Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Anna-Maria Simatou, Marianthe Dendrou
Greece

The Living Mountain is a city-like skyscraper for one of the Earth’s harshest environments: the desert. Fertile land is gradually being transformed into deserts due to global warming. This project is located in one of those regions, the desert of Taklamakan, in the northwestern region of China.

This high-rise conglomerate, in conjunction with man-made lakes, could gradually transform the desert into a habitable environment. The Living Mountain would extract water from the regions substrate and through its smart use, treatment, circulation, and controlled evaporation, could create a microclimate inside the structure.

The housing areas are envisioned as “living pods” of 2,000 square-feet with easy access to all the facilities. Rainwater is collected and circulated on top of the super-structure and freely cascades to the atrium while filtering the air and promoting the growth of indoor vegetation. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Svirid  Denis, Gudzenko Anastasiya
Ukraine

The Tree of Life is a skyscraper proposal for open mines around the world. It is an autonomous ecosystem based on the structure of a plant where the inhabitants live and work producing ecological products.

The bottom part, or root, is comprised of a power station that harvests geothermal energy and includes a subterranean water purification plant. The stem is an external frame designed as two interlacing structures that provides stability to the entire project. Vertical communication is achieved through pneumatic elevators on all levels. The top part, or crown, is the public area with housing sectors, offices, schools, and entertainment facilities. Attached to these structures there are a series of pods or terraces that are used as geoponic greenhouses, covered with solar panels and wind turbines. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Milos Vlastic, Vuk Djordjevic, Ana Lazovic, Milica Stankovic
Serbia

Hydra is a skyscraper that investigates the possibility of creating a power plant that uses hydrogen as source of energy. The international community recognizes hydrogen as a key component of sustainable energy system for the transportation, industrial, residential, and commercial sectors. The power is produced through electrolysis and could be stored in batteries and transported by truck, pipes or cables. Another interesting part is that the by-product of the process is clean water.

Its exoskeleton is built from grapheme, the basic structural element of carbon allotropes such as graphite and carbon. Grapheme has a high thermal and electric conductivity and is two hundred times stronger than steel. The idea for the Hydra skyscraper is to harvest energy from lightning storms and store the power in several mega-batteries located at the base. The project also includes a research facility, housing, and recreational areas for scientists and their families. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

YoungWan Kim, SueHwan Kwun, JunYoung Park, JoongHa Park
Republic of Korea

Despite the alarming news about global warming and its catastrophic consequences, the use of fossil fuels has not decreased. In an effort to alleviate this problem, this project seeks to transforms oil platforms around the world into sustainable seascrapers that produce and store fresh water. The old pipes are adjusted to bring water to spherical containers attached to the main structure which, through a series of distillation processes, produce fresh water and later transports it to countries in need. The project also contains a research facility and housing pods for workers. The platform is transformed into green areas that will serve as recreational areas and farms. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

David Gull, Jin Young Song
United States

For more than one hundred years after the birth of the skyscraper, our tower designs have been defined by a simple notion, a rigid core and heavy perimeter columns. We envision a future skyscraper typology that is more efficient and unburdened by large vertical compression members at the perimeter. The Tensile Tower uses a structural concept that results in uninterrupted views, open space planning, efficient day lighting, and minimal material use.

The Tensile Tower uses one primary mega compression member, which also contains the vertical circulation, much like a traditional core. The perimeter edges of the floor slabs are supported by tensile cables suspended from the top of the mega column. These cables spiral the tower at an angle in both directions, creating a diagonal configuration that provides resistance to torsion and overall stability. The use of suspension members at the perimeter gives unprecedented lightness and openness to the exterior wall of each floor space. For lateral loads that would otherwise cause bending throughout the tower, this bow shape acts like an oversized herring truss; the mega core and slabs as compression members, and the perimeter cables, in tension. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Adam Nakagoshi, Thao Nguyen
United States

Elevated Connectivity is a high-rise proposal that creates a new urban grid above the city by connecting existing skyscrapers. This elevated horizontal platform would become a new type of public domain that will redefine the interaction between people and their city – allowing new program and architecture on the top levels of the existing structures. The entire city would have three main layers. The ground floor will remain public and mainly used for transportation. The middle layer will be a private one with residences and offices while the third one will be dedicated to leisure and entertainment activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Dalho Yang, Seungdon Jung
Republic of Korea

One of the most famous buildings in New York is the former New York Times headquarters known as One-Time-Square. The skyscraper opened in 1905 and has been through several renovations and transformations ever since. It is the place where New Yorkers and the world celebrate the New Year with the famous drop ball. Another interesting fact is that its façade is almost entirely covered by the most expensive billboards in the world which cost more than $10,000 per hour.

This proposal seeks to transform the infamous building into a vertical amusement park. The project explores the potential of using a roller coaster as means of transportation between the different programs. It is an exploration of transportation in three dimensions which has never been tested and tries to break the norm of using elevators and horizontal corridors. The park is divided in zones specifically catalogued with different colors with each zone composed of a series of modules attached to a primary steel exoskeleton. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

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 »