Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition

Laurent Saint-Val
France

Special Mention

At a time when Mankind understands the need to respect and protect nature, in order to enable the continuation of life, architecture draws its inspiration from nature and attempts to use nature’s energy in the most ecologically friendly manner. A skyscraper cannot be built on a site as a vulgar object, without link with its urban environment; it must grow from the ground. Is there a tree without roots? To live, plants need to be in contact with the ground, so their roots draw water and rock salt necessary for their development. In the same manner, it seems to me that the new skyscraper needs to weave a link between the basement (its foundations), the ground, and the sky. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2007 Skyscraper Competition

Richard Porter, Chris Allen, Cam Helland, Stephen Phillips
United States

Special Mention

Spacescraper creatively invents a new speculative world structure with advanced NASA technology that expands urbanity into outer space. Innovative photovoltaic elevators, powered by lasers, carbon nanotube fiber structures, and advanced environmental control systems, support an extensive universal cable system that houses societal needs on mass scale. Space for individuals, corporations, and entire cities grow to organize within Spacescraper’s continuous exoskeletal form. Derived through a series of digital scripting explorations initiated alongside study of carbon molecular structures, Spacescraper performs as a habitable biomimetic network tethering the Earth’s atmosphere. Read the rest of this entry »

2nd Place
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Gonzalo Pardo, Susana Velasco, Victoria González
Spain

Second Place

When you visit Manhattan as a tourist you keep the city in your memory as a series of fragments, bodies, perceptions, sounds, and atmospheres. The position of everything is engraved in your memory; a new psycho-geographic map of the city is born. We have chosen seven fragments of Manhattan, (5th Avenue, Broadway, piers, Financial District, Brooklyn Bridge, and Central Park), that could be thought about as individual cities; autonomous bodies, landscapes, and infrastructures. Read the rest of this entry »

3rd Place
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Neri Oxman, Mitchell Joachim
United States

Third Place

Peristalsis: The rippling motion of muscles in tubular organs characterized by the alternate contraction and relaxation of the muscles that propel the contents onward.

The core of the skyscraper, its structural and circulatory conventions, as a central obstacle to tall building design is well known. Should the elevator, of all things, persist as the non-negotiable limit of our vertical habitats? The limit is vexing, for not only does it determine compositional forms but, more significantly, the arrangement of social practices with regards to both our labor and leisure. Elevators stifle more than facilitate our movement by virtue of their rigid planes and fleeting occupations. That is to say, the vast space which the elevator shaft occupies is, temporally speaking, useless. But suppose we involved ourselves with a different interpretation of that inactive, rigid, and sequestered domain which much of this central shaft represents. It would demand a vital shift, or at least a conceptual reworking, towards an active utilization of such space. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Marco Steiner
Germany

Special Mention

How to transform horizontal into vertical?
The famous German architect Erich Mendelssohn once said: “Man can only find tranquility in today fast living in the motionless horizontal line”.

How do we combine the vertical expression of the skyscraper with the serenity of a horizontal space? The “Skyframe” tries to answer this question. The Skyframe is a multifunctional skyscraper in which public areas such as conference center, shopping mall, cinemas, and recreational spaces are located on the ground floor. Restaurants and apartments are located in the upper part while the rising verticals allocate offices and meeting rooms. The vertical segments reflect the active and busy aspects of working life. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Justyna Karakiewicz, Jeff Cheng, John Kao
Hong Kong

Special Mention

Hong Kong is a city of extreme landscape conditions in which the majority of the land is defined as high steep terrain. Due to this condition there is a complex infrastructure of trains and escalators for the mobility of the pedestrians. This type of infrastructure accounts for more than 50 percent of the available land. The remaining areas are clustered with isolated skyscrapers surrounded by heavy vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Loren M. Supp
United States

Special Mention

Rather than looking at the city as an extension of architectonic space, the Shanghai market is here reinvented as an internal extension of a fluid landscape. Operating under this axiom, the vertical market changes the previous horizontality of the urban activity by pulling the city fabric upwards, enabling a further densification of the city.

While modeling the existing economic flows of the city there was revealed a potential for a systemic expansion of the streetscape skyward. This move enables an accretion of market functions, pulling the chaotic action to a single site. Formally and theoretically, the degradative nature of fluid market economics define the building architecture, the thickness of circulatory structure responds to the predicted expenditure of capital as one moves through the building, and space is allocated for market activity accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2008 Skyscraper Competition

Hajung Lee
United States

Special Mention

Throughout history, mankind has been competing to build higher towers, not only to meet spacial demands, but also to celebrate and display their technological ability. Perhaps, this kind of proud achievement is interpreted as the origin of our desire towards vertical architecture. In this sense, one can say that every vertical structure has its own monumentality. While a historical monumental tower speaks of certain memory or event, a contemporary skyscraper should celebrate its height, functions and achievement of technology. The depiction for monumentality of a skyscraper should be a different concept from the representation of a historical monument. Contemporary skyscrapers tend to express their grandiosity in a monotonous way, as if to mimic a historical monument. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Marco Vanucci
United Kingdom

Special Mention

In nature, organisms try to respond to the impact of various forces with minimum energy consumption. Similarly, materials are subject to a process of self-organization/adaptation in relation to the action of intrinsic as well as extrinsic forces acting upon it, aiming to fulfill a state of equilibrium. Exploring the inherent properties governing the behavior of a given material and its effects on the surrounding environment, represents the starting point for a broader understanding of material forms as a mutable, multi-performing, and generative design tool. The bottom-up approach towards the research onto a given material system discloses the opportunity to deeply investigate the proprieties of such a material, as well as opening unexpected potentials for inclusive performances and effects. Read the rest of this entry »

Special Mention
2006 Skyscraper Competition

Martin Henn, Max Schwitalla
Russia

Special Mention

Historically loaded and about to be demolished, the centrally located Hotel Rossija constitutes an exemplary terrain for an architectural operation. Starting with Lissitzky’s Wolkenbügeln in the 1920’s, followed by Stalin’s 7 Sisters, and the Palace of the Soviets in the 1940’s, there is a long history of skyscrapers in the city of Moscow. Contrary to planning of the new suburban business district “Moscow City”, we propose our building to be located in the heart of Moscow. Read the rest of this entry »