Honorable Mention
2021 Skyscraper Competition

Seyed Shervin Hashemi
United States

Debilitation in aspects of the built environment is one of the fundamental consequences of the pandemic.

Time Machine initiates a novel approach to constructing objects with spatial properties, one that integrates the construction’s technical solutions along with an aesthetic solicitude with composition, enforced to immerse functionality as an emergent property of both. Objects are to exist not merely to express the aesthetic of the artist’s perception but also to implement a comprehensive interpretation of the material, composition, and form manifested and entangled within the idea of multifunctionality. The object is to be operated as a whole with an infinite scale in multiple directions: Infinite in size, infinite in combination, infinite in detail, and infinite in function.

We are continually accelerating to a universe with more possible states, generating all sorts of intriguing implications. Pandemic nudged our visions to a new experience of the futuristic life with its compulsory dynamism, its needs to the immaculate affordance of the built environment, and its rare and disorientating qualities of space and time. Time Machine is an embodiment of our progressing society’s social state, calling for an objective critique of modern objects with an insight into their capacities to boost performance followed by the technical description of aesthetic. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2021 Skyscraper Competition

Xuekui Liu, Yashu Chen, Liyu Ai, Hao Wang, Jialu Xu
China

Economic development has changed the appearance of the earth, but also put it in misery. This triggered our thinking: Is development and the ecological environment contradictory? How to make the relationship between humans and nature become “symbiosis” instead of “parasitic”?

The historic mission of Smokestack
Starting from the invention of the steam engine, mankind slowly entered the industrial society and their life has unprecedentedly improved. As a symbol of the industrial revolution, factory smokestack has brought prosperity to human society, as well as many environmental and climate problems. The conflict between human development and nature is particularly intense in developing countries. The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2030 there will be more than 50,000 active coal power stations and millions of factories in the world, of which 85% of the energy is still fossil fuels. The substances produced by the burning of fossil fuels can cause – global warming, air pollution (London smog episode, Smog alert in China), and water pollution.

Smokestack: Symbiosis
Symbiosis is a mutually beneficial relationship between two different species in nature. Providing energy and materials, the Symbiosis skyscraper is attached to the chimney, which can also absorb harmful substances. In the beginning, the Symbiosis Skyscraper only needed a 3D printing ring, and the printing materials were completely provided by burning waste and plant fibers, starting from the bottom of the smokestack and spiraling up and printing around. With the growth of Symbiosis Skyscrapers, its ability to absorb harmful substances produced by smokestacks has continued to increase, reducing smokestack emissions. When it reaches its final form, the factory smokestack will no longer emit harmful substances and achieve “carbon neutral”. At the same time, the waste heat generated by smokestacks is used to create nature greenhouses, purify the surrounding air, and turn the smokestack into a symbiotic building that merges with nature. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2021 Skyscraper Competition

Xiaoguang Chen, Jinting Sui, Xufeng Tai, Xiaotong Ma, Bai Lig
China

In China, Urban sprawl and overdevelopment have led to serious urban problems. There are crumbling building blocks in the middle of the city. At the same time, with the encroachment of land, a large number of local cultures, animals, and plants disappeared. In this era with the economy as the core, what is worth pursuing, what kind of future city symbol — “skyscraper” will be? We take the unfinished buildings, the product of urban sprawl as the carrier, Through modular customization, lightweight recyclable materials are assembled in factories into boxes of varying sizes，and implant the personalized space with culture as the theme that meets the needs of contemporary society. These boxes are based on the cost control requirements of the development timeline. Hanging on the traffic core one after another. A large one-time investment in traditional construction is avoided. Each box records the cultural changes of the city, and the building continues to grow with people’s more importance attention to culture. Through the reuse of the unfinished buildings in the city, this project solves the problem of resource waste caused by developers’ wrong judgment of future urban construction. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2021 Skyscraper Competition

Shuaijie Li, Yueming Lin, Qian’er Pu, Jiajing Wang, Jinda Liu
China

Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and this proportion is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Living in these high-density cities, the cost of renting a house is ridiculously high and does not meet the standards of the general low-economy groups, resulting in the extremely poor quality of life for the low-economy groups.

In an attempt to solve this problem, Urban Parasitic System proposes using the existing space in the city center to provide a livable possibility for the low and medium economic groups parasitic in the megacities. This design chose to hang various architectural spaces between the buildings as the main concept of the design. The existing high-density city is improved by “parasitizing” the design space on the existing skyscraper space. Read the rest of this entry »

eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Skyscraper Competition. The Jury selected 3 winners and 22 honorable mentions from 473 projects received. The annual award established in 2006 recognizes visionary ideas that through the novel use of technology, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, challenge the way we understand vertical architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.

The FIRST PLACE was awarded to EPIDEMIC BABEL designed by D Lee, Gavin Shen, Weiyuan Xu, and Xinhao Yuan from China.  The project envisions a rapid-deployment healthcare skyscraper for epidemic outbreaks. The building consists of a steel frame in which pre-fabricated programmatic boxes would plug-in according to specific demands.

The recipients of the SECOND PLACE are Yutian Tang and Yuntao Xu from The United States for the project EGALITARIAN NATURE. The proposal imagines a man-made vertical park for recreational activities within high-density urban areas accessible to all its inhabitants.

COASTAL BREAKWATER COMMUNITY designed by Charles Tzu Wei Chiang and Alejandro Moreno Guerrero from Taiwan received the THIRD PLACE. The project envisions a vertical housing community for fishermen in St. Louis, Senegal where rising sea levels have forced the inhabitants to move inland. The proposal is inspired by the traditional wooden architecture- a system of pillars, arches, and tensile structures.

The Honorable Mentions include a skyscraper for terraforming the permafrost, a proposal for repurposing decommissioned airplanes, a vertical cyber-mall, a water-scraper, and a reforestation skyscraper among other innovative projects.

The Jury was formed by Berrin Chatzi Chousein [Editor-in-Chief, World Architecture Community], Alper Derinboğaz [Founder, Salon Architects], Jürgen H. Mayer [Founder, J. MAYER H. and Partner, Architekten mbB], Manuel Navarro Zornoza [Principal, Latitude Architectural Group], Michael Neumann [Principal, Synn Architects], Ryuichi Sasaki [Founder, Sasaki Architecture], and Lu Yun [Founder, MUDA Architects].

First Place
2020 Skyscraper Competition

D Lee, Gavin Shen, Weiyuan Xu, Xinhao Yuan
China

The Epidemic Babel is a rapid-deployment health care skyscraper designed as a response to the current Coronavirus pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China. The project takes into consideration that an epidemic outbreak is usually fast, leaving no time for governments and policymakers to react. Under these harsh circumstances, a weak healthcare infrastructure will soon be torn apart turning the epidemic into a deadly catastrophe.

The Epidemic Babel features two very important advantages: simple construction and rapid response. The entire building consists of a steel frame with several functional boxes with a very small footprint. The building pattern is simple enough that any qualified construction team can have it ready in five days. Once the steel frame is erected, the healthcare team will choose the appropriate functional boxes to be attached to the steel frame. This building pattern allows the skyscraper to respond to the outbreak in a very short time and relieve the burden of the existing health care infrastructure. All the programmatic boxes are pre-manufactured in factories and need no extra time for construction. The lightness of the frame and boxes also makes it easy to transport to remote locations. Compared to the temporal hospitals currently built in China, the Epidemic Babel is faster to construct and potentially less expensive. Read the rest of this entry »

Second Place
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Yutian Tang, Yuntao Xu
United States

The Egalitarian Nature skyscraper imagines a new building typology driven by the human urge for nature instead of capital. It is a new kind of infrastructure conceived to serve the whole society. The traditional skyscraper is reimagined as a mountain range that provides a new way to experience nature within an urban environment. A zigzag-climbing path is developed along with abstract spaces that encourage an unexpected engagement between people and nature. Accessing the tower is not decided by capital but individual physical strength. Read the rest of this entry »

Third Place
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Charles Tzu Wei Chiang, Alejandro Moreno Guerrero
Taiwan

St. Louis, Senegal, located in the northwest part of the country, near the mouth of The Senegal River, has been home to fishermen for generations. It is a hostile territory where there are constant confrontations with the neighboring countries regarding the established fishing boundaries and territories. In addition to the political and social problems, the region is affected by the rising sea level. Such natural phenomenon has forced the community to move inland, away from the shore.

This proposal is based on traditional pillar structures, which are used to prevent erosion. These structures will serve as a foundation for the new vertical housing units. The project is also inspired by Senegal’s traditional wooden architecture that uses a complex arch system with tensile structures.  The system allows a high degree of adaptability and extendibility to create a new community by the sea challenging the rising sea level. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Xuejun Bai, Chucheng Pang, Lei Zhai, Yuyang Sun, Dianao Liu
China

With the accelerating process of urbanization, people’s demand for energy is increasing day by day. The existing oil, coal, and other energy can only be used for about 50 years, and their combustion will bring serious air pollution problems, such as urban haze, so the discovery and exploitation of new energy is imminent. Recently, more and more countries have found new clean energy combustible ice in the deep sea. Its reserves can be used by human beings for 1000 years, and it can only be converted into water and methane, so the exploitation of combustible ice is very valuable.

In addition, the problem of marine garbage is becoming more and more serious. It not only causes the damage to the marine landscape but also brings great harm to marine animals. Among them, most of the marine garbage is plastic garbage. Because of its structural characteristics, it will not be easily corroded by the seawater. Therefore, we come up with the idea of using local materials, turning plastic waste into 3d-printed materials, as our own building materials, and filling cracks in the seabed caused by combustible ice mining to prevent secondary disasters. Read the rest of this entry »

Honorable Mention
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Ngo Thanh Ha Tien, Dao Duy Tung
France

According to the report of the Swedish Global Challenges Foundation in collaboration with the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, there’s a 5 percent chance that in the next 100 years, humans will be wiped out by a global pandemic or a nuclear war. A century ago, a strain of pandemic flu killed up to 100 million people—5 percent of the world’s population. In 2013, a new mystery illness swept the west coast of North America, causing starfish to disintegrate. In 2015, a big-nosed Asian antelope known as the saiga lost two-thirds of its population—some 200,000 individuals—to what now looks to be a bacterial infection. Faced the risk of Biological warfare (BW)—also known as germ warfare—which is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with the intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war; and the evolution of unidentified influenza, are we human beings on our way to meet the end of the world? Read the rest of this entry »