2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

Fahim Ashab Faroquee, Mahir Aritro
Bangladesh

Within the ever-changing global economic landscape, industries serve as crucial drivers of growth, meeting increasing demands and propelling economic progress. However, the growing number of industries, while essential for meeting rising needs, brings environmental challenges. To address these issues, many industries are shifting toward sustainable practices, considering concerns about carbon emissions and resource depletion. Simultaneously, there’s a need to reassess traditional horizontal expansion, calling for vertical growth aligning with sustainable practices and efficient space utilization. This shift aims for more than just economic advancement, seeking a harmonious coexistence with the environment and recognizing the need to balance industrial growth with ecological preservation.

In the context of Bangladesh, the Readymade Garments (RMG) industry is a cornerstone, significantly contributing to export revenue and maintaining a prominent position in global apparel exports. Bangladesh’s global prominence in the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) sector significantly influences the nation’s GDP, contributing nearly 80% of export earnings. From $4 billion in 2000, the RMG sector expanded to $30 billion annually by 2018. As of 2022, Bangladesh ranks as the second-largest single-country contributor to the global garment export market, reaching $45 billion. However, the increasing number of garment factories poses multifaceted challenges, including environmental issues, logistical problems, and concerns about unsafe working conditions. Addressing these challenges, a visionary skyscraper project is proposed in Chittagong, strategically positioned to accommodate the projected increase in garment factories by the 2500s. With its unique housing solutions, such as living pods and common spaces, this design prioritizes the well-being of the staff and adopts a vertical, modular approach to sustainable expansion. The plan aims to balance ecological responsibility with economic growth in order to promote Bangladesh’s long-term prosperity. This design aims to set the standard for any industry considering vertical growth, independent of its consequences for the apparel sector. Read the rest of this entry »

2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

Lee Jun, Nam Ki Hun, Hwang Seo Hui
South Korea

As global concerns about the environment continue to mount, there’s an increasing urgency to address energy-related issues. The pressing need for sustainable energy sources is becoming more evident as we grapple with the consequences of our reliance on fossil fuels. While renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal offer promising alternatives, their intermittent nature and limitations in scalability still pose challenges in meeting our growing energy demands.

In light of these challenges, the quest for more reliable and efficient energy solutions has led to renewed interest in nuclear fusion technology. As the demand for energy continues to rise globally, particularly in advanced nations, nuclear fusion has emerged as a beacon of hope—a clean, high-capacity energy source that could potentially meet our energy needs without exacerbating resource depletion or greenhouse gas emissions. Read the rest of this entry »

2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

Shen Chengzhi, Chen Jiahao, Xu Yi
China

Once there were trees full of birds, Meadowlands vibrant with flowers;
Carefree the songs our children once sang, Gilding our minutes and hours.
Clouds came and covered the sun, The breath of the baleful unease,
Turning to ashes flowers in their fields, Silenced the birds in their trees.

In nations facing upheaval, a deluge of refugees emerges, each representing a family’s tragedy. While we cannot halt these tragedies at their source, our aim is to construct a sanctuary resilient against disasters. We aspire to commemorate the former glory of cities and civilizations, igniting the refugees’ drive for progress. Read the rest of this entry »

2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

HSH Design Studio
Habib Shahhosaini (principal), Zahra Alishi, Yasna Aliakbari, Sahar Rezaei, Kousar Panahi, Sara Soleimani, Soheyl Behbodi, Asma Irani, Armaghan Shoaei
Iran

Nowadays, everybody discerns the tourism industry as the leading industry of the third millennium.

Based on the predictions made by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the number of international tourists will reach two billion people in the next 20 years with an average growth of 43 million tourists per year.

Tourism, with all its sub-branches, is the sturdiest, most stable, and safest sector that can offer innumerable chances for employment and significant activities to the inhabitants of the planet. Actually, the tourism industry can support today’s global macroeconomic circulation in a peaceful context and away from environmental risks in an established and developable way.

In line with moving towards sustainable development, the tourism sector can comprise a large amount of economic and social strategies of countries in a promising way, and accordingly, one of the key concerns related to tourism is tourists’ residence. Since tourists must settle in an appropriate place and live there to stay and meet their basic living needs, therefore the diversity and proliferation of accommodation units is an evaluation index in the direction of the countries development level. Read the rest of this entry »

2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

Yinuo Zhang, Jialu Huang, Binbin Ye, Ya Yu
China

Recently, the news of the earthquake in Nengden Peninsula in Japan has aroused widespread concern around the world. As an island country, Japan has been threatened by various natural disasters since ancient times, which have had a far-reaching impact on its environment, economy and society. In view of the earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption, typhoon and other natural disasters faced by Japan, we have deeply studied the current problems and put forward targeted design solutions.

Design concept
Our design concept is to build a “mobile regeneration island” to cope with various natural disasters facing Japan. When a disaster comes, the regeneration island can move in real time according to the location of the disaster, thus reducing the impact of the disaster. Our research found that the impact of the tsunami was mainly concentrated in the shallow sea layer, so the regeneration island designed a rapid sinking mechanism, which could quickly avoid the tsunami. Read the rest of this entry »

2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

Void Studio Architecture + Research Ltd
United Kingdom

A day in the life of an inhabitant of the Weave.

In the vibrant centre of Bangkok, Nara awoke on the The Weave’s 65th floor; an urban mixed-use tower, emerging from the fabric of South-East Asian urbanscape. An essential solution to the issue of overly dense valuable urban land, whilst preserving the unique characteristics of Thai street culture.
An interlocking timber-frame forms a layered topography of sun-facing urban rainforests and food gardens, the tower stands as a testament of the interplay between human engineering and nature’s unruly beauty.

Stepping onto her balcony, Nara finds herself immersed in the sensory garden embracing the facade. The defining feature, a timber lattice, intricately intertwined with the native flora, creates a dialogue between the rigid precision of architectural design merged with the natural tapestry of the urban rainforest. The natural feature of the façade maintains the temperature throughout the day, with less temperature fluctuations, as Nara experienced in her old apartment building.
‘Breathe in, breathe out’ whispers Nara as she walks towards her allotment. The community aquaponics garden allows residents to cultivate their own food, therefore, increasing locally sourced produce and a circular economy within the tower. The surplus produce is either sold at the Skytrain platform farmers market or supplies the food pods within the tower. The water that sustains the aquaponics allotments is captured early in the morning by fog collectors, which recirculates the moisture from the urban rainforest façade and integrates it in the tower’s food system. Utilising nature as a collaborator in the building design creates a healthy metabolism from which both human and plant life thrive. Read the rest of this entry »

2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

Taigyoun Cho, Yejin Hwang, Subin Lee, Seoyoon Jang, Seungyeon Kim
South Korea

Have you heard of Ice Stupas? It’s a method developed by the residents of Ladakh, nestled near the Himalayas, to combat water scarcity stemming from the gradual melting of Himalayan glaciers. They gather small snowballs and stack them into cone-shaped towers in their villages, allowing water to trickle out slowly as needed. When water is required, they carefully chip away at these towers to access the stored ice. However, projections indicate that the complete melting of the Himalayas could occur by 2100, rendering these small ice towers insufficient to prevent such a scenario and ensure a reliable water supply. Moreover, these ice structures easily melt during the summer months. In response to this challenge and to safeguard Ladakhi culture and livelihoods, the concept of ‘Skycrafted Glacier Pinnacle’ has been developed. Read the rest of this entry »

2024 Skyscraper Competition
Honorable Mention

YiWei Chen
China

Urbanization is a dynamic evolution in which old buildings are inevitably metabolized to give rise to new ones. Whether they are metabolized or how they are metabolized, these heritage sites constitute the unique historical memory of the cities they inhabit, reflecting the urban landscape and cultural environment of their respective eras. Therefore, how do we decide which heritage sites in our cities should be metabolized or preserved? How do we define protected buildings? Determine protection levels? And who should define them? Is it the government, experts, or citizens? What criteria should be used to measure and evaluate them?
From the past to the present, most heritage sites that have disappeared from our history have permanently vanished, with only a few remnants remaining as ruins. Therefore, in our study of urban historical processes, we often have to piece together their outlines through fragmented literature. However, every building that has existed is part of the city and its cultural environment, and each has its value for protection and research. But our physical space, in its limited dimensions, cannot preserve all the buildings that have ever existed in the city. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2023 Skyscraper Competition

Yang Zhao, Shi Qiu
United States

Traditional Asian Community has evolved for thousands of years with its own strong characteristics and deep meaning of social relationships that work for Asian people the best. As we all know, Asians like to live gregariously. One of the underlying reasons is that the early Asian food production were mainly through agriculture. And, agriculture needs to rely on collaboration, thus lead to group living. However, In the past two centuries, with the second and third industrial revolutions, industrialization has greatly affected the living patterns of Asians — small families live in segregated apartments, and family members also live in separate rooms. Over time, people would rather face their digital screens than talk to each other. As a result, traditional Asian residential communities stopped evolving and became history. We have to admit industrialization and technology are excellent strategies that solve the growing need for residences in modern cities, but it does not mean we need to abandon the meaningful heritage of social relationships and natural systems.

It’s time for us to rethink the wisdom of Asian dwellings, and integrate it with technology to serve the new generations. So, imagine in the future, we combine the best aspects of Asian traditional architectural principles, the industrial manufacturing and assembling process, together with digital technology and the informational advantages the future society would offer, what kind of future residential High-rises would look like and how can we solve the still growing need for living in the continuous urbanization? Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2023 Skyscraper Competition

Zhaoxu Huang
China

Desertification is a phenomenon that the dry land ecosystems is constantly degraded due to the influence of climate and human activities. With the continuous progress of global industrialization, surface vegetation has been continuously destroyed, and persistent desertification threatens the poorest population in the world and the prospect of poverty reduction. Therefore, combating desertification has become a century-long problem that puzzles mankind. With the increasing concern of the international community about desertification, more and more countries and regions are carrying out afforestation activities. However, due to the single species and sparse number of vegetation, it is impossible to form a stable ecosystem and the effect is insufficient.

Although the undeveloped desert area are full of dangers, it is difficult to serve as a basis for human beings to transform nature. However, the desert contains a lot of valuable energy, and rational use of the desert can greatly reduce global warming caused by carbon emissions. The desert is both a crisis and an opportunity! We obtained all kinds of environmental and meteorological data about desert areas around the world through literature retrieval. By comparing and analyzing the environmental indicators of different areas, and according to the climatic conditions needed for plant growth, the design site of the skyscraper in Gurbantunggut Desert was finally selected. The desert is located in the middle of Junggar basin in northern Xinjiang, with an annual precipitation of about 70 ~ 150 mm and a wide variety of vegetation, which is suitable as a test site for initial desert transformation. Read the rest of this entry »