The “Gullwing Twin Wind Towers,” designed by architects Minervini Vittorio and Sanna Giacomo of Rome with designers Delzotti Carlo and Lombardi Fabio, Ph.D., is an idea for how to generate clean energy in an urban setting – in a manner aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

The structure is a pair of towers whose exteriors are covered in blade-like wings that project up to catch the wind; the wind then moves the wings, which are attached to rings that spin around the buildings’ exteriors. As the rings spin, the movement powers the wind turbines inside of the two towers. The movement of the rings with the two towers so closely entwined creates a “tornado-like effect” to maximize movement and energy generation.

To accentuate architecturally the permeability of the structure, the towers feature empty plastic cavities interspersed throughout their heights. The towers are covered in a black “skin,” with a glass encasement of the turbines on the interiors. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposal by four Singapore designers for a Migratory Park in the bustling capital of the country is one that seeks to bring respite to both humans and birds alike.

The Migratory Park tower, created by Earl Monroe Magale, Hinn Ong, Jirawit Yamkleeb and Darren Yio, will be located in the Orchard Road district of Singapore, one that’s characterized by high-end malls and designer flagship stores. Nearby Lucky Plaza is the hub of the city’s Filipino community, which has many members who immigrate to the country to find work. Lucky Plaza serves as an important place for recreation and relaxation for the hardworking Filipinos, but the parks and open space in the vicinity is quickly disappearing because of Orchard Road’s valuable land prices. Read the rest of this entry »

Philippe Arnihac and Nicolas Gervais, architects from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emerites, have designed “Green Towers,” a mixed-use, double-skyscraper complex that houses a mall, offices, a hotel and individual apartment units, as well as multiple levels of hanging gardens.

According to the architects, the two towers symbolize Abu Dhabi’s great density and diversity; they are united in an accessible way into one structure that serves the keep the city lively with shopping, tourists and more.

The towers feature ample green space so as to be “a theater of nature’s representation” for the city where they’re located. The buildings’ hanging parks sit between every ten levels and have a height of eight meters, making them tall enough to accommodate full-grown trees.

Naturally, a building concerned with being “green” will also need to be built sustainably; as such, this structure has photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, solar panels to provide hot water, and rainwater recycling system to water the building’s ample gardens. Read the rest of this entry »

Panit Limpiti, a student from Thailand, has designed the “Permaculture Floating Tower,” a skyscraper to be located in Omval, Amsterdam that will cater to the region’s worst-case-scenario situation: a flood.

The area above sea level in the Omval zone is quickly decreasing. With the ability to withstand high water levels, and through the design of a floating landscape, this building will stand strong, no matter the weather forecast.

The building will utilize desalination to create drinking water, and will harness wave energy. A bio-digester cooks gas to also produce energy. Bio-diesel is also produced on site. The building is comprised of residential units and an urban park. Read the rest of this entry »

Rugel Chiriboga, Brad J. Bartholomew, and Allison Elsaesser from Little have proposed a sustainable skyscraper complex for one of the world’s most dense urban landscapes: Mumbai, India.

With its large population and the richness of the wetlands that surround the city, what Mumbai’s new construction needs to focus on, say the designers, is sustainable practices that can protect the environment surrounding the city, but also nurture the people who live there. A new complex needs to also be fully connected to its surrounding urban fabric, says the group.

The Dharavi Building complex will feature a multitude of uses: it will have two residential towers, which will feature both indoor gardens and outdoor rooftop gardens, and vertical farming sections. With live plant life, the façade performs a green function, and the building as a whole serves as a sustainable icon, a new gateway for the city. In the complex will be a new market square and a new community plaza that will be surrounded by storefronts that offer social services to the public. Read the rest of this entry »

Lee Sang-ho, graduate student from Busan, South Korea, has designed the “Vertical Sprial,” a skyscraper that will serve as the “green energy landmark tower” for the city of Busan.

Busan is the second largest in Korea, and is the largest port city. It is also considered to have the second-largest solar radiation levels in the country, and the highest wind levels, making the building perfectly situated to utilize solar and wind technologies to generate energy.

The building will generate energy through several means, including the rotation of solar energy panels that will move throughout the day to capture the maximum sunlight in the day.

The building will have an observation deck from which to admire the ocean views. The tower is split into three sections according to use, and each section has a cafeteria to accommodate the people working there. Spiral walkways will feature greenery, and twist throughout the building to create calming paths to lift the spirits of those inside. Read the rest of this entry »

The “Slum Dweller,” a skyscraper designed by architects Monica Copaja and Angel Tenorio , is a project  that seeks to “bring light” to the city of Lima.

The city has, in recent years, been rapidly expanding, the architects say, growing in a disorganized manner, with density creating a “desperate” need amongst the people for private ownership of land. What the architects propose is to build an inspiring tower of many important uses in the San Cristobal Hill area, one that has long inspired awe: the Hill was a sacred ritual site for the native pre-Columbian people of Lima, and has remained a favorite spot in the city thanks to its impressive skyline vistas.

The lower levels of the skyscraper will be used to better the social services of the city, and will feature uses such as a communal kitchen, a children’s nursery, and a sports hall. In the middle zone, workshops and a school will educate people of all ages. And on the top levels, a cultural zone with art galleries, auditoriums, conference rooms and a library will enrich the lives of those who visit. Read the rest of this entry »

Three Copenhagen architects and a graduate student in Los Angeles have collaborated to create a new landmark for the Harbor of Copenhagen. A skyscraper that houses a mixture of uses, including, “public, private, pauses, passages and parks,” this tower, conceived by Mathias Juel Christensen, Neel Gøbel Andersen, Søren Hansen, and student Bjørk B. Christensen, serves as a lighthouse, a beacon that welcomes ships to the great city of Copenhagen, and simultaneously harkens to the harbor area’s rebirth from abandoned shipyards to thriving residential district.

The industrial shipping zone in Copenhagen’s northeast section that has been in a state of decay since the 1980s is experiencing a housing boom, and this skyscraper will cater to that need by housing units for all ages: families, students, the elderly. Not only will all be welcome, but all will also get to enjoy the stunning views the harbor location brings: the tower will be constructed as a stack of rings with dwellings attached to the façade so that all units can enjoy panorama views. This also allows the core of the building to stay more open, creating a common space, or “neighborhood.” Though the unit designs will be diverse, a sense of continuity will be maintained through the common core. Read the rest of this entry »

Located on the Danube River, close to the only bridge that connects the countries of Bulgaria and Romania, is the site of a Skycraper Danubius, the design proposal of architect Aleksandar Lyubomirov Simov for the city of Rousse, Bulgaria. The Skycraper Danubius is a modern, almost industrial-looking take on traditional Eastern European vernacular architecture, with the shape resembling a large onion dome. Inside the structure are all of the amenities the city of Rousse could need: a museum, retail space, theaters and concert halls, restaurants, hotels and even apartments.

The bottom of the building is literally planted in the Danube so as to serve as a port for Danube River cruises. Above, the tower’s different are divided by use by hanging gardens.

The building will utilize solar panels and rainwater recycling to be environmentally friendly, and will also be composed of materials that can either be recycled after the building’s life, or safely returned into the ground. At night, when energy use is down, the building freezes water in the basement which melts during to day to help keep the structure cool.

With its strategic location on the Danube and a myriad of uses, Skyscraper Danubius is a structure that will help keep the town of Rousse a thriving gateway to the rest of Europe, Russia and the Mediterranean. Read the rest of this entry »

Kalyan Chakraborty, an architecture graduate student at Kansas State University, has designed a “flexible” skyscraper complex for the dense urban center of Kolkata, which is a city in the West Bengal state of India. With the population multiplying rapidly, and pushing a sum of 15 million, the traditionally low-rise city needs to find solutions that can house the new influx of people. This needs to be done, Chakraborty says, in a manner starkly different than the current trend of suburban sprawl, as the town’s overspill is quickly encroaching on an ecologically vital wetland region outside of the city.

To help bring this change, Chakraborty has designed a massive tower complex that can house an impressive number of people – 4,000 in over 1,000 individual units – and serve as a commercial workplace for over 1,600 people as well. Chakraborty has taken pains to make the building sustainable, however, since it would be senseless to build a skyscraper to avoid harming wetlands if that building uses the typically wasteful amount of materials to build, and guzzles energy. Thus, the building’s design is sustainable in that it produces its own energy, food, water, and even consumes its own waste. Read the rest of this entry »