Honorable Mention
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Chien-Ching Su
Taiwan

Insects, accounting for 80% of animal life on Earth, are the most diverse and largest group on Earth. However, both their diversities and numbers are declining around the globe due to habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. Without effective conservation measures, not only food shortage becomes serious because lots of pollinators disappear, but the whole ecological balance on the planet will break. The main goals of the project are to conserve insects’ diversity and restore their population. With artificial frameworks and the help of bees, the high-rise structure will be built as an insect habitat.

The inspiration for the design comes from a Slovakian Artist, Tomáš Libertíny, who cooperates with a swarm of bees to create many striking sculptures. The most famous beeswax sculpture in his works is the Nefertiti bust, finished by 60,000 bees cooperation. The question is – how does he produce these works “made by bees?” Firstly, he prints a 3D artificial framework of the sculpture, which encourages bees to build their hive above the framework. Then, he spreads some sugar to help worker bees work efficiently. After a while, bees will complete a striking sculpture made with beeswax. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Han-Yu Lai, Wei-Qun Cai, Chun-Yi Yeh
Taiwan

In 2008 the FAO reported that 20% of all cultivated areas, 30% of forests, and 10% of grasslands are degrading. 52% of the land used for agriculture is moderately or severely affected by soil degradation and 12 million hectares of once productive land are lost to desertification per annum. Nearly 1.5 billion people depend directly on degrading land for their livelihoods, most of them in the so-called ‘developing world’. Land degradation leads to food insecurity which can, in turn, lead to conflict, migration, and inevitably, the loss of biodiversity. Less tangible, but no less significant is that the process of degradation not only erodes the land, it also corrodes the spirit of communities watching their homelands turn into a wasteland. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Ahmed Helal
United States

Since the construction of the Equitable Life Assurance Building in 1820, the office tower has become synonymous with white-collar productivity in New York City. In the subsequent 200 years, some 450 million square feet of office space has been constructed in the five boroughs, constituting over 10% of all office space within the United States. It wasn’t until the proliferation of the internet, collaborative communication platforms, and co-working spaces, that the office began to decentralize. Then, in 2020, the Global Coronavirus Pandemic completely disrupted the corporate hierarchy, as White-Collar America transitioned to working from home, it became evident that the workforce could remain productive outside the office. It is now clear that there will never be a full return to pre-Covid workplace normalcy. This paradigm shift has rendered the commercial office tower obsolete. If this typology no longer holds value, then what should we do with the obsolete building stock? To simply demolish it would be wasteful, arrogant, and short-sighted, for two reasons. First, all constructions have inherent value simply in that they exist and were an expenditure of finite resources that can never be replaced. To dispose of them is to erase those resources forever. New York City alone produces over 3 million tons of construction waste annually, only 35% of which is returned to the production stream. Second, it is precisely this outdated building stock that gives New York its identity. The only path forward is adaptive reuse – to transform these antiquated buildings into vibrant and essential structures that serve to alleviate the two fundamental architectural crises in the city: housing and public space. – This proposal is an example of adaptive reuse design, changing landmarked office skyscrapers like the AT&T Building by Philip Johnson, currently known as 550 Madison, to residential spaces that prioritize tenants and the local community, offering an accessible well-rounded live, work, and play lifestyle through the design and programming of homes and public spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Daniel Shen, Benjamin van Nostrand
Canada

The global megamachine that connects us operates as a complex network, a global system of flows of goods, financial capital, information, and ideas on how the world is and how it should be. The dominant organizing principle of the megamachine is the endless accumulation of capital, the central logical motor for the aggressive expansion and permanent growth that the machine needs to exist.

The megamachine comprises the most powerful organizations of the world. The 500 largest companies generate half of the global GDP. Their products – cars and medicine, smartphones and machine guns, animal fodder and electricity – are interchangeable means to their real end: the endless multiplication of money. To keep the machine running, once the demand for certain products is satisfied, new demands need to be created.

After a half millennium, the long expansion nears insurmountable limits, the accumulation machine is stuttering. At the same time, rapid unchecked urbanization across the globe has, seemingly overnight, turned the revival of the cities into a new kind of urban crisis of housing and affordability. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Raymond Yoo, Yejin Park, Angela Yeom
New Zealand

Water hyacinth is an aquatic plant native to Amazon basins, but it is a highly problematic invasive species outside its natural habitat. Lake Victoria is one of many places damaged by water hyacinths. Such changes have been putting the people in a difficult situation, especially as Kenya is dependent on Lake Victoria in terms of food and economy.

Another issue the country is facing is health problems due to poor indoor air quality. An average indoor air pollution stylus survey of Kenyan households in 2017 showed that it was three times higher than the standard WHO gave. This can lead to bronchial problems and, in extreme cases, even cause death. In households without electricity and clean gasoline, coal, wood, and kerosene are the main sources of fire. The small particles that blow out from cooking enter the lungs, causing problems. As is the case, if more households are supplied with electricity, more people will be able to cook in a better environment. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Lee Geon Yong, Lee Ji Won Yong, Moon Sang Woo
South Korea

A vicious cycle of poverty and environmental destruction In the year 72, Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, said, “Poverty is the most serious source of pollution among all the sources of pollution.”

Poverty exacerbates the environment and environmental pollution exacerbates poverty. Nature is the only resource that poor people can have: trees provide nesting and firewood, and lakes and rivers provide food and drinking water.

However, the resources continue to deplete and get destroyed as their activities for survival continue. The environment continues to get destroyed due to logging and high concentrations of coal combustion, but they have no choice. For them, nature is just a refuge for survival, not a subject of protection.

Tondo, Philippines, is one of the world’s three major slums. In 1954, the government of Manila announced this place as a garbage collection site. The poor who came to Manila to make money sold garbage in Tondo and continued their livelihoods, forming villages in the vicinity. All kinds of garbage piled up, making them vulnerable to odors as well as viruses. In addition, the pollution flowed into the river, which created a barren environment. Residents who cannot afford their need for living, use water from polluted rivers while living in a densely populated place with poverty at the statistics of about 65,000/km2 (1.2-2m2 per resident). Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Camille Rabany
United States

A skyscraper is a testament to the human capacity to physically manifest our values. With this in mind, the Invisible Skyscraper aims to offset the carbon emissions of the cars driving along park ave with the creation of a carbon-absorbing park. It will accomplish this by placing vehicular circulation below ground to make way for a carbon-absorbing park on the street level. By placing the roads underground, a hierarchy can be implemented with different speeds and greatly improve traffic.

The average car emits 411 grams of C02 per mile. The average tree absorbs 48 pounds of co2 per year. This implies that, in a single minute, one tree can absorb approximately 0.5 grams of C02. The total footprint of the invisible skyscraper stretches from park avenue down to the Manhattan bridge. it is 7.8 miles long. Along with said footprint, there is the potential to plant 41,200 trees, each absorbing 0.5 grams of c02 per minute. This would create an offset of 20,600 grams of co2.

Taking the average car emission into account along the 7.8 miles, this would accrue to 3205 grams of potential c02 emissions at any one moment during a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam. Park Avenue has six lanes, so the total potential emission equals 19234 grams of C02.

Having the roads below ground will, in turn, reduce the numerous other pollutants of cars. The pedestrian senses will be freed of noise, odor, visual strain, physical danger, not to mention the taste of gasoline in the air.

Replacing each of these with the positive attributes of a park; the song of birds, the smell of flowers, the calming effect of greenery, etc… Moreover, it will bring the streetscape back to a human scale, a pedestrian speed. Slowing down the physical and visual references could, in turn, reduce anxiety.

The benefits of this carbon-neutral solution would have a positive impact that reaches all the way to the sky. Thus, it is the invisible volume, free of pollution, infused with the positive attributes of a park, that defines the skyscrapers’ reach. Creating an invisible field of positive energy. Reclaiming the street for pedestrians, reducing pollution, creating environments we want to live in, all the while solving traffic issues. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Jiahui Yao, Peng Zhang
China

Nowadays, many big cities are facing economic transformation. Cities that once relied on industrial production are now moving factories out of urban areas and expanding the proportion of tertiary industry. This makes many factories face demolition. A chimney is one of the most representative factory buildings. It is usually an important landmark in an area and can give people a strong sense of place. And the chimney is the representative building of the specific developmental stage of the city, which can make the citizens better understand the development process of the city, and make people feel the change of the city times is linear, rather than sudden, which can provide people with a good sense of belonging. However, the abandoned chimney is no longer valuable. In order to regenerate the chimney, it must be endowed with new functions, so that it can continue to serve the city in the future. By transforming and reorganizing the main body of the chimney, and combining it with the function modules that can be industrially mass-produced, the abandoned chimney can be turned into a skyscraper that matches the new urban environment. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 Skyscraper Competition
Editors’ Choice

Jinsong Xian
China

Nuclear-contaminated water sources have caused environmental issues since Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan was destroyed by a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in March 2011, and the radioactive sewage is produced during the process of cooling disused nuclear power plants. Under the influence of the earthquake and tsunami, the operating equipment and cooling system of the nuclear power plant have been completely destroyed. In order to avoid the meltdown of this nuclear power plant, workers have continuously poured water into it to cool the core for the past ten years. In fact, the water used for cooling will attach a large amount of radionuclide after being injected into the core; therefore, those water cannot be reused. After preliminary nuclide purification, the radioactive sewage which has basically been purified will be stored in water tanks, but the tritium element in it is still difficult to be removed. By 2020, the amount of sewage in all water tanks has exceeded 1 million tons, and this figure is still increasing dramatically. Nowadays, a large amount of sewage containing tritium elements urgently needs to be properly treated. Read the rest of this entry »

First Place
2021 Skyscraper Competition

Andrii Lesiuk, Mykhaylo  Kohut, Sofiia Shkoliar, Kateryna Ivashchuk, Nazarii Duda, Mariia Shkolnyk, Oksana-Daryna Kytsiuk, Andrii Honcharenko
Ukraine

One of the main goals of the project is to grow a living skyscraper on the principle of sustainable architecture.

The building will function in the middle of a grey megalopolis and solve a number of important environmental and urban issues.  By analyzing the active process of urbanization and a decrease in the percentage of green spaces as a phenomenon that provokes a number of environmental problems.

We believe that by integrating genetically modified trees during the stage of their growth and development into architecture, we can restore the balance between the digitalized megacities and the Earth’s resources, which are gradually depleted.

A skyscraper tree is a separate living organism with its own root system, irrigation, care mechanisms, and features of development focused on its adaptation to use in architecture. It is a group of unique fast-growing and tall hardwood deciduous trees, which are planted in groups in specially prepared soil (to obtain resources) and in the process of their growth from a unique architectural volume.

The plant absorbs water and nutrients, which are distributed from root to tip. At the same time, the growth of the trunk circumference will gradually increase the strength of the wood structure and improve its self-supporting properties. Read the rest of this entry »