Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Jakub Kapral, Karolina Rusek, Marek Grąbczewski, Kamil Łępiński
Poland

Overview
NYC Grid is a project of urban megastructure that was designed to solve four main, present and near future, problems of New York City. However, the core of the idea is an attempt to answer the problems which apply to many other megacities in the world. The grid contains four complex technological and mechanical systems that together form one large-scale urban-architectural structure assumption. The structure attempts to provide an answer to problems such as urban sprawl, environmental degradation, pollution/noise/traffic due to traditional road transport and future inundation of the NYC streets. We think that this kind of megastructure could make a positive impact on the social, economic and industrial development of the city. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Maciej Worosilak, Dominika Kubicka, Alicja Prusińska, Karolina Kowalczyk
Poland,  United Kingdom

Over the last thirty years, the occident has been constantly confronted with an increasing lack of trust in public authorities. Years of a vicious circle when the arrogance of the elites has to lead the masses to the state of indifference. Society appears to be divided, consumed by passivity and susceptible to manipulation; full of disapproval for political classes, yet not concerned enough to fully supervise the elected authorities. Ancient Romans recognized this problem long ago rising the pivotal question – who watches the watchmen themselves? Centuries passed but we still fail to give the definite answer. Polish kings who sat in the Chamber of Deputies of the Wawel Castle were constantly watched by the crowd of heads overseeing the proceedings from the famous coffered ceiling. The ingenious design of Panopticon forced the inmates held in custody to behave properly under the pressure of being watched constantly. We use these precedents trying to bridge the gap between two sides of the system and to send an invitation for more active participation. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Milos Petrovic, Sara Stojkanovic
Italy

More than ever, the world is witnessing a high level of danger due to the constant increase in a number of natural disasters. Humanity is in demand of a fast-responding solution for evacuation and danger detection. Therefore, renewable energy and optimizing collaboration between program, technology, and architecture have come to the forefront of design approaches.

Giving an example of Tokyo, the project focus on tsunamis whose rapid growth has been reported in this region in the past decade. Earthquakes, the usual cause of tsunamis, aren’t uncommon in Japan as it sits within what’s known as the Ring of Fire, a chain of tectonic plate boundaries that hugs the Pacific basin. It’s home to around 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes. A decade ago, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history killed 227,898 people – nearly 170,000 of them in these regions. The people from Japan face an uncertain future as the next tsunami is predicted in a few years with 100% death rate in the area it affects, going 16 kilometers into the land. Is this country ready for the next one? Can it be saved by water force itself? Read the rest of this entry »

2020 Skyscraper Competition

Yusuf Aras Kalkan
Turkey

This Re-habitation project aims to achieve a special recovery and reevaluation process for large scale industrial wastes. Parallel to this idea, the project locates on a region where a power plant is operating for a couple of decades but facing a threat of being shut down because of its age and new filtration regulations for power plants in Turkey.

Rather than imagining how massive the natural and spacial impact will be caused by left-over structure, this approach of “re-habitating” the old structures tries to see the bright side of this condition and challenges to create a typology which offers a collecting and gathering system of industrial spaces which than proposes new ways of living and the concept of “residence” and “resident”. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Mojtaba Hatami
Iran

Pigeon Tower can be taken as an Iranian architectural wonder. This kind of architecture in the past, as agricultural infrastructure, has continued to be present in Iran. These towers were built on farms to attract pigeons. The pigeons were domesticated not for their meat (in general, birds are respected in Iranian culture), but rather for their droppings, which the locals collected and used to fertilize melon and cucumber fields. Pigeon dung was thought to be the best manure for these crops, and the tower was built for the purpose of attracting pigeons to them so they would nest in the towers and their dung could be harvested. The typical pigeon tower is cylindrical (circular ground plans) and because many animals prey on pigeons, the small size of the entrance prohibits large birds (predators) from entering inside. This is rooted in sustainable thinking in the native architecture of this land and the importance of this building in the field of agriculture and economics. Modern fertilizers and chemicals have rendered these magnificent structures obsolete leading to their abandonment in the fields, where they continue to deteriorate due to lack of maintenance.

Today, in Tehran, more than 170 species of birds have been recorded in the three main ecosystems (wetlands, woodlands, and mountainous regions), which, unfortunately, are reducing with the city expansion and destroying habitats. The current extinction rate of birds is several times higher than the normal rate. This means birds extinct at an incredible speed inflicting irreparable ecological damage.

On the other hand, soil fertility is a high priority among the many challenges ahead of agricultural production in the future. In the past, agriculture was a sustainable process, but the use of chemical fertilizers intensified with the increase in agricultural scale. This model which is based on cheap energy (production of chemical fertilizers requires a lot of energy) needs to be reviewed. Energy is no longer cheap and it’s necessary to take into account better options. The agricultural economy will change, and this is inevitable because the price of raw materials for fertilizer production has increased, which will attract attention to natural fertilizers. These organic fertilizers (animal manure, and especially bird manure) contain high levels of minerals and organic matter that can meet the needs of future agriculture. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Yuanyuan Wu, Yifan Zhou
United States

Facing the pressure of population, land and natural resources, the airport in the contemporary world, most airports, as one of the most vital transportation buildings, are still left in suburban areas, isolated with inner-city, of large land occupation and high energy consumption. Vertical space organization method, which is of higher efficiency, lower land occupation needs to be applied into applied into airport, as a new kind of airport paradigm.

Vertical airports based on Electro-Magnetic Launch system technology (EMLS) may become possible in the future. This proposal breaks down the various functions of the airport into a kind of flexible urban component – “AERO SKIN” and integrates them into the urban space vertically. The vertical airport can wrap anything, just like human-built urban skin, and thus, can coexist with any types of urban space, such as public space, green area or buildings of various functions. The traditional airport paradigm will be completely changed. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Dong Yuxiang, Huang Shoubang, Xiao Yenan, Huang Yu
Australia, China

Unprecedented Bushfires
Australia is a continent familiar with bushfires, bushfire management and the importance of fires in regenerating the land. The indigenous people have long known the importance of fire management and how it contributes to the health of ecosystems. Bushfires are a well-understood threat, but the fires now burning across the nation have been described as “unprecedented” in their ferocity and scale.

The Dangers Of Bushfires
Catastrophic and unprecedented bushfires in Australia have killed many people, destroyed thousands of homes and burned hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, causing massive devastation to wildlife, ecosystems and the environment.

There is also a horrifying feedback loop that occurs when great swaths of land are ablaze, As the number of fires increase, greenhouse gas emissions do too. Bushfires release carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. In just three months, Australia’s fires are estimated to have released 350 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Experts warn a century or more will be needed to absorb the carbon dioxide released. In fact，widespread bushfires in Australia have been contributing to one of the largest increases in CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere since records began to be kept more than 60 years ago. As the temperature increases, extreme weather events like major droughts happen more often. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »