2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Daniel Shen, Benjamin van Nostrand
Canada

The global megamachine that connects us operates as a complex network, a global system of flows of goods, financial capital, information, and ideas on how the world is and how it should be. The dominant organizing principle of the megamachine is the endless accumulation of capital, the central logical motor for the aggressive expansion and permanent growth that the machine needs to exist.

The megamachine comprises the most powerful organizations of the world. The 500 largest companies generate half of the global GDP. Their products – cars and medicine, smartphones and machine guns, animal fodder and electricity – are interchangeable means to their real end: the endless multiplication of money. To keep the machine running, once the demand for certain products is satisfied, new demands need to be created.

After a half millennium, the long expansion nears insurmountable limits, the accumulation machine is stuttering. At the same time, rapid unchecked urbanization across the globe has, seemingly overnight, turned the revival of the cities into a new kind of urban crisis of housing and affordability. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Raymond Yoo, Yejin Park, Angela Yeom
New Zealand

Water hyacinth is an aquatic plant native to Amazon basins, but it is a highly problematic invasive species outside its natural habitat. Lake Victoria is one of many places damaged by water hyacinths. Such changes have been putting the people in a difficult situation, especially as Kenya is dependent on Lake Victoria in terms of food and economy.

Another issue the country is facing is health problems due to poor indoor air quality. An average indoor air pollution stylus survey of Kenyan households in 2017 showed that it was three times higher than the standard WHO gave. This can lead to bronchial problems and, in extreme cases, even cause death. In households without electricity and clean gasoline, coal, wood, and kerosene are the main sources of fire. The small particles that blow out from cooking enter the lungs, causing problems. As is the case, if more households are supplied with electricity, more people will be able to cook in a better environment. Read the rest of this entry »