee Ji Won Yong, Moon Sang Woo
South Korea

A vicious cycle of poverty and environmental destruction In the year 72, Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, said, “Poverty is the most serious source of pollution among all the sources of pollution.”

Poverty exacerbates the environment and environmental pollution exacerbates poverty. Nature is the only resource that poor people can have: trees provide nesting and firewood, and lakes and rivers provide food and drinking water.

However, the resources continue to deplete and get destroyed as their activities for survival continue. The environment continues to get destroyed due to logging and high concentrations of coal combustion, but they have no choice. For them, nature is just a refuge for survival, not a subject of protection.

Tondo, Philippines, is one of the world’s three major slums. In 1954, the government of Manila announced this place as a garbage collection site. The poor who came to Manila to make money sold garbage in Tondo and continued their livelihoods, forming villages in the vicinity. All kinds of garbage piled up, making them vulnerable to odors as well as viruses. In addition, the pollution flowed into the river, which created a barren environment. Residents who cannot afford their need for living, use water from polluted rivers while living in a densely populated place with poverty at the statistics of about 65,000/km2 (1.2-2m2 per resident). Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Camille Rabany
United States

A skyscraper is a testament to the human capacity to physically manifest our values. With this in mind, the Invisible Skyscraper aims to offset the carbon emissions of the cars driving along park ave with the creation of a carbon-absorbing park. It will accomplish this by placing vehicular circulation below ground to make way for a carbon-absorbing park on the street level. By placing the roads underground, a hierarchy can be implemented with different speeds and greatly improve traffic.

The average car emits 411 grams of C02 per mile. The average tree absorbs 48 pounds of co2 per year. This implies that, in a single minute, one tree can absorb approximately 0.5 grams of C02. The total footprint of the invisible skyscraper stretches from park avenue down to the Manhattan bridge. it is 7.8 miles long. Along with said footprint, there is the potential to plant 41,200 trees, each absorbing 0.5 grams of c02 per minute. This would create an offset of 20,600 grams of co2.

Taking the average car emission into account along the 7.8 miles, this would accrue to 3205 grams of potential c02 emissions at any one moment during a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam. Park Avenue has six lanes, so the total potential emission equals 19234 grams of C02.

Having the roads below ground will, in turn, reduce the numerous other pollutants of cars. The pedestrian senses will be freed of noise, odor, visual strain, physical danger, not to mention the taste of gasoline in the air.

Replacing each of these with the positive attributes of a park; the song of birds, the smell of flowers, the calming effect of greenery, etc… Moreover, it will bring the streetscape back to a human scale, a pedestrian speed. Slowing down the physical and visual references could, in turn, reduce anxiety.

The benefits of this carbon-neutral solution would have a positive impact that reaches all the way to the sky. Thus, it is the invisible volume, free of pollution, infused with the positive attributes of a park, that defines the skyscrapers’ reach. Creating an invisible field of positive energy. Reclaiming the street for pedestrians, reducing pollution, creating environments we want to live in, all the while solving traffic issues. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Jiahui Yao, Peng Zhang
China

Nowadays, many big cities are facing economic transformation. Cities that once relied on industrial production are now moving factories out of urban areas and expanding the proportion of tertiary industry. This makes many factories face demolition. A chimney is one of the most representative factory buildings. It is usually an important landmark in an area and can give people a strong sense of place. And the chimney is the representative building of the specific developmental stage of the city, which can make the citizens better understand the development process of the city, and make people feel the change of the city times is linear, rather than sudden, which can provide people with a good sense of belonging. However, the abandoned chimney is no longer valuable. In order to regenerate the chimney, it must be endowed with new functions, so that it can continue to serve the city in the future. By transforming and reorganizing the main body of the chimney, and combining it with the function modules that can be industrially mass-produced, the abandoned chimney can be turned into a skyscraper that matches the new urban environment. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Jinsong Xian
China

Nuclear-contaminated water sources have caused environmental issues since Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan was destroyed by a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in March 2011, and the radioactive sewage is produced during the process of cooling disused nuclear power plants. Under the influence of the earthquake and tsunami, the operating equipment and cooling system of the nuclear power plant have been completely destroyed. In order to avoid the meltdown of this nuclear power plant, workers have continuously poured water into it to cool the core for the past ten years. In fact, the water used for cooling will attach a large amount of radionuclide after being injected into the core; therefore, those water cannot be reused. After preliminary nuclide purification, the radioactive sewage which has basically been purified will be stored in water tanks, but the tritium element in it is still difficult to be removed. By 2020, the amount of sewage in all water tanks has exceeded 1 million tons, and this figure is still increasing dramatically. Nowadays, a large amount of sewage containing tritium elements urgently needs to be properly treated. Read the rest of this entry »