3rd Place
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Eric Vergne
United States

Third Place

In the Hudson Yard area of Manhattan, this urban high rise farm introduces inherently political opposing elements; farmers (producers) and New Yorkers (consumers) through farms, workers housing, and market places. Through the mixing of politically opposing classes, social and cultural confrontations are generated within a high rise typology by introducing producers of biomass into the city, a place of historic biomass consumption. In so doing, the high rise is re-defined not by efficiency, but rather through the use of surfaces to orchestrate the dynamic programmatic interactions and the multiplicity of spatial organization they suppose. The essence of these social/political programmatic relationships is unclear. The spaces they create are lived not represented or conceived. One can only speculate on the range of lived relationships and oppositions that might form within and around this urban farm. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Sylvie Milosevic
France

Special Mention

The skyscraper has paradoxically enjoyed a renaissance since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which brought world attention to the tragedy while raising multiple questions about its future. The boom in the Middle East has focused purely on new aesthetics and a lavish display of economic wealth. In contrast, Vertical Ecology Redux is a project that brings a new level of per formative organization into the design equation; it is fully integrated into the urban fabric and existing infrastructure. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Stefan Shaw, John Dent
United Kingdom

Special Mention

A closed loop metabolic system
A completely closed metabolic cycle in which traffic exhaust emissions are harnessed via CO2 collectors in order to feed algae grown in photo bio-reactors within the building’s facade. Algae and natural by-products produced during algae cultivation are then refined to produce renewable energy sources.

Towering 1.2 km above Spaghetti Junction, Birmingham, the UK’s largest and most congested motorway intersection, the scheme portrays a radical concept in high rise, high density urban living. Benefitting from positive solar orientation, in order to maximize solar acceptance toward the dynamic photo bioreactors which are built into the facade, BIOCITY acts as a an environmental filter, harnessing harmful traffic exhaust emissions in order to feed and cultivate microscopic algae to produce renewable bio-fuels. These bio-fuels are used to produce renewable electricity to power the vertical city and to cultivate vehicular bio-diesel and liquid hydrogen for use in hydrogen fuel cells. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Brian Ahmes, Gregg Hicks, Chad Porter
United States

Special Mention

During the 1960’s the city of Dallas possessed a vibrant urban culture, stimulated by round-the-clock living, working, and playing. A few years later, an aggressive interstate construction and a new desire for the suburban dream, transformed the city into a commuter business hub that closes at five o’clock. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Junkai Jian, Jinqi Huang
China

Special Mention

The cities of the twenty-first century embody extreme qualities of communication and complexity of interaction. In response to the new urban demands the Algorithmic tower employs a code-based scripting methodology that configures higher orders of complexity required by a new kind of aggregation logic. It is coded with specific rules for growth and subdivision that articulate spatial organizations with a mathematical approach. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Luis Longhi, Christian Bottger, Carla Tamariz
Peru

Special Mention

Nature of Nature is a proposed skyscraper near Machu Picchu, Peru that will be used for different cultural activities and as temporal residence for visitors to the archeological site.

The skyscrapers will be attached to the mountains by a series of anchors or ‘morphological extensions’ that collect and distribute energy from the jungle. It is designed as a structural mesh for programmatic cells of different sizes for public and private spaces. Its façade is conceived as a flexible membrane that allows different micro-climates and collects water from the constant fog and energy from the sun. The grouping of various cell clusters will create residual spaces for cultural and recreational activities. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Metion
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Wei Wei, Luping Yuan
United States

Special Mention

Skyscape is a possible solution to the most polluted cities around the world. It is a system of thousands of air cleaning cells that float above the urban areas as an orchestrated particle filter. Every ten days the cells regroup for maintenance in a landing base outside the cities creating beautiful skyscrapers.

Its surface is made of high efficient filters that collect pollutants and constantly produce fresh-clean air. The cells are radio controlled with different patterns of organization depending on the environment. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Francis Wilmore, Courtney Brinegar, Jennifer Cramer
United States

In the reality of a global consumerist society, William McDonough states that we need to, “honor commerce as the engine of change.”  As noticed in many economically driven developments, it seems that Hong Kong’s consumerist priorities are often played out by real estate monopolies that devour opportunities for design innovation to take place.  This can be observed in the city’s public housing market which consists of ubiquitous, shoebox-like forms that are only differentiated by their flashy marketing schemes. This project aspires to stand apart from Hong Kong’s existing built environment by fostering aliveness in the realms of environmental, cultural, and formal endeavors. The title of the project, Niu (new) Shu (shoe), is a play on the pronunciation of the denoted Mandarin words for “twisting” and “tree” that also carries a connoted English context of being a new shoe to fit Hong Kong’s current and future growth. The towers in the complex grow from the ground and translate the lost space of nature into an enhanced environment of consumerism.  By using sustainability as a visible marketing tool to differentiate the design, the residential high-rise becomes a living organism that prospers from a blurring of what is residential enrichment and what is commercial capital. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Hoi Wang Chan, Blake Perkins
United States

Special Mention

In 2007 over half of the world’s population had moved to a city. This shift from rural areas to cities poses a multifaceted problem for the urban context. The Alchemorphis tower unites these disparate worlds in a synergistic response to the environment, local community, and greater city.

New York City metro area ranks amongst the most populous urban centers in the world, with its average citizen using nearly 100 gallons of water daily. Much of this water is merely gray water which is processed with wastewater and eventually pumped into the bordering rivers as cleansed effluent. Utilizing its own influent from the Hudson River and neighborhood gray water supply, the alchemical tower recycles this discarded resource into valuable commodities for city use. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2009 Skyscraper Competition

Sung-Wook Kim, UF Association
South Korea

Special Mention

The Metropolitan Veil 2019 is a sustainable skyscraper designed for a business area in Seoul. It is an investigation on urban memories and their interconnection in a single place. Thus, new programs emerge from the mix of economic, cultural, and environmental conditions.

Prefabricated slab units are stacked on top of each other to create frames that allow different programs. These frames also work as structural elements connected to the vertical cores. Sunlight is controlled by a series of layers that constitute the exterior envelope with photovoltaic cells on the southern façade. On the other hand, wind turbines are located on the big openings of the façade. Read the rest of this entry »