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 »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Cheung Kat Fu Eric
Hong Kong

In ancient time, gravity and the natural slope of the land allowed aqueducts to channel water from a freshwater source, such as a lake or spring, to a city. Such recognizable bridges constructed using rounded stone arches can be still be seen today traversing European valleys.

To be able to protect the ancient structures, the project Aqua Vitae was added to bring a new life to these ruined monuments in nature. By utilizing the Ronquenfavour Aqueduct in Ventrabren, one of the largest functional stone aqueducts structure in the present. The design approach seeks to adapt to the existing stone structure, to allow frameworks to be erected within the beautiful terrain across the valley. The flow of water divides a series of natural scenarios along with the linear space. a variety of habitats like a waterfall, jungle, garden, or grotto is merged to stimulate a diverse and complex range of visual, acoustic, olfactory, and kinesthetic experiences to visitors. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Xinran He, Yiqiao Wang
China

INTRODUCTION
At the beginning of 2020, not only China but also the whole world was overshadowed by a severe biohazard caused by a new type of coronavirus.

Recalling our past, it is not unfamiliar that plagues invaded the human world: The Black Death, 1918 Flu Pandemic…Millions were lost before the disasters were called The Great Mortality. Moreover, there were always many more people infected than the dead, which would cause severe deficiency of hospital bed arrangement, leading lots of infectious patients out of containment, and would, in turn, result in even more infection.

Take the 2019-nCoV for instance: the People of China didn’t wait fruitlessly, Mount Fire God Hospital and Mount Thunder God Hospital were built within only 10 days. Thousands of workers were mobilized in no time, hectares of sites were leveled, and three thousand beds were finally ready for patients…

Within these 10 days, however, the number of patients grew rapidly from 549 to 11177. Only a quarter of them can be hospitalized, others must stay in indoor public areas like stadiums, exhibition centers with thousands of patients together without any isolation—a humble environment does no good to their health. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Shulong Ren, Hongrui Lai, Chang Liu
China

With the rapid development of the global economy and the increase of urban population in the recent 100 years, especially in recent decades, many high-density areas with skyscrapers have appeared in most cities around the world. Hong Kong is one of the typical. But with the continuous development of the city and with the problems of aging and disrepair of structures or backward functions., many high-rise buildings are facing the reality of being demolished and reconstructed. However, there are many difficulties in the demolition of skyscrapers in dense urban areas nowadays. The first is technological, the cost is a high and heavy degree of difficulty. Besides, the impact on the urban environment is large, the waste of resources is serious and it has a great impact on the lives of the surrounding population and the surrounding economy. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

HANNAH Architecture Group
Jalal Salek Zamankhani, Masoud Nimehforoush, Gholamreza Yari Bostanabad, Hussein Aghoushi, Shabnam Jalali Khosroshahi, Aylar Naghizadeh, Faegheh Pourachabalaei
Iran

Tabriz city was traditionally known for its lush gardens and natural surroundings. Excessive exploitation of natural resources on one hand, and mass urbanization, on the other hand, demolished a vast majority of these gardens and left this city as a mere industrial zone.

The Flourishing Platform Skyscrapers project aims to revive the traditional image of Tabriz city as a city-garden. Each platform consists of one central sponge core which is connected deep into the confined aquifers within mount Eynali. These core sponges absorb water from the earth and feed the vegetation planted on the platform. In order to enhance the absorbing functionality of the core sponges, Potassium polyacrylate could be used which is considered a super absorbent polymer.

In addition to providing a sustainable method for planting a wide variety of trees and vegetation, this concept contributes to the hiking culture in this city. These bridged platforms not only invite city dwellers to plant their own desired vegetation and trees but also provide straightforward access to a mountain peak and allow citizens of any age and disability to come together and enjoy their hiking experience.

Some of these platforms are enclosed in order to have the ability to function in extreme weather conditions and allow researchers to investigate rare types of plants. The entire parts of this mountain skyscraper have the ability to be covered by flora within three years. Read the rest of this entry »