Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Dennis Byun, Sunjoo Lee, Harry Tse
New Zealand

INAAOMATA is a disaster adaptation tower set around the Pacific islands. The tower acts as the last resort to save what is left, which holds important value to the people of Kiribati. It is confirmed that Kiribati will be the first island to sink completely underwater in less than 50 years due to climate change and sea level rising. With these irreversible changes, we have no choice but to adapt and survive.

Alternative survival method has been presented to the Gilbertese to move to a different country and settle down with a different culture and lifestyle. Local elderlies who tooled the culture and sentimental value of their identity and space refused to move to another country. To show the independence of the people and their standing with their culture, the tower is anchored down with a massive dolphin structure in the core to hold everything up, the whole tower floats on the water as the dolphin allows the tower to rise with the sea level. As it’s risen, the tower will be fixed in position until the next rise. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Carlo Alberto Guerriero
Italy

In Africa, in the Sahel regions, the drying of wetlands is proving catastrophic for both biodiversity and the economy of local populations. In fact, the fall in rainfall, exacerbated by the poor management of water by man, is leading to the fight against desertification, and more and more villages are held in the dry grip of the Sahara. All this has pushed thousands of environmental refugees to flee to Europe and caused the emergence of numerous internal conflicts.

Lake Chad is emblematic of the natural and human drama that the Sahel is experiencing. Lake Chad has always been a fundamental habitat for the survival of sub-Saharan populations and an important cultural crossroads. But in just 60 years Lake Chad has lost more than 90% of its surface, currently reaching a size of 2,500 km2, with the forecast of a total disappearance in the coming decades.

To determine such a change, as well as a decrease in precipitation, it was the construction of large dams on the Yobe rivers (in Kano in Nigeria) and Logone (in Maga in Cameroon) the main tributary of the Chari. Both rivers have lost almost 80% of their flow, with the consequent loss of alluvial areas necessary for agriculture, a reduction of pastures and a strong limitation of fishing activities. For millennia the Lake Chad basin has been subject to great variations, but today unlike in the past, about 10 million people survive thanks to the lake. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Abdulkarim Fattal, Baran Akkoyun, Burcu Kismet, Gorkem Kinik, Martyna Katarzyna Duras, Pinar Beyazit, Sena Polatkan
Italy

Nowadays, the human impact on our planet has become the most disputed topic. In fact, every problem related to the biophysical environment, ecosystem, biodiversity and natural resources is accelerating as we continue to grow. Curiosity backfired. Countries, associations and private companies are highly investing in space related topics with an urge to find life on another planet which leads to many serious consequences. We basically pollute everywhere we go, that even outer space is littered with remains of used rockets, satellites fragments and other, which we call “DEBRIS”.

Debris can be referred to either natural debris such as asteroids and comets, or the mass of artificially created objects in space. In fact, space junk is increasingly becoming a problematic issue for both space and life on earth as they can eventually block earth’s orbit in addition to possible damage of solar planets, telescopes, trackers, satellites and other assets orbiting around our planet. Several solutions are proposed to deal with the debris problem, and one of the leading solutions is to recycle these non-working satellites. In fact, harvesting these parts is not an easy procedure. The Universe Tower will allow scientists to develop new strategies using advanced robotics and technologies to perform deeper research in order to bring these parts back home. A replica of the solar system is imagined inside the building, allowing scientists from NASA to have access to all different planets and therefore minimizing the amounts of trips to space. Each planet will have its own labs and experimental zones along with a simulation area, having the exact same conditions and environment, allowing scientists to explore further innovations, only a few steps away. Other technological solutions are proposed and placed at the top of the building, letting a direct treatment of space junk such as the Laser Broom and Space Nets. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Umut Baykan, Doğuşcan Aladag
United Kingdom

Tourism is a socio-economic phenomenon. It enables people to encounter new experiences all around the world. Contributing significantly to the global economy, it benefits local employment figures whilst providing opportunities for cultural exchange. The number of tourists has risen dramatically since 1950: from 25 million to 1.2 billion in 2017. Movement of so many people at seasonally determined periods of time creates massive demand for accommodation. This demand presents a problem across urban and environmental scales.

For the majority of touristic destinations, demand spikes in certain parts of the year. Traditionally, the model has been to build hospitality facilities such as hotels to meet this demand. As a result, they account for a disproportionate percentage of the built environment. Since these facilities are vacant of people and purpose outside of peak season, they are routinely shut down in order to limit maintenance and resourcing costs. Unfortunately, for settlements that are reinvented as tourist destinations, the impact is significant and detrimental. The local economy becomes fragile, the cultural life is undermined, all to the point whereby towns become more like ghost-towns when the tourist season is over. Profit becomes a higher priority than the conservation of local beauty for developers. This attitude is unsustainable, as the quality of the landscape is often what attracted tourists in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Dimo Ivanov
Switzerland

Inspiration
Inspired by professor Donald r. Sadoway’s notion of giant container-sized liquid metal battery, Ephemere high-rise proposes the idea of a floating power station and liquid metal battery charging station.

Liquid metal battery
The team of professor sadoway – ambri aims to develop a giant battery that fits in a 40-foot shipping container for placement in the field. And this has a nameplate capacity of two megawatt-hours. That’s enough energy to meet the daily electrical needs of 200 households. Ambri’s cells are strung together within a thermal enclosure to form an ambri core. The ambri core is ‘self-heating’ when operated every couple of days, requiring no external heating to keep the batteries at temperature. The ambri system comprises multiple ambri cores that are strung together and connected to the grid with power electronics. The configuration of the ambri system is modular and can be customized to meet specific customer needs.

Offshore wind, wave and tidal energy
Ephemere high-rise uses 100% renewable energy sources for electricity production. Harnessing energy from offshore winds, waves, and tides holds great promise for our world’s clean energy future. Energy production is just one of the valuable resources our oceans and coastal ecosystems provide. We can successfully develop offshore renewable energy by ensuring that energy projects are sited, designed, and constructed in a manner that protects our fragile ocean ecosystems. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2019 Skyscraper Competition

Jo Palma + Partners Corporation
United States

The Atlântica self-rising tower investigates the future of construction and explores the boundaries of automated building assembly and self-organization. Inspired by the behavior of insects like ants, termites and bees and their ability to construct large-scale habitats for their communities, research and investigations on self-assembling components demonstrate the potential future for construction. Envisioning that building parts can organically self-assemble into optimal, self-supporting configurations in an oceanic environment, the Atlântica tower concept challenges the ordinary construction process by building from top to bottom and from underwater up.

By utilizing a magnetic system embedded in the structural frame of the individual components, the building members could be joined together based on predefined and optimized geometry and construction sequencing algorithms. The building form would change based on the number of members deployed underwater, which could be continuously modified by addition or subtraction. These modular components would be produced off-site, shipped to desired assembly location and released underwater, allowing the self-assembly process to begin. Triggered by increased water entropy, the individual pieces would find their adjacent matches and start the forming process of the structure.

The modular framework of the Atlântica tower allows for different program types with easy adaptability. From housing, lodging and working uses to vertical farming and sky gardens, Atlântica could become a community within itself. Read the rest of this entry »

2021 SKYSCRAPER COMPETITION

Editor’s Choice 
2018 Skyscraper Competition

Maryam Fazel, Sukaina Adnan Almousa, Maryam Safari
Iran, United Kingdom, United States

Following the tragic earthquake of 2017 in west part of the Iranian terrain, people of the affected area have witnessed a devastating feeling; fleeing their homes or trapped under buildings. This tragedy and similar ones in the world are all due to many reasons that together weaken the supporting system offered to people in earthquake regions. One of the main causes of such disaster is the lack of alarming systems that can detect the approach of earthquakes. A post-disaster situation of kiosk and devastation is caused also by lack of efficient evacuation structure that can help people run for a shelter in a short time.

Addressing these problems, this project is a proposal of a skyscraper that responds to earthquake before it happens. In this premise, the structure works on two levels; one is the monitoring system, which constitutes of a biotechnological facade containing microfluidics channels continuously culturing genetically engineered harmless bacteria that is engineered to acts a biosensor system. The other level is the core of the building and the evacuation system. The skyscraper is built on a shock absorbent structure that will increase safety factor once in an earthquake emergency. It is -on the other hand- supported by pods that are set on platform scattered along multiple levels. These pods work as assembly points that can then fly people to the nearest safe zone. Users of the building can access the platforms easily. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2018 Skyscraper Competition

Haotong Sun, Zonghao Wu, Fengwei Jia
China

The melting of arctic ice
A reduction in Arctic summer ice cover has become more intense in recent years, culminating in a record low of 3.4 million square kilometres in 2012 – 18 per cent below the previous recorded minimum in 2007 and 50 per cent below the average in the 1980s and 1990s. Land ice is also retreating and permafrost is melting.

The retreating ice brings easier access to natural resources such as gas and oil, thus prompting increased human activity that may threaten the already fragile ecosystems and wildlife, the UN Environment Programme’s report says.

The reason of melting
1.The reasons for the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe are manifold. More heat is brought into the Arctic through the atmosphere and ocean currents, while the melting itself prompts further melting by reduced reflection of incoming sunlight.

2.White ice and snow acts as a mirror, reflecting 85 per cent of solar radiation; however, ice-free areas of the ocean reflect only 10 per cent and the bare tundra only 20 per cent.

3.Black carbon (soot), a short-lived climate pollutant, is also believed to contribute to warming by darkening snow and ice and reducing reflective area. UNEP and partners last year launched the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to address black carbon and other such short-lived climate pollutants.

4.The thawing of permafrost will also contribute to further warming as the organic matter stored therein – up to 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon across the northern hemisphere – also thaws and decomposes, releasing the trapped carbon as CO2 and methane. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2018 Skyscraper Competition

Luis Daniel Pozo Torres
Bolivia

Project statement
… a year ago my family , mama , pa , my  oldest brother , my youngest sister and me  left our home and  our country, back then there were so many problems, pa says because politics, I still don’t understand  I only remember that we had to grab the most important things and get out of the city very fast.

We spent many days in many countries looking for a place to stay, then one day pa told us we where invited to go to the Helix, that sounded very strange and also exiting,  so we went there, when i first saw it I thought it was a big escalator to the sky, is was like an invitation to climb and leave the ground.

When we arrived we where welcomed with a meal and hot Chocolate, we spend many hours talking with many Doctors, then pa got a key and we went up with the elevator, that ride was fun because it was like been inside and sometimes outside with green gardens everywhere.  I still enjoy this ride. Read the rest of this entry »