From Earth to Mars
eVolo Magazine has recently announced the winners of the 2013 Skyscraper Competition. The award was established in 2006 to recognize outstanding ideas for vertical living. Since then, the publication has received more than 5,000 projects that envision the future of building high. These ideas, 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. In 2013, the Jury, formed by leaders of the architecture and design fields selected 3 winners and 24 honorable mentions. eVolo Magazine received 625 projects from all continents and 83 different countries. The winners were selected for their creativity, ingenuity, and understanding of dynamic and adaptive vertical communities.
The first place was awarded to Derek Pirozzi from the United States, for his project “Polar Umbrella”. The proposal is a buoyant skyscraper that rebuilds the arctic ice caps by reducing the surface’s heat gain and freezing ocean water. In addition, the super-structure is equipped with a desalinization plant and solar powered research facilities and eco-tourist attractions.
During the last decades of global warming, the polar ice caps have experienced a severe rise in temperature causing the northern and southern ice shelves to become thin, fractured, and melt into the ocean. Rebuilding the arctic layers is the primary objective of this proposal which cools down the Earth’s surface by reducing heat gain in the vulnerable Arctic regions.
The Polar Umbrella’s buoyant superstructure becomes a statement for the prevention of future depletion of our protective arctic region. Through its desalinization and power facilities, this arctic skyscraper becomes a floating metropolis equipped with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) research laboratories, renewable power stations, dormitory-style housing units, eco-tourist attractions, and ecological habitats for wildlife. A series of these structures would be strategically located in the most affected areas.
Salt water is used to produce a renewable source of energy through an osmotic (salinity gradient power) power facility housed within the building’s core. In addition, the structure’s immense canopy allows for the reduction of heat gain on the arctic surface while harvesting solar energy. The umbrella’s thermal skin boasts a series of modules that are composed of a polyethylene piping system that pumps brackish water. Finally, the Polar Umbrella also regenerates the ice caps using harvest chambers that freeze the ocean water.
The recipients of the second place are Darius Maikoff and Elodie Godo from France, for their “Phobia Skyscraper”. The project seeks to revitalize an abandoned industrial area of Paris, France, through an ingenious system of prefabricated housing units. Its modularity allows for a differentiation of various programs and evolution in time. The Phobia Skyscraper is a new form of modular suburban residential development for Paris, France. It is located over the “Petite Ceinture”, a former +industrial site with excellent views of the city and an extensive transportation network. Two main ground slabs and an empty tower structure, constructed of recycled industrial materials, hold prefabricated units that are stacked to utilize the same plumbing system but are rotated to open to outdoor spaces. The units are grouped around outdoor common green spaces.
These common areas, or “nuclei centers,” are equipped with displays that provide real-time feedback for residents on societal issues within the community, occupancy rates of the structure, and messages. It also contains water-collection equipment and solar power panels.
Despite its solid skeleton, the Phobia Skyscraper and its modular units are designed to evolve as does society itself. Its materials are the byproducts of abandonment and recycling; the building itself could be abandoned and once again revitalized, depending on the desires and needs of its residents.
The third place was awarded to Ting Xu and Yiming Chen from China, for their project “Light Park”, a floating skyscraper that takes new development within large cities to the sky. The project allows for a continuous growth of the world’s mega-cities by providing adequate infrastructure, housing, commercial, and recreational areas.
The rapid increase of population within the major cities around the world has led to poor development and serious urban design problems, including the lack of infrastructure, housing, and recreational areas. In Beijing, a large portion of the historic center has been demolished.
One way to make scarce green and recreation space available to residents of this crowded city is a skyscraper that floats above the land, taking new development to the sky. The Light Park stays afloat thanks to a large, mushroom cap-like helium-filled balloon at its top and solar-powered propellers directly below. Programmatic platforms that host parks, sports fields, green houses, restaurants, and other uses are suspended from the top of the structure by reinforced steel cables; the platforms fan in different directions around the spherical vessel to balance its weight. These slabs are also staggered to allow for maximum exposure to sunlight on each level.
Translucent solar panels cover the top of the vessel to power the uses below, and water collectors, also located at the top, direct precipitation towards filters that send clean water throughout the structure.
Though it doesn’t completely solve Beijing’s serious traffic and overpopulation problems, the Light Park can return valuable green space to the public, and also help mitigate the pollution that comes with increased development – with parks and plants floating in the sky above the city, the air is partially cleaned.
The honorable mentions include several projects that explore a sustainable urban future. Some projects explore new frontiers, other honorable mentions include morphing structures and digital explorations among many more ideas that look into the future of our natural and built environments.
Soundscraper Captures Sound Kinetic Energy while Reducing Noise Pollution Julien Bourgeois, Olivier Colliez, Savinien de Pizzol, Cedric Dounval, Romain Grouselle, France.
Today sustainable architecture seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials. Noise is part of our urban environment and our everyday life and it is one of the most prevalent pollution form in cities, but it is also an important source of energy not valued yet.
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Materials provided by eVolo Magazine