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 »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Khushalani Associates
Rajiv Khushalani, Thomas Kariath, Mihir Sanganee
India

PoroCity is a project that seeks to re-organize extremely high density environments into an integrated three-dimensional city while addressing sustainability problems.

The specific site for this proposal is Dharavi, Mumbai, India; one of the largest slums in the world and one of the most contentious sites of the new millennium.

It is poised for being the one of the largest regeneration schemes of recent times and has attracted investments from some the world’s biggest real estate companies and leading global architecture and planning firms. Spread over 216 hectares, the site is triangular in plan, and has a residential population of 376,000 people. In addition to the residential population, the district has an estimated 5000 businesses and 1500 single room industries. A large number of these businesses are hybrid homes, where residents live and work in the same area. There is also a lack of public amenities, including schools, hospitals, and parks.

PoroCity is an urban proposal which addresses the physical and economic concerns of the area while preserving the hybrid homes and the strong communal bonds. It is derived from a progressive subdivision of a right-angled Sierpenski’s Pyramid, giving a range of volumes and voids to incorporate a variety of programs. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Israel López Balan, Elsa Mendoza Andrés, Moisés Adrián Hernández García
Mexico

Over the next four decades the number of people over 65 years old will increase by more than three-fold in developing countries, reaching 1.6 billion by 2050. On the other hand, Mexico City’s buildable area is extremely scarce and limited growth is only possible towards the outskirts of the city, with the consequent loss of agricultural land and environmental consequences.

This project proposes an underground vertical cemetery for Mexico City – a vision that takes into consideration the overpopulation, the scarcity of land, and the psychological and sensory experience of grieving. The ‘Tower for the Dead’ allows the family members of the deceased to be reborn, after a trip to the underworld, where they just buried their loved one.

The proposal was conceived as a large-scale screw with curved retaining walls and ramps with an enormous light-well that provides light and ventilation. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Hsing-O Chiang
Taiwan

The Fish Tower is a prototype for a vertical fish farm that could be up to 30 times more efficient than traditional farms. It was designed as a solution to the substantial decrease of wild fish which is estimated to peak by 2050.

This tower proposes an intensive, yet healthy aquaculture environment with three primary programmatic components. The first one is a fisherman’s market and visitors center at ground level. The second component is the fish farms that are designed based on the research and analysis of habitation and movement of specific fish species. Each tank has specific width, form, and shape that resemble natural habitats. Water temperature and flow are also controlled to mimic ocean conditions. The third program is dedicated to research labs, where new technologies would be tested to achieve a productivity of 600 traditional fish farms in 20 levels. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Sergiy Prokof`yev, Olga Prokof`yeva
Ukraine

One of the most iconic building typologies of all civilizations has been the sports arena; being a gladiator’s coliseum in ancient Rome, Olympic tracks in Greece, or soccer stadiums in the modern world , competitions and tournaments have been an integral part of the development of our cultures. Nowadays, with a variety of sports and the need of several specific facilities, urban planners have usually scattered them in different areas of the cities according to available land, communication routes, and existing infrastructure.

This project proposes a vertical complex that would accommodate a variety of sports facilities in one site. The main intention is to create a cluster of functions that would alleviate multiple areas of a city and make the most efficient use of a specific site. Users and fans will be allowed to freely move between stadiums and matches. A public complex that will be in use the majority of the day and that would be able to host international events, including the Soccer World Cup, Olympics, and Tennis tournaments. Its diversity in sports and visiting people would allow for new interactions between people of different nationalities and social backgrounds. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Gary Kellett
United Kingdom

The World’s oceans cover over 70% of the planet’s surface, contribute to half of its primary production and contain an enormous diversity of life. They also play a vital role in the Earth’s life support system through regulating climate and global biogeochemical cycles through their capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The pH (a measure of acidity; the lower the pH, the greater the acidity) of pristine seawater measures from 8 to 8.3, meaning oceans are naturally alkaline. When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater it forms carbonic acid. As more C02 is taken up by the oceans’ surface, the pH decreases towards a less alkali and therefore a more acidic state. This is called “ocean acidification” and is happening at a rate that hasn’t been experienced for at least 400,000 years. The effect of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems and organisms that inhabit them has only recently been recognized and is of serious concern to scientists and policy makers involved in climate change, biodiversity, and the marine environment.

The underpinning concept for the Coastalscraper is to reduce the acid levels of the oceans by adding fossilized Coccolithophores to the water. The perfect location for the project is the south east corner of England, with a vast geological swathe of Coccolithophore (white chalk) spanning from the outskirts of London, and terminating in what is known as The White Cliffs of Dover. The scheme proposes that these vast chalk deposits are to be excavated, refined and stored in large silos before being pumped out to sea where it can begin to neutralize the effects of sea acidity. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Akram Fahmi
United Kingdom

The Iceberg Autonomy is an enclave, a seascraper of suspended oil collectors and separators – a new water-world in constant navigation. It is a drifting political territory of temporary autonomy occupied by a maritime mining and refining community that is searching and hunting for suspended oil plumes in the pelagic depths of our oceans – lost oil, forgotten and unclaimed through leakages, industrial run off, and devastating spillages.

The Icebergs hunt the North Pacific and North Atlantic gyres where the majority of oil spills have occurred. It is known that oil plumes of approximately 300 square kilometers and 10 kilometers deep exist in this area. These are blankets of poison, detrimental to all marine life that blocks the sunlight necessary for phytoplankton and other photosynthesizing marine flora. This phenomenon increases the amount of carbon dioxide and acidity levels that causes catastrophic coral reef bleaching, as well as the death of local marine ecosystems. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

UseCollective
Francisco Villeda, Heechan Park, Wouter Dons, Sandra Fleischmann
Denmark

This project examines the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP16) as a basis to rethink the way we inhabit cities, how the built environment has modified them, and how global economic interests such as tourism, sustainability, and mass consumption relate to one another.

Tourist City is a proposed cluster of mega-structures in Cancun, Mexico that will eliminate the unplanned urban sprawl and bring back to life the once pristine environment. The main concept is to concentrate an efficient infrastructure network in very small areas with tourist skyscrapers where visitors and workers will share the same facilities and resources. Read the rest of this entry »