Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Konstantina Kritharidou
United States

The term Transformable is used to describe buildings that are being reshaped to respond more effectively to different forces. These forces can be defined by functional, contextual, or environmental changes that can affect the purpose of buildings. Some types of transformations can be additive components, expandable elements, or even shape-shifting of the entire structure, the scale of which may vary from small kinetic components to the entire structure of the building.

The Transformable concept reflects the rising need for buildings to adapt to the fast-paced and complex demands of societies. An adaptable structure will also respond to economical, ecological, as well as ethical issues. In recent days, anything that cannot be modified to satisfy the new needs is easily being replaced. Materials are not recycled but thrown away, and this phenomenon keeps accelerating as demands grow. This situation forms today’s challenge which is related to climate change. The environmental changes are forcing us to explore innovative design configurations that will maximize the buildings’ sustainable aspect during its lifespan. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Chaeme Hwang, Nayoung Kim
South Korea

To address the housing shortage problem, we redefined the concept of urban space utilization from ‘permanent ownership’ to ‘temporal share’. With autonomous modules, fluid-structure expands city spaces in a time base. Each Module only serves a basic function and communal spaces can be created as they assemble. Buildings left with steel frames allow modules to be arranged randomly minute by minute. As a result, all buildings will not be bounded to a single form and their use will be defined differently every day. We expect to see “Pixilated Hong Kong” full of unexpected shapes of skyscrapers. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Lukas Kaufmann
Germany

Payam was the only person I’ve met who witnessed a time before the great war, before … peace.

I had seen him often, sitting in the sky bar and glancing over Berlin. One day, he was asked to hold a lecture at one of the auditoriums here. Of course, I was curious about what he would have to say, after living and working in an Omnicontinental Treehouse for such a long time. Since I just had been drafted and moved to Berlin from Barcelona, I didn’t know a lot of people in the building yet, so I eagerly joined the class. The room was filled with people from all over the world, while he silently stood there in front of us, slightly leaning on his cane.

He was born 2013 in Beirut, studied architecture and biochemistry in Teheran and Nairobi.

After the Third World War (2028-2030) mankind finally got to its senses and started working together as a unit. All the money that has been spent on military and other unnecessary, unsustainable things was slowly being invested in the global unification and collaboration towards a common goal. Solving a shared problem, that has long become more than just an imminent thread, has helped to produce more and more open-minded, well educated human beings – generation for generation.

Mr. Zaarhoon told us that he had not been drafted – like me or most of the other persons in the room. He applied for the position. Within the first couple of years after completion, each of the six Omnicontinental Treehouses had to fill their spaces with thoughtfully elected men and women from all nations on earth. So when you were from a relatively small country, you had good chances, he said. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Chien-Hsun Chen, Tzu-Jung Chin
Taiwan

Path For The Cultivators
Buddhismscraper is a skyscraper located above the crater. The crater has formed a lake after years of rainwater accumulation. The skyscraper is a Dzi bead building made of meteorite and Dzi created an ancient civilization. Dzi is a sacred relic worshipped by the Buddhists, and it is passed down from generation to generation as a relic for the Buddha. Buddhismscraper is a place of practice for Buddhists, it’s also a place of cultivating for Buddhists. Furthermore, learning and practice is an important course for Buddhists and hence this skyscraper is designed for cultivators to reach the highest level through trials and spiritual practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Gary Esposito, Ryan Barney
United States

Developments in implementation and safety have led serious proponents of realistic energy solutions to conclude that nuclear energy remains our most promising carbon-free resource. This proposal is speculation on architectural design as a fundamental component of future nuclear systems. Using a recognizable infrastructural icon as the starting point, we propose adopting the cooling tower as a misunderstood entity, adapting it as a symbol for environmental security by reorienting public perception. We propose reimagining specific energy, social, and economic cycles through an integrated architectural argument, centered around an urban ‘Generation 4’ nuclear power plant. Using a mixed-use program including an oncological research facility, Gen-4 hitchhikes off 21st-century innovations in nuclear technology, asserting its role as civic symbol and economic entity to fuel research into human longevity, biologically and environmentally—Architecture as Cure. Situated at the site of an earlier nuclear plant proposal adjacent to New York City, Gen-4 proposes the skyscraper as a 21st-century symbol of evolution, reorienting public perception, standing with Promethean conviction against fear and ignorance.  Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

HeeYong Jung, Hye Rim Kim, Hyuneun Cho, Sihun Han
South Korea

Introduction
The Earth is like a living organism in that it is a self-healing system that can recover from the damages that were done to it from external forces. Much like how injured skin is able to heal itself and develop new flesh, the Earth is able to restore itself to perform its existing functions, even after it has been damaged by natural disasters and destructive human activities.

As we enter the 21st century, the speed of human development is exceeding the speed of the Earth’s self-recovery function due to population growth. As the scale of human activity expands, its negative impact on the Earth is increasing exponentially. Human activities that did not take into account the global environment has sharply intensified pollution, and there exists a vicious cycle in which humans are damaged by the polluted environment in return. If this continues, nature’s self-healing system will eventually collapse and become irreparable. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Haitong Chen, Peizhe Fang, Yechi Zhang
United States

Peak oil is the theorized point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline. At the time of post-peak oil.  We found that there are more and more Abandoned Oil rigs around Louisiana coastal line. Currently, the research told us just in this area there are 176 large oil platforms and 3000 more small oil rigs.

The expected effects of post-oil: peak oil and sea level rises, results in a series of incidents such as Oil Rigs Desertion, and bio-habitat loss. There are four different programs designed for offshore, mid-seas, and high seas oil rigs.

Our design focuses on the deserted Oil Rig Networks, we transform the original rigs into vertical bio-habitats, which aims to exert instant response to the oil spill, offer shelter to different types of species, and create public recreational programs. The proposal can be designed into four different programs that adapt to three different types of oil rigs. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Alireza Rezvani, Aref Kiantash, Hamid Vaeezadeh
Iran

Problems

• The increase in buildings’ occupancy area and the decrease of green spaces in cities.
• Creating green space in high-rise buildings.
• The growth of population and the necessity for high-rise construction.
• Use of clean energies and a decrease in the use of fossil energies.
• Saving rain and snow water.
• Protection against environmental pollutions.
• Stability, permanence, and strength.
• Increasing the upper levels of towers for better view and light.
• Flexibility and expandability.

Concept And Ideas

• Decreasing the occupancy area using an inverted pyramid.
• Increasing the roof area to establish solar panels using an inverted pyramid.
• Increasing the roof area for collecting rainwaters using an inverted pyramid.
• The possibility to create green space in heights using an inverted pyramid.
• Expandability by using triangle, square and hexagon patterns using an inverted pyramid.
• Increased stability using an inverted pyramid.
• The increase of residential units in upper levels using an inverted pyramid.
• Better view to ground and sky using inverted pyramid.
• The tent cover that opens in emergencies (air pollution such as sandstorms) and protects the city.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Ginfung Yong , Anca Ruxandra Florina Trimbaciu, Ali Irfan Bin Shazali, Alina Marinescu, Dominic Street, Franci Tafilaj, Raussell-Vince Mendigo, Jinkun Shen
United Kingdom

As years go by, we become more aware of the changes we need to make, as a society, in order to try and slow down or stagnate the damage we have done to our planet.

Consumerism and demand for cheaper, easy-replaceable goods have led us to produce more and more plastics and, implicitly waste, every year. However, unlike other materials, which can be reused or can enter a different lifecycle, plastics generally end up in landfills. Most of the Western plastic waste has been exported off to countries in Asia, which leads to rivers there becoming increasingly polluted. This is happening especially in areas of high-density population, in underdeveloped countries where the necessary recycling infrastructure is not provided. The plastic waste in rivers eventually ends up in open seas and oceans, which has built up in time into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area in the Pacific Ocean where over 80,000 tonnes of plastic float.

Therefore, solutions to implement recycling into circular economy models are needed. The Vrysi (Greek βρύση – meaning tap) prototype is designed to be positioned in estuary environments (the tidal mouth of a large river; where the tide meets the stream). The prototype expands on the concept of the ‘Ocean interceptor’, created by The Ocean Cleanup Group and, as the name states, intercepts and stops waste from flowing past it and into the ocean and transforms it into products that can benefit the community. Due to its strategic location, the vertical village is ‘turning off the tap’ on ocean pollution right at the source. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Yuanxi Zhang, Na Xie, Henan Wang
China, Japan

At present, the scarcity of freshwater resources is becoming increasingly serious, and it has become a global environmental problem. 97.5% of the total water resources in the world are saltwater resources such as seawater. Data show that more than 70% of the world ’s population lives within 70 km from the seaside. Therefore, desalination is considered to be the most practical method to continuously provide a source of fresh water. Compared to the other two commonly used methods of freshwater withdrawal-underground water withdrawal and remote water diversion, the energy consumption for seawater desalination is low, and raw water resources are abundant.

This project is located in the northern part of the East China Sea, next to Shanghai. China is a country with a severe drought and water shortage. China’s total freshwater resources are less than 2.800 billion cubic meters, accounting for 6% of global water resources, second only to Brazil, Russia, and Canada, ranking fourth in the world. However, China’s population accounts for more than 18% of the world’s total, and its per capita water resources are only 2,300 cubic meters, which is only a quarter of the world average. It is one of the countries with the world’s most per capita water resources. Shanghai’s 6340.5 square kilometers carry a population of 24.278 million. According to the standard of extreme water shortage per capita water resources below 500 cubic meters, Shanghai is in the extreme water shortage zone. How to find a more adequate and sustainable source of freshwater is a problem that must be addressed in urban development. Read the rest of this entry »