2022 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Oh Minji, Kim Donghyun
South Korea

Glaciers covering Antarctica are melting at a rapid pace due to global warming. As the temperature of the Antarctic sea surface increases, the ice shelf on the Antarctic coastline melts and flows into the Antarctic sea, increasing the overall area of Antarctica and increasing sea level. Antarctica is losing its habitat due to the collapse of glaciers, and due to the lack of phytoplankton due to the increased sea temperature, the population of krill shrimp is decreasing, and Antarctica is losing its food. Currently, the majority of Antarctic animals are registered as endangered species, and it can be seen that the Antarctic ecosystem is rapidly being destroyed. In order to preserve the Antarctic ecosystem, an environment in which Antarctic animals can live is needed.
We propose a tower that utilizes the rich resources of Antarctica to supply habitats and build a food chain. Read the rest of this entry »

2022 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Xu Yifan, Lan Junkai, Meng Xianyi, Jin Qiu, Lin Lili, Tang Xin
China

The Zhuang nationality is the most populous ethnic minority in China. Their survival is inseparable from the cultivation of rice, but most of them live in karst landform, which is in lack of surface water. The shortage of surface water shaped their beliefs that the stone mountain and the tree growing on the mountain were the source of the water. Therefore, ethnic sacrificial activities such as “Sacrificing the Water Head” were born. But in fact, the lamination formed by the extrusion of rocks and the pumping of groundwater is the scientific principle of the water source.

The karst landform area has serious problems of stony desertification and soil erosion. Over time, the land has become more barren, the terrain has become steeper, and the severely eroded mountains are unable to pump enough water. The Zhuang people are facing serious problems in their survival and development.

The skyscraper is located in the Piaka village, Yunnan, China, which belongs to the karst landform area. The stony desertification and soil erosion in this area are relatively serious. The skyscraper aims to use modern technology to restore the dual meaning of “mountain” in natural principles and national beliefs. At the same time, with the collection, purification, storage, and utilization of water as the core, while satisfying the survival and reproduction of Zhuang villages, it also protects the nature worship of the Zhuang people from generation to generation. The skyscraper broadens the development boundary for the Zhuang villagers whose living space is decreasing. Read the rest of this entry »

2022 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Habib Shahhoseini, Sahel Sadeghi Abadi, Saeed Asgar Davatgari
Iran

Today, the growth of urbanization has dramatically increased the need for fossil fuels. Consumption of fossil fuels with accumulating environmental pollution on the one hand, and the risk of depletion of these fuels, on the other hand, are considered as a fundamental issue. With the advancement of technology, excesses number of cars, and the growth of industrial environments in cities such as Tehran-Iran, the health of urban residents is in menace.

According to research conducted by the Air Quality Control Company and the Ministry of Health of Iran in 2021, the level of pollutants in Tehran is 2.8 times more than the world standard, which daily is approximately around 1200 tons. Examples of such pollutants include Carbon Monoxide (CO), Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), heavy metals (Arsenic, Chromium, Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Zinc), Hydrocarbon, Nitrogen oxide, organic compounds (volatile organic compounds) and Sulfur dioxide. Based on statistics, there was only 4 clean days in Tehran last year. These pollutants have a significant impact on heart disease, respiratory disorders, infertility, abortion and cancer, which can lead to death. The World Health Organization revealed that, air pollution can affect people’s mental health and cause depression. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for the use of green renewable fuels and solving air pollution in order to have clean air to have healthy life. Read the rest of this entry »

2022 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Tiaglin Denis Valentinovich, Balash Ruslan Sergeevich, Sudarkina Victoria Alekseevna, Ermakova Ekaterina Alekseevna 
Russia

Wind-powered Skyscraper is a new high-tech complex of buildings based on the principle of using an environmentally friendly renewable energy source – wind, which is everywhere. The concept was developed on the territory of modern Dubai, however, the complex can be located anywhere in the world, with strong and weak winds, since already at 4 m/s it is able to generate electricity and provide itself with it up to 200% of its own needs.
The complex consists of four to five modules-buildings twisted around a fixed axis with rotors. The modules are interconnected by a common platform and technical floors. This form, built on the basis of the DNA model, ensures the spatial stability of buildings.
The technological process consists in converting the energy of the ambient air flow into hydraulic energy, followed by its use to drive generators that generate electricity. The streamlined shape of the buildings is chosen in such a way that it concentrates the air flow and gives it the vector of optimal impact on the air rotory unit. The air flow concentrated by buildings and directed by aerodynamic shields to the blade systems of individual modules creates rotation of their rotory blocks around a static axis. The modules are separated by fixed platforms having a rigid connection with the frames of peripheral structures in combination with a supporting column.

• In comparison with a propeller wind turbine, the use of a wind turbine with a vertical axis of rotation allows:
• Place it directly in the urban environment, which eliminates the use of extended power lines;
• Place generating modules at different heights up to 1000 meters;
• Use a gravitational energy storage device;
• Ensure low speed and absence of infrasound.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Maryam Vaseghi
Germany

Germany is a country of old forests, beautiful rivers, and historic artwork and buildings. Acid rain is dangerous gases such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide combined with water in clouds to create acid rain. When it comes to the problem of acid rain, Germany is its own worst enemy. The main sources of acid rain are smoke from factories and cars. Factories burn fossil fuels like natural gas, coal, and oil. This adds to acid rain through auto emissions. The toxic smoke from manufacturing plants is carried by air currents to other places before it falls to earth as acid rain. Germany shares its borders with many other countries. With other countries involved, it is also a more difficult problem to solve. For example, air currents bring the chemical-filled smoke from coal-burning factories in the United Kingdom to Germany. The chemicals fall to earth in Germany as acid rain. Over the past forty years, acid rain has taken its toll on these landmarks. Acid rain has ruined nearly half of the Black Forest in southwestern Germany. It has damaged the soil and the trees growing in it. Many acres of diseased trees are at risk of dying. It is the main concern in the future. Read the rest of this entry »

eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Skyscraper Competition. The Jury selected 3 winners and 20 honorable mentions from 427 projects received. The annual award established in 2006 recognizes visionary ideas that through the novel use of technology, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, challenge the way we understand vertical architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.

The FIRST PLACE was awarded to CLIMATE CONTROL SKYSCRAPER designed by Kim Gyeong Jeung, Min Yeong Gi, and Yu Sang Gu from South Korea. The project investigates the use of a series of skyscrapers to modify weather conditions that would improve the global climate crisis and stop desertification, rising temperatures, and natural disasters.

The recipients of the SECOND PLACE are Wang Jue, Zhang Qian, Zhang Changsheng, Li Muchun, and Xu Jing from China for the project TSUNAMI PARK. The project is designed as a man-made inhabited mangrove for the Tonga region to prevent tsunamis that would affect the Pacific Rim.

NEW SPRING: AGRO-ECOLOGICAL SKYSCRAPER designed by Michał Spólnik from Austria and Marcin Kitala from Poland received the THIRD PLACE. The proposal is envisioned as an aggregation of garden modules containing distinct flora and microorganisms that could be deployed to specific regions that would flourish with new life.

The Jury was formed by Volkan Alkanoglu [Principal, VA | DESIGN], Gianni Botsford [Principal, Gianni Botsford Architects], Steven Chilton [Principal, SCA | Steven Chilton Architects], Tsvetelina Georgieva [Principal, DesignMorphine], Nuru Karim [Principal, Nudes], Arthur Mamou-Mani [Principal, Mamou-Mani Architects], and Moon Hoon [Principal, Moon Hoon Architects]

First Place
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Kim Gyeong Jeung, Min Yeong Gi, Yu Sang Gu
South Korea

BACKGROUND
The two risk factors that will come to mankind over the next decade are “Climate crisis” and “failure to respond to the climate crisis”. 2019 was confirmed as “the Second warmest year in history”. Experts are referring to the end of the Earth as 2050 due to the abnormal climate. From the beginning of the 21st century to 2021, the average temperature of the Earth’s surface rose by 0.93 ±0.07’C, which is more than two-thirds of 1980. (It is increasing by 0.13 degrees to 0.25 degrees every 10 years). Due to the increase in temperature, the global village is currently facing various natural disasters and environmental problems. There are various damages, the most serious damage of climate change to extreme drought and desertification caused by drying up long-term. Of course, reclamation of forests, and man-made factors such as environmental pollution and deforestation have conspired to happen, but desertification due to global climate change is accelerating. Despite these global movements, environmental disasters and desertification around the world are still rising exponentially, and some experts say that environmental problems have already progressed a lot. In other words, awareness and policy on environmental issues are important nationally, but a movement to solve environmental problems through a groundbreaking technological and architectural approach is needed and should be applied worldwide. Then, how can we architecturally prevent desertification as well as persistent natural disasters? The answer lies in the ‘Climate Control Tower’. CCT is designed to cope with climate change and overcome the current climate crisis the world is facing. Through clouds generated by absorbing seawater, the climate crisis regulates the weather by raining where there is a drought, absorbing clouds where heavy rainfalls, or reflecting solar radiation. Read the rest of this entry »

Second Place
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Wang Jue,  Zhang Qian, Zhang Changsheng, Li Muchun, Xu Jing
China

People are often afraid of tsunamis. Technological advances have not led to sufficient measures to withstand tsunamis. When a tsunami strikes, people are still helpless. The Pacific Rim, which is linked to all four major tectonic plates, has the highest tsunami rate in the world, with more frequent undersea fluctuations. For example, the volcanic eruption in Tonga on 14 January 2022 resulted in a tsunami threat to the entire Pacific Rim region.

It is therefore envisaged that a skyscraper will be built in front of Tonga’s long and narrow coastline. The aim was to reduce the biological and ecological damage caused by the tsunami. We use the edge wave effect of tsunamis to advance the tsunami wave so that the building is in the sea to dissipate it when it has not yet inundated the city.

Mangroves are woody plant communities in the intertidal zone of tropical and subtropical coasts, with developed root systems and staggering growth, which have the best effect on tsunami mitigation. Therefore, the skyscraper is inspired by the principle and mechanism of mangrove resistance to tsunamis, and consists of a single unit aggregated to form a vast complex along the coastline. Each cell consists of a bottom pillar and a top multi-level platform. The bottom pillar is made up of thick concrete columns that form a porous structure to dissipate the enormous force of the tsunami, while the upper platforms are of varying sizes, heights, and interconnections to carry people’s lives. Read the rest of this entry »

Third Place
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Michał Spólnik, Marcin Kitala
Austria, Poland

How would the world be able to feed itself?
We live in a paradox – nowadays more food is produced than needed but the expansion of hunger is increasing. How is this possible?

Global food production relies greatly on an extremely small number of crop and livestock species. Grains are married to particular chemicals, becoming vulnerable to environmental changes, and lack immunity. Together with changes in how land and water resources are used, population growth, urbanization, and shifting food culture, this lack of crop diversity poses a threat to global food and nutrition security. For the sake of our society – and for the ones to come – we might like to rethink the ways we treat our land. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Haptic Architects, Ramboll
Tomas Stokke, Shonn Mills
United Kingdom, Singapore

The Regenerative Highrise is sited at Grønland, a multi-cultural inner-city borough of Oslo.

The proposed new highrise tower at Oslo’s Grønland metro station seeks to use large-scale development of the city as a means to repair or enhance the inner-city neighborhood. In the first instance, this is a site of unique potential, where the metro meets the river above and its adjacent cycle and riverwalk. As such the new tower becomes a vertical linkage of these existing and developing transport networks, most notably the increased use of the city’s waterways for electric ferries.

The tower structure reuses an existing highway viaduct at its base, creating active frontages spanning three levels: the canal and metro level; the high street, and the viaduct level. The base of the tower gives back to the city, providing cultural, leisure, and sports facilities for the inhabitants of the city. The highway viaduct is repurposed for leisure purposes, to ensure the embodied carbon of the existing structure does not go to waste.

The tower itself seeks to address the challenge of waste in the construction industry. Changing needs and standards often lead to relatively new buildings being demolished and rebuilt. The proposed tower employs regenerative design at its core, thus ensuring future flexibility for change.

A superstructure consisting of 3-story high structural decks, allows the tower to be reprogrammed over time. The triple-height sky villages are flexible and can accommodate a variety of uses, such as a single-story production space, two stories of office space, three residential floors, or even a row of terraced housing. Read the rest of this entry »