Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

BIOMSgroup / Maria-Paz Gutierrez
United States

Buildings are currently the highest single contributors to anthropogenic climate change accruing to approximately 45% of the world’s current energy consumption. Projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate that advancements in buildings’ energy efficiency could potentially reduce anticipated global carbon emissions up to 30% by 2030. Yet, emerging global economies are projected to increase exponentially energy, water consumption and toxic emissions due to the unforeseen density and scale of new constructions.

Next-generation building technologies thus bear undeniable responsibility to streamline accelerated innovation of building technologies to diminish the ever growing pressures on ecosystems. We anticipate that in this pursuit, architecture will shift into considering new models of energy self-generation and material degradability to further approximate autotrophic built environments designed to balance resources’ inputs and outputs.

This proposal addresses the opportunity of developing an internal (Part A) and external membrane system (Part B) that through live (algae/lichen) and synthetic matter integration can process matter, and contribute significantly to decrease energy consumption. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Fillette Romaric, Chandrasegar Velmourougane
France

The densification of cities and exponential growth of its population has left very few areas for structures that do not contribute to its urban life and economy

Paris in particular, has very few land dedicated to cemeteries and every ten years the tombs are ‘recycled’ – this has led thousands of remains without a proper resting place.

The idea behind the vertical cemetery is to remember death as part of our humanity by creating a symbolic tower with a rightful place within the city that the deceased so much loved – the skyscraper will become a new landmark for the city where families could gather.

The center of the tower is occupied by a skylight, offering an opening to the sky that reflects light into a water pond at the bottom. Around the skylight, a spiral ramp offers a walkway along the graves and leads to the top with amazing views of Paris. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Tee Khay Mee
Malaysia

The Rescuer Skyscraper is an algae hydrogen-powered floating skyscraper proposal to be used as temporal shelter for disaster zones. It could also be used during the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the affected areas.

The project is based on the idea of producing bio-fuels through an ingenious algae farm that covers the top part of the structure. The algae will absorb CO2 as its main nutrient for photosynthesis and will produce hydrogen to be used in bioreactors.

The geometry of the project resembles a vertical blimp with an open structure where housing units could be located. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

James Diewald
United States

Global financial turmoil is likely to push a growing class of wealthy elites towards tax shelter states. Monaco is foremost among these, currently commanding an average of fifty thousand euros per square meter for residential properties. The state itself is quite limited geographically and began constructing high-rise towers in the 1970s to accommodate growth. In the late 1980s, a ban on high rise construction was imposed, but was revoked in 2008 due to intense demand and the infeasibility of polder expansion. Located immediately adjacent to the harbor, the tower sits lightly on raised plinth, which calls to mind 17th century bastions and is sympathetic to the historic fortress nearby. Two formal axes lead to the building entrances, one by road and one by sea. The building skin lifts off the ground to reveal glazed lobby spaces beyond.

Geometry + Structure

The global geometry of the Formal Attire is defined by the transition from a 6-pointed Star, to a hexagon, to a triangle. Each shape has circumscribed radius of 24 meters. The height of the tower is 7 times the diameter. Novel construction technologies and structural evaluation techniques such as robotic formwork and advanced finite element analysis packages offer new formal possibilities with added efficiencies and spatial richness. Formal Attire proposes a primary structure of topological surfaces that continuously modulate the spatial qualities of the residences and other programs. The structure forms the demising walls for the residences, producing a stunning variety of unique living arrangements. By allowing the structural walls to cross the entire width of the building, an extremely stiff, yet visually lightweight and slender solution is possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Sim Yee Lee, Minh Ngoc Phan
United Kingdom

This scheme consists of a residential tower with an emphasis on waste collection and recycling. The project takes advantage of its location at the centre of the ‘sky bridge network’, acting as a ‘hub’ to gather and process waste from neighboring towers. Waste materials are collected at each household in a series of special compartments – one each for glass, metals, paper, plastics and organic matter. These are then transported to the Recycling Tower via service ducts located beneath the sky bridges. From here they are moved down to a large-scale sorting / recycling centre at its ground floor interface via vacuumed, color-coded pipes. In addition, the design embraces recycled materials in its construction – for example, much of the tower is clad in colorful recycled corrugated steel sheets. This, along with the exposed nature of the recycling pipes, services and structure results in a vibrant and expressive building.

Site Context

The site is located in an industrial and commercial district suffering from lack of infrastructure services and residential areas in London. This problem will increase daily city movements as people who work in Canary Wharf and its surrounding areas commute from other parts of the city. The site also surrounded by water and it is a distant away from the existing bridges and attractions which are related with water. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Park soon young, Lee chang hee, Lee ki joon
South Korea

The idea behind this skyscraper proposal is to harvest the energy within clouds in regions where more than 200 days per year are cloudy and rainy such as Scotland, North western United States, and South American rain forests.

According to studies, a single lightning produces comparable energy to 100,000 household bulbs for an hour. It is estimated that the world’s population currently needs 14 trillion of kilowatts per year but almost 33% of the electricity is lost during its distribution.

The Cloud and Electricity Generator Skyscraper seeks to tackle these problems by collecting the cloud’s electricity at heights that surpass more than 1 kilometer. The skyscraper is designed with a series of super-tall antennas that collect lightning and stores the energy in a series of battery-like structures distributed along the entire building. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Julie Defourneaux, Irène Galante, Jean Paillard, Laetitia Paneta, Guillaume Pele, Charles Murzeau
France

The Up to You Skyscraper is a floating city based on the natural principles of trees that feed and transform the environment. This cluster of skyscrapers adapts to the climate and adjusts its temperature. It collects water and harvests wind and solar energy while providing a new set of programs for the city. Each box welcomes program such as research laboratories, energy transforming industries, offices, and leisure facilities. Read the rest of this entry »

Finalist
2011 Skyscraper Competition

Forrest Fulton Architecture
United States

Instead of a towering Iconic image, disconnected from historic, horizontal Yerevan, Lace Hill stitches the adjacent city and landscape together to support a holistic, ultra-green lifestyle, somewhere between rural hillside living and dense cultured urbanity. To create a new, firmly rooted architecture-urbanism-landscape, the 85,000 square meter project morphs the common urban element of Yerevan, the superblock, to the site, a truncated hill along the natural amphitheater of Yerevan. This act extends the amphitheater and completes the hill, creating more capacity or “seats” for the viewing of Yerevan and Mt. Ararat, the eternal icon of Armenia. Native plants irrigated with recycled gray water cover the hill. Intricate perforations recalling traditional Armenian lace needlework provide terraced exterior space, natural ventilation, and amazing views for the promenade, hotel rooms, residences, and office space.

Unlike a singular object tower that one simply views from the city below, the lacy, living hill seduces visitors inside to a promenade and a succession of tower-voids. Tower-voids act as dramatic cooling towers in Yerevan’s semi-arid climate. As one moves toward the cooler center, the hill opens to the sky. With the feel of a cathedral or basilica in size and light, pools and tree-topped hills fill these flowing-nodal public spaces. These are spatial monuments to Armenia, carved from the hill like the ancient Armenian Monastery of Gerhard.

Lace Hill not only conserves its own resources within, but also gives back to Yerevan, passively cooling portions of Yerevan during the summer. As north breezes pass over the tower-voids’ ponds, the project acts as a giant evaporative cooling mechanism for the semi-arid city below. Window walls set deep within the terraces shade summer sun. Planted surfaces absorb solar heat, filter air and water-borne toxins, and supports insect and animal life. Geothermal wells and radiant floors efficiently heat and cool spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

LAVA has unveiled their EVOLUTION lamp in collaboration with Philips, the global leader in lighting. The lamp is on display at Handmade during the fair.

Chris Bosse, Asia Pacific Director of LAVA says: ‘the challenge was to re-imagine an object that everybody knows, to break up preconceived ideas. The playful reinterpretation of a sculptural table lamp resembles a plant rather than a desk light’.

Rogier van der Heide, Chief Design Officer at Philips Lighting, says: “With the EVOLUTION desk light, Chris Bosse of LAVA has created a new design language in luminaire design. The desk light is also a great representation of Philips’ people-focused approach to lighting: a friendly product, based on a humanistic design concept while delivering state of the art LED technology, all of this in a very attractive way. The design posed many technical challenges such as thermal management and a complex double curved shape – however, close collaboration between LAVA and Philips has ensured that the EVOLUTION lamp exceeded our expectations in terms of design and engineering.”

EVOLUTION is inspired by the growth in plants. LAVA’s design and architectural concepts emulate the structural principles of nature such as cells and leaves in order to be more efficient – lighter, stronger, and ultimately more beautiful. Read the rest of this entry »

The Coliseum was completed in only 18 months for the 2010 South American Games in Medellín, Colombia by Mazzanti Arquitectos and plan:b arquitectos. The green ribbons of roof lines create a distinctive character and utilitarian design for the complex which echoes the surrounding topography of the mountainous countryside. Six types of layered roof trusses are repeated in different patterns over four separate spans simplifying fabrication and installation. The undulating roofs extend beyond the inner volume to create public outdoor space.

The environmental design is an act of democratization and participation.The venue hosting sporting events for the cities residences is skinned in open air brise soleil wall partitions to allow passer-bys to witness events from the exterior.  The open skin also allows the local temperate breezes to provide natural cooling. The various relative heights of the roof truss ribbons allow room for vertical polycarbonate panels to provide natural lighting conditions. Orientation of the fenestration is north-south to reduce solar heat buildup and collect northern prevailing breezes. Read the rest of this entry »