Barbed-wire Skyscraper

By:  | March - 7 - 2011

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Hyunbeom Cho, JinKyu Pak, HongSup Kim, Jiwon Kim
South Korea

The Korean de-militarized zone (DMZ) is a 2 kilometer area between North and South Korea established in 1950 as a buffer zone between the two nations to prevent further hostilities. After more than 60 years this area has become the habitat of hundreds of endangered species – a pristine habitat untouched by human beings.

The Barbe-wire Skyscraper is based on the idea of a unified Korea in the near future and the importance of preserving the untouched natural habitat of the DMZ. The idea is to create a series of skyscrapers with the existing 250 kilometers of barbed-wire as a landmark of the unified country. The structures are designed as museum and ecological reserve, where visitors will enjoy different sports facilities and outdoor recreational areas. Read the rest of this entry »

Lady Landfill Skyscraper

By:  | March - 7 - 2011

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Milorad Vidojević, Jelena Pucarević, Milica Pihler
Serbia

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a pile of plastic floating in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean. The San Francisco Chronicle claims that the patch now weights more than 3.5 million tons, 80% of which is plastic waste that reaches more than thirty meters in depth. This area of the Pacific Ocean is a relatively calm region that causes the accumulation of floating garbage in big piles. Its removal will cost billions of dollars and no country claims responsibility.

This proposal consists of a series of underwaterscrapers, floating islands that will be used to remove and recycle the garbage patch. These are self-sustained structures organized by function hierarchy with four communication cores that connect three main programs – collectors at the bottom, recycling plant in the middle levels, and housing and recreational levels atop. Read the rest of this entry »

Kinetic Skyscraper

By:  | March - 7 - 2011

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Victor Kopieikin, Pavlo Zabotin
Ukraine

Mexico City is one of the major and more polluted metropolises in the world. With over 20 million inhabitants, the main problems are the lack of affordable housing, long commute distances, and no recreational areas. The Kinetic Skyscraper addresses these challenges in a unique and innovative way. The structure has three main programs with a geothermal plant at the base, housing and offices in the upper levels, and a solar plant powered by thousands of photovoltaic panels on the façade. The most interesting part of the proposal is the design of kinetic housing units attached to a main exoskeleton. These units resemble a flower and are able to open, close, and direct towards sunlight. The skyscraper also has recreational and working areas – it is a city within the city. Read the rest of this entry »

Chernobyl Skyscrapers Network

By:  | March - 7 - 2011

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Mengni Zhang
United States

In December 2010, the Ukrainian government lifted the restriction on tourism in the zone around the Chernobyl power plant. Conceptually, this proposal deals with the reconstruction of a post apocalyptic environment. Since the accident in 1986 the site has been abandoned long enough for nature to take over, the absence of humans provides an opportunity for creating a utopian vision for a city. The proposed structure would engage the existing site and architecture as a new layer of landscape, a network of self-evolving skyscrapers that will address scientific, cultural, and historical concerns.

Due to the unpredictable distribution of fallout materials and possible radiation, the primary structure will be manufactured with light-weight fiber composite materials and fixed and transported onto the site by air. Secondary structures, such as highways and other programs, can be built above ground like cantilevered bridges. Read the rest of this entry »

White Cloud Skyscraper

By:  | March - 7 - 2011

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Adrian Vincent Kumar, Yun Kong Sung
New Zealand

Air pollution is a major problem in the city of Guangzhou, China. The main contributor to the air quality is the outrageous number of industrial facilities within the metropolitan area.

The White Cloud Project is an air purification network of skyscrapers. These are inverted buildings that liberate the base for public use and create a cluster of structural branches with residences and offices on top – almost like a group of trees. The structure is covered by a fine membrane that cleans the air through an ingenious filtering process. The air particles are trapped by the cloth-like structure and washed away by a constant mist. At the same time the collected dust is transported through a secondary branching system to a brick factory on the bottom. Read the rest of this entry »

Coalesce Skyscraper

By:  | March - 7 - 2011

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Justin Oh
Canada

The final height of this skyscraper has not yet been decided, as perpetual development of the project has continued for more than twenty years. Its rich history can be witnessed and analyzed through the changes in the facade, the same way history can be seen in layers of stone or the rings of a tree. The architecture of the skyscraper changes as each firm contributes their own unique design proposals for the next addition to the tower’s elevation – mankind’s skyscraper project of the twenty-first century.

Hong Kong’s Kowloon side is Corbusier’s Plan Voisin, compressed and multiplied. Victoria Harbour has decreased to accommodate endless developments as the majority of the population live and work in skyscrapers. The principles of Coalesce are to discontinue Hong Kong’s public housing estate-style developments and remove existing estates in order to unite the parks on the Kowloon side. The equation of the project: recreational green space substitutes each estate razed, and with each estate razed, the equivalent amount or more leasable area is added to the central skyscraper. With an increase in green concentration at the heart of Kowloon, the district is expected to experience a drop in its uncomfortable temperatures and filter polluted air, while providing recreational space and facilities. Read the rest of this entry »

eVolo Magazine is pleased to invite students, architects, engineers, and designers from around the globe to take part in the 2011 Skyscraper Competition.

The annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition is a forum for the discussion, development, and promotion of innovative concepts for vertical density. It examines the relationship between the skyscraper and the natural world, the skyscraper and the community, and the skyscraper and the city.

The exponential increase of the world’s population and its unprecedented shift from rural to urban areas has prompted hundreds of new developments without adequate urban planning and poor architectural design. The aim of this competition is to redefine what we understand as a skyscraper and initiate a new architectural discourse of economic, environmental, intellectual, and perceptual responsibility that could ultimately modify our cities and improve our way of life.

The use of new materials, technologies, aesthetics, and novel spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution are some of the multi-layered elements that the participants should take into consideration. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community.

There are no restrictions in regards to site, program or size. The objective is to provide maximum freedom to the participants to engage the project without constraints in the most creative way. What is a skyscraper in the 21st century? What are the historical, contextual, social, urban, and environmental responsibilities of these mega-structures?

Registration

Students, architects, engineers, and designers are invited to participate in the competition. We encourage you to have multidisciplinary teams.

  • Participants must register by January 11, 2011.
  • Early Registration:  US $65 until November 16, 2010
  • Late Registration: US $85 from November 17, 2010 to  January 11, 2011
  • One registration = One project.
  • Participants may submit various projects, but must register each entry.
  • There is no limit as to the number of participants per team. Individual entries are accepted.
  • After your registration has been approved eVolo will send the registration number which will be necessary for submission boards.

Schedule

  • July 19, 2010 – Competition announcement, registration begins, acceptance of questions
  • November 8, 2010 – Deadline for submitting questions
  • November 16, 2010 – Early registration deadline
  • November 30, 2010 – Answers to questions posted on website
  • January 11, 2011 – Late registration deadline
  • January 18, 2011 – Project submission deadline
  • February 28, 2011 – Winners’ announcement

Submission Requirements

This is a digital competition and no hardcopies are necessary. Entrants must submit their proposal via email no later than January 18, 2011 (23:00 hours US Eastern Time) to the following email address:  skyscraper2011@evolo.us

The project submission must contain the following files:

  1. Two boards with the project information including plans, sections, and perspectives. Participants are encouraged to submit all the information they consider necessary to explain their proposal. These boards should be 24″ X 48″ in HORIZONTAL format. The resolution of the boards must be 150 dpi, RGB mode and saved as JPG files. The upper right corner of each board must contain the participation number. There should not be any marks or any other form of identification. The files must be named after the registration number followed by the board number. For example: 0101-1.jpg and 0101-2.jpg.
  2. A DOC file containing the project statement (600 words max). This file must be named after the registration number followed by the word “statement”. For example: 0101-statement.doc.
  3. A DOC file containing the entrants’ personal information, including name, profession, address, and email. This file must be named after the registration number followed by the word “info”. For example: 0101-info.doc.
  4. All the files must be placed in a ZIP folder named after your registration number. For example:  0101.zip

Jury

Benjamin Aranda [principal Aranda\Lasch]
Juan Azulay [principal Matter Management, professor at Southern California Institute of Architecture]
CarloMaria Ciampoli [port director Live Architecture Network]
Mario Cipresso [principal Studio Shift, professor at University of Southern California]
Ted Givens [associate director RMJM]
Eric Goldemberg [principal Monad Studio, professor at Florida International University]
Jose Gonzalez [principal Softlab, professor at Pratt Institute]
John Hill [editor Archidose] 
Mitchell Joachim [principal Terreform One, professor at New York University]
Andrew Liang [principal Studio 0.10., professor at University of Southern California] 
Chris Lasch [principal Aranda\Lasch]
Neri Oxman [principal Materialecology, Presidential Fellow at MIT Media Lab]
Javier Quintana [principal Taller Basico de Arquitectura, Dean of IE School of Architecture]
Rezza Rahdian [Architect, Second Place 2009 Skyscraper Competition]
Michel Rojkind [principal Rojkind Arquitectos]
Michael Szivos [principal Softlab, professor at Pratt Institute]

Regulations

  1. This is an anonymous competition and the registration number is the only means of identification.
  2. The official language of the competition is English.
  3. The registration fee is non-refundable.
  4. Contacting the Jury is prohibited.
  5. Entrants will be disqualified if any of the competition rules are not considered.
  6. Participation assumes acceptance of the regulations.

Awards

  • 1st place – US $5000
  • 2nd place – US $2000
  • 3rd place – US $1000

Winners and special mentions will be published in several print magazines including eVolo_04.
Previous winners have been featured in:

About:Blank Magazine – Portugal, Aeroflot – Russia, Architecture and Culture – Korea, AWM – The Netherlands, B-1 – Thailand, Bauwelt – Germany, Blueprint – United Kingdom, BusinessWeek – USA, C3 – Korea, CAAOH – Ukraine, Casamica – Italy, Casas y Mas – Mexico, Discover Magazine – USA, Enlace – Mexico, Focus – Canada/Italy, Future Arquitecturas – Spain, Grazia Casa – Italy, Indian Architect Builder – India, Kijk – The Netherlands, L’Installatore Italiano – Italy, La Razon – Spain, L’Arca – Italy, Le Fourquet – Mexico, L’Uomo Vogue – Italy, Mark Magazine – The Netherlands, Mladina – Slovenia, NAN – Spain, New Scientist – United Kingdom, Of Arch – Italy, Pasajes de Arquitectura – Spain, Popular Mechanics – USA/Russia, Puls Biznesu – Poland, Quo – China/Spain, RUM – Sweden, Salt Magazine – The Netherlands, Space – Korea, Spade – Canada, Spazio Casa – Italy, Stafette – Germany, Tatlin – Russia, The Broker – The Netherlands, The Outlook Magazine – China, Time Style and Design – USA, Vida Simples Magazine – Brazil, Vogue – Australia, USA, Vox Design – Poland, Wettbewerbe Aktuell – Germany, Wired – USA/Italy, Woongjin – Korea, World Architecture – China

Winners 2010 Skyscraper Competition

By:  | March - 8 - 2010

winners-2010-skyscraper

eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2010 Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organization. The award seeks to discover young talents whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.

The Jury of the 2010 edition was formed by leaders of the architecture and design fields including: Mario Cipresso, Kyu Ho Chun, Kenta Fukunishi, Elie Gamburg, Mitchell Joachim, JaeYoung Lee, Adelaïde Marchi, Nicola Marchi and Eric Vergne. The Jury selected 3 winners and 27 special mentions among 430 entries from 42 countries.

Globalization, sustainability, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution, were some of the multi-layered elements taken into consideration.  The first place was awarded to a project for a vertical prison designed by architecture students Chow Khoon Toong, Ong Tien Yee, and Beh Ssi Cze, from Malaysia. Their project examines the possibility of creating a prison-city in the sky, where the inmates would live in a “free” and productive community with agricultural fields and factories that would support the host city below.

The recipients of the second place are Rezza Rahdian, Erwin Setiawan, Ayu Diah Shanti, and Leonardus Chrisnantyo, from Indonesia, whose project ‘Ciliwung Recovery Program’ aims to purify and repair the Ciliwung River habitat. The building is designed as an ingenious habitable machine that would collect garbage, purify water, and provide housing to thousands of people that live in the slums along the river.

The third place was awarded to Ryohei Koike and Jarod Poenisch, from the United States, for their project ‘Nested Skyscraper’ that explores robotic construction techniques for a novel structure of carbon sleeves and fiber-laced concrete. The building is a system of multiple layers of composite louvers which thicken and rotate according to solar exposure, ventilation, and materials performance.

Among the special mentions there are skyscrapers used as bridges that link different territories, cities in the sky powered by renewable energies, instant deployable buildings for disaster zones, skyscrapers that purify and desalinate sea water, or high-rises that commemorate historic dates. Other proposals create new pedestrian layers for existing cities. Some use the latest building technologies and parametric design to configure environmentally conscious self-sufficient buildings, while others create city-like buildings where different programs are mixed in one structure.

eVolo Magazine would like to acknowledge all the competitors for their effort, vision, and passion for architectural innovation.

 

2 0 1 0   S K Y S C R A P E R   C O M P E T I T I O N   W I N N E R S


Vertical Prison

By:  | March - 8 - 2010

First Place
2010 Skyscraper Competition

Chow Khoon Toong, Ong Tien Yee, Beh Ssi Cze
Malaysia

vertical-prison-0

Some studies reveal that post-release offenses are very high and that criminal’s imprisonment is just a temporal solution because they do not have the opportunity to rehabilitate in a desirable community.

This project examines the possibility of creating a vertical prison in the sky where inmates will have to work and live in a community that will contribute to the host city below. The prison will have agricultural fields, factories, and recyclable plants that will be operated by the offenders as a way to give back to the community. They will live “free” until they have completed their sentence and are prepared to rejoin their communities.

The vertical prison has its own transportation system which consists of different “pods” for officers, prisoners, firefighters, and other workers. Read the rest of this entry »

Second Place
2010 Skyscraper Competition

Rezza Rahdian, Erwin Setiawan, Ayu Diah Shanti, Leonardus Chrisnantyo
Indonesia

water-purification-skyscraper-0

The city of Jakarta, Indonesia, was originally designed in the confluence of thirteen rivers which were used for transportation and agriculture. The largest of its rivers is The Ciliwung River, which has been extremely polluted during the last couple of decades, characterizes by hundreds of slums inhabited by thousands of people in marginal conditions.

The Ciliwung Recovery Program (CRP) is a project that aims to collect the garbage of the riverbank and purify its water through an ingenious system of mega-filters that operate in three different phases. The first one separates the different types of garbage and utilizes the organic one to fertilize its soil. The second phase purifies the water by removing dangerous chemicals and adding important minerals to it. The clean water is then fed to the river and to the nearby agricultural fields through a system of capillary tubes.  Finally in the third phase all the recyclable waste is processed.

One of the most important aspects of this proposal is the elimination of the slums along the river. The majority of the people will live and work at the CRP which could be understood as new city within Jakarta. The CRP project will be a 100 percent sustainable building that will produce energy through wind, solar, and hydroelectric systems. Read the rest of this entry »