Honorable Mention
2022 Skyscraper Competition

Karan Jain, Vishwal Ram Gowda
India

Meru, it means the abode of gods at the center of the universe, the project brings together the context with those inhabiting it. The goal is to create organic growth within a community by the usage of progressive improvements, sort of like how a frog doesn’t realize its being boiled in water.

Currently in Delhi, among many problems is the incredulous amount of waste that is produced by the city and in tandem with that, its relation and allocation with the slums of Delhi. Among the two the former isn’t being given enough treatment and the latter seems impossible without the displacement of a large population of people. After contemplation one thinks that such a feat is impossible without there being the availability of such a large vacant amount of space. But what one, can do in such a situation is to set up a situation of parallel organic growth, this allows for the infrastructure to creep into an area with such rich culture and history while also allowing the area to creep into the infrastructure allowing for both the former and the latter to develop off of each other, pushing the development of the context at an exponential rate.

To achieve this the context and the people within should be able to feed off of each other, and so the MCD dump yard in Bhalswa new Delhi seems like the perfect site as the dump yard has been accumulating waste for a long time and as such depreciating the value of anything around it, which in turn made it ideal for laborers and slum dwellings to develop. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »