Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Gary Esposito, Ryan Barney
United States

Developments in implementation and safety have led serious proponents of realistic energy solutions to conclude that nuclear energy remains our most promising carbon-free resource. This proposal is speculation on architectural design as a fundamental component of future nuclear systems. Using a recognizable infrastructural icon as the starting point, we propose adopting the cooling tower as a misunderstood entity, adapting it as a symbol for environmental security by reorienting public perception. We propose reimagining specific energy, social, and economic cycles through an integrated architectural argument, centered around an urban ‘Generation 4’ nuclear power plant. Using a mixed-use program including an oncological research facility, Gen-4 hitchhikes off 21st-century innovations in nuclear technology, asserting its role as civic symbol and economic entity to fuel research into human longevity, biologically and environmentally—Architecture as Cure. Situated at the site of an earlier nuclear plant proposal adjacent to New York City, Gen-4 proposes the skyscraper as a 21st-century symbol of evolution, reorienting public perception, standing with Promethean conviction against fear and ignorance.  Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

HeeYong Jung, Hye Rim Kim, Hyuneun Cho, Sihun Han
South Korea

Introduction
The Earth is like a living organism in that it is a self-healing system that can recover from the damages that were done to it from external forces. Much like how injured skin is able to heal itself and develop new flesh, the Earth is able to restore itself to perform its existing functions, even after it has been damaged by natural disasters and destructive human activities.

As we enter the 21st century, the speed of human development is exceeding the speed of the Earth’s self-recovery function due to population growth. As the scale of human activity expands, its negative impact on the Earth is increasing exponentially. Human activities that did not take into account the global environment has sharply intensified pollution, and there exists a vicious cycle in which humans are damaged by the polluted environment in return. If this continues, nature’s self-healing system will eventually collapse and become irreparable. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Haitong Chen, Peizhe Fang, Yechi Zhang
United States

Peak oil is the theorized point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline. At the time of post-peak oil.  We found that there are more and more Abandoned Oil rigs around Louisiana coastal line. Currently, the research told us just in this area there are 176 large oil platforms and 3000 more small oil rigs.

The expected effects of post-oil: peak oil and sea level rises, results in a series of incidents such as Oil Rigs Desertion, and bio-habitat loss. There are four different programs designed for offshore, mid-seas, and high seas oil rigs.

Our design focuses on the deserted Oil Rig Networks, we transform the original rigs into vertical bio-habitats, which aims to exert instant response to the oil spill, offer shelter to different types of species, and create public recreational programs. The proposal can be designed into four different programs that adapt to three different types of oil rigs. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Alireza Rezvani, Aref Kiantash, Hamid Vaeezadeh
Iran

Problems

• The increase in buildings’ occupancy area and the decrease of green spaces in cities.
• Creating green space in high-rise buildings.
• The growth of population and the necessity for high-rise construction.
• Use of clean energies and a decrease in the use of fossil energies.
• Saving rain and snow water.
• Protection against environmental pollutions.
• Stability, permanence, and strength.
• Increasing the upper levels of towers for better view and light.
• Flexibility and expandability.

Concept And Ideas

• Decreasing the occupancy area using an inverted pyramid.
• Increasing the roof area to establish solar panels using an inverted pyramid.
• Increasing the roof area for collecting rainwaters using an inverted pyramid.
• The possibility to create green space in heights using an inverted pyramid.
• Expandability by using triangle, square and hexagon patterns using an inverted pyramid.
• Increased stability using an inverted pyramid.
• The increase of residential units in upper levels using an inverted pyramid.
• Better view to ground and sky using inverted pyramid.
• The tent cover that opens in emergencies (air pollution such as sandstorms) and protects the city.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Ginfung Yong , Anca Ruxandra Florina Trimbaciu, Ali Irfan Bin Shazali, Alina Marinescu, Dominic Street, Franci Tafilaj, Raussell-Vince Mendigo, Jinkun Shen
United Kingdom

As years go by, we become more aware of the changes we need to make, as a society, in order to try and slow down or stagnate the damage we have done to our planet.

Consumerism and demand for cheaper, easy-replaceable goods have led us to produce more and more plastics and, implicitly waste, every year. However, unlike other materials, which can be reused or can enter a different lifecycle, plastics generally end up in landfills. Most of the Western plastic waste has been exported off to countries in Asia, which leads to rivers there becoming increasingly polluted. This is happening especially in areas of high-density population, in underdeveloped countries where the necessary recycling infrastructure is not provided. The plastic waste in rivers eventually ends up in open seas and oceans, which has built up in time into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area in the Pacific Ocean where over 80,000 tonnes of plastic float.

Therefore, solutions to implement recycling into circular economy models are needed. The Vrysi (Greek βρύση – meaning tap) prototype is designed to be positioned in estuary environments (the tidal mouth of a large river; where the tide meets the stream). The prototype expands on the concept of the ‘Ocean interceptor’, created by The Ocean Cleanup Group and, as the name states, intercepts and stops waste from flowing past it and into the ocean and transforms it into products that can benefit the community. Due to its strategic location, the vertical village is ‘turning off the tap’ on ocean pollution right at the source. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Yuanxi Zhang, Na Xie, Henan Wang
China, Japan

At present, the scarcity of freshwater resources is becoming increasingly serious, and it has become a global environmental problem. 97.5% of the total water resources in the world are saltwater resources such as seawater. Data show that more than 70% of the world ’s population lives within 70 km from the seaside. Therefore, desalination is considered to be the most practical method to continuously provide a source of fresh water. Compared to the other two commonly used methods of freshwater withdrawal-underground water withdrawal and remote water diversion, the energy consumption for seawater desalination is low, and raw water resources are abundant.

This project is located in the northern part of the East China Sea, next to Shanghai. China is a country with a severe drought and water shortage. China’s total freshwater resources are less than 2.800 billion cubic meters, accounting for 6% of global water resources, second only to Brazil, Russia, and Canada, ranking fourth in the world. However, China’s population accounts for more than 18% of the world’s total, and its per capita water resources are only 2,300 cubic meters, which is only a quarter of the world average. It is one of the countries with the world’s most per capita water resources. Shanghai’s 6340.5 square kilometers carry a population of 24.278 million. According to the standard of extreme water shortage per capita water resources below 500 cubic meters, Shanghai is in the extreme water shortage zone. How to find a more adequate and sustainable source of freshwater is a problem that must be addressed in urban development. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Xie Xiaolu, Zhai Xuetong, Kong Haodong, Zhang Yiping
China

According to statistics from the United Nations, there will be 3 billion people live in slums with poor living conditions by 2030. They live in slums, sharing only 10% of urban wealth, facing hunger, disease, and death, without way and passion to change their fate. After the study of slums, we believe that simply improving the living environment of slums cannot fundamentally solve this problem, unless the social system and class solidification can be profoundly reformed.

Class solidification, people avoid but have to admit, it is inevitable in social development. Generally, people always think poverty is due to laziness, but in fact, poverty is a kind of misfortune. Forced to live, the poor have to choose to go to work earlier rather than to receive longer education; to consume the production than to accumulate capital; to search for places with low land prices, were gathering the poor and further limits their development, to make them lack the courage and endurance to change their status. These factors are reciprocal causation, making the class barrier like an invisible wall, isolating the communication between people of different classes.

Sao Bernardo Du Camp, a place in southeastern Brazil, South America, where the gap between rich and poor is among the widest in the world. Slums in Brazil are like “weeds” that grow on this “paradise on earth.” Wherever there is open space, there are they. A narrow street, between the mansion and the slum, completely separate the fate of the two sides. This program aims to break down the invisible “wall” between the classes with a visible building “wall”. People living here can be trained in skills, and access to relatively comfortable and inexpensive living spaces-providing a cushion of time for people trying to improve themselves to accumulate capital, which is helpful for them to integrate into society and survive independently. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Yifei Fan, Wenxuan Tang, Shuting Xu, Yinshan Wang
China

Nowadays, there still exist a large number of landmines which are undiscovered during wars in the last century, which brings a huge potential threat underground just like the invisible bombs. The landmines are menacing residents’ safety anytime and anywhere. Cambodia is such a country, which is covered with about 73. 4 mines per square kilometer. As the war continued in the past century, the number of mines in Cambodia was also increasing. Due to the loss of maps in wars, nobody now knows the exact locations where the landmines buried in. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Qing Tianyi, Chen Zhi, Li Peiying, Jiang Xinjian, Sun Weixing, Zen Peiyun, Shi Yining, Zhang Jingbiao
China

A certain degree of fire is of positive significance for the renewal and regeneration of the forest ecosystem. However, when the fire is too large and difficult to control, the high temperature, smoke, and dust brought by the fire and the slow recovery of the ecosystem after the fire for nearly 100 years will cause incalculable damage to animals and plants, and even impact on human life.

Focusing on the current hot spots of Australian wildfires, we have built a tall tower in Australian forest by using the architectural method to meet the benefits of fires for the forest, at the same time, we have tried our best to control the extent and scope of the fires, and improve the recovery speed of the forest system. Read the rest of this entry »

Editors’ Choice
2020 Skyscraper Competition

Jung Seung Won, Yoon Joon Hyuk
South Korea

Plants and animals are becoming extinct at the fastest rate ever known in human history. As environmental issues and human exploitations have changed the ecosystem and climate, many species on Earth are in danger to be disappeared or become extinct. In response, a lot of research institutes are organized to preserve species and ecosystems, but it is not enough to break through this Dystopia.

As we believed that the new skyscraper will able to cover this serious environmental problem, the building which is helpful for the endangered species’ preservation and prosperity was came out. Based on the climate classification of Köppen, the”SEEDs” have 25 climates. Every floor represents each climate and possesses 5 single modules that function as preserving incubators. Noticeable species will be preserved and monitored in here to take care of. The most important function is not only preserving them but also taking incubators out and grafting species to actual habitats. Read the rest of this entry »