The Best Skyscrapers
An architect will bring your dream come true. You can always design and draw your dream house with the help of an architect. Bringing the all the dreams in to a drawing will be architect's part. In what is described as the science of drawing and erecting buildings and other physical structure, it is the unwavering vision and imagination of the creators that adds the human feeling to mortar and steel. We present is a recap of the 25 most outstanding designs and concepts of the 2012 evolo Skyscraper Competition. Each one as breathtaking as the other!
Housed within 55,000 glaciers in the Himalaya Mountains sits 40 percent of the world’s fresh water. The massive ice sheets are melting at a faster-than-ever pace due to climate change, posing possible dire consequences for the continent of Asia and the entire world stand, and especially for the villages and cities that sit on the seven rivers that come are fed from the Himalayas’ runoff as they respond with erratic flooding or drought.
Industrialization and mining are destroying China’s natural settings, especially mountains, which are excavated to the point of destruction in man’s search for minerals. These processes don’t just devistate regions’ ecologies; they also displace whole populations of people, separating them from their homes and also their means of living, as many in these rural areas work as farmers. The “Mountain Band-Aid” project seeks to simultaneously restore the displaced Hmong mountain people to their homes and work as it restores the mountain ecology of the Yunnan mountain range. Designers: Yiting Shen, Nanjue Wang, Ji Xia, Zihan Wang
The designer of the “Monument to Civilization” asks you to reconsider what constitutes ‘spectacular.’ Skyscrapers are meant to wow, to impress. But other things within cities are also impressive, the designer says: “New York, for instance: If we put its annual garbage on a area of a typical tower footprint, we’ll get a 1,300 meter high landfill tower, which is about as three times tall as the Empire State Building (450 meters). Isn’t that spectacular?” Designers: Lin Yu-Ta, Anne Schmidt4]
Natural disasters, the threat of technological meltdown and even the possibility of visitors from space all present a need for cities and even countries to reorganize to implement infrastructure that can protect people from possible catastrophes.The “Citadel Skyscraper” project is imagined for Japan because of the numerous natural and manmade disasters that have struck the region in recent years. The project proposes a three-part implementation of new structures with an end result of protecting the island with a fortress-like defense shield. The first part involves a restructuring of the land use of all of the country’s major cities as residents are moved out of the city proper. Businesses and commercial endeavors will stay located within the cities, but residents will move out to sea and live in self-supporting residential skyscrapers, or citadels. The second part specifies the location of these citadels: They will be lined up as a single “sheet”, creating a barrier 2-3 km from the shoreline that can protect the mainland from tsunamis. The skyscrapers themselves are connected by a system of breakwaters and drainage channels, and are able to withstand waves up to 50 meters tall. These are further bolstered by a connected series of fiber sails, buried as deep as 1,200 meters, that surround the island. When the waves hit the sails and meet the oscillations of its stretched fibers, such a dissonance is created that the wave is reduced to nothing. Designers: Victor Kopieikin, Pavlo Zabotin
Moved by the economic disparity in the United States brought to light by the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, the designers of the Occupy Skyscraper propose creating a building that can further empower protesters and accelerate the Occupy movement. The temporary Occupy skyscraper can be erected on any protest site to provide shelter and meeting spaces for dissenters. By providing a means for protesters to take their movement from a horizontal plane to a 3-D vertical reality, the Occupy skyscraper strengthens and bolsters the event as a whole, but amazingly, it does so only using hemp rope and canvas. Designers: Ying Xiao, Shengchen Yang
How to live vertically? Building higher and higher does not seem to change the way we live. Most people wish to live in single-family residences, but the problem is the lack of diversity and density. How to have the benefits of suburbia combined with the intensity of living in the city?The history of the skyscrapers goes back to Elisha Otis, who invented the elevator in the 19th century. This invention promoted the conquest of the sky with projects competing for prowess and size. What would happened if within a house the elevator is used as a remote control to move from one floor to another, from one program to another? This new “object” would challenge the function of living. The house becomes smart and incorporates multiple applications – one application per floor. The elevator is for the house what that Internet is for a smart-phone. A necessary parameter! Now you can “zap” your life spatially. Imagine yourself in your room, put on your slippers, go in your elevator, and zap! You will be in your living room, your garage, your favorite bar or business place; the park where you go jogging! Designers: Adrien Piebourg, Bastien Papetti
The “Migrant Skyscraper” is literally mobile: A giant, thin tire with a building and green space in the center, this skyscraper is ready to roll.The concept behind this structure is that in an unstable world, people need the stability of self-sufficiency to truly be free, and the future of the architectural field can help provide that to people. By constructing a safe haven for residents to live in that ensures they will have food to eat and water to drink, the Migrant Skyscraper affords people freedom despite what natural and social disasters may come. The building-inside-a-wheel can stay stationary for however long residents please, but, for example, if political upheaval destabilizes a region, residents can fire up the biofuel-powered engine and cruise to a new location. Designers: Damian Przybyła, Rafał Przybyła
The race between countries, cities, and corporations to construct the highest structure is a challenge of pride and power. Our technological advances allowed for the construction of super-tall buildings – the higher they are, the more space they loose and the harder the engineering challenge becomes. The global financial crisis was the last decisive argument against such structures.The House of Babel offers a radical revision for the common method of building a traditional home. With the help of aerostatic construction we can eliminate extra floors and elevate the building to almost any desired height. The post-crisis skyscraper is the house consisting of two floors connected with a high-speed elevator on a thin heavy-duty cable. Designers: MADETOGETHER – Nikita Asadov
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean sits a mass of garbage that is 8.1% the size of the entire sea. It is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), and is estimated to contain over 100 million tons of waste. The debris gathers in that particular location as ocean currents convene in the Subtropical Convergence Region, and is causing grave harm to the immediate ecosystem and those within a broad surrounding swath. Designers: Kim Hongseop, Cho Hyunbeom, Yoon Sunhee, Yoon Hyungsoo
In an era where mega-structures threaten to strip man’s needs and the humanity of architecture from new buildings and the field as a whole, the “Tower of Babel” seeks to do the opposite, existing as a living monument to its creator and their aspirations. The building is perpetually “under construction” as the needs and wants of its creator evolve, allowing the monument to experiment with and showcase many architectural trends. Designer: Maciej Nisztuk
With today’s weight of cities on the landscape, we tend to lose our original relationship with nature. The cities are getting bigger, larger, and higher as the population increases and our connection to natural landscape is disappearing. Urban planners and architects have been trying to recreate nature in cities by drawing parks and planting trees on streets. The implementation of these “green parts” in cities has nothing to do with nature in its original state.Instead of trying to force nature into the city, we should adapt the city to nature. For example, living underneath the earth allows us to preserve most of its surface. We know that verticality allows cities to face the increasing needs for density. Designer: Charly Duchosal
The incredibly destructive effects that coal plants cause to our natural environment are well documented and known, but 50,000 plants still operate the world over every day to power the planet, as green technology has not evolved to a point where they generate enough energy to replace fossil fuel processes. The “Coal Power Plant Mutation” project is a proposal for coal factory addendum, a skyscraper built over an existing factory that can reduce the amounts of harmful waste that spew from their chimney stacks while we wait for green technologies to take over. Designer: Chipara Radu Bogdan
On the borders of two regions at war, those who suffer the greatest are the citizens who simply want peace for their nation. Often, warring regions build great walls between them, but do such walls truly solve conflict? They don’t, say the designers of the “District 3 – Skyscraper of Liberation” project – instead, walls obstruct mutual understanding and intensify the discrepancy.This project is imagined for the border of Israel and Palestine, which is defined by three districts: an Israeli district, a Palestinian district and a third, which is a zone where the borders are separated by a wall. This wall will be removed and replaced with a skyscraper, transforming the isolated and hate-filled area with one that is shared and fosters reconciliation. The skyscraper can only be entered by Palestinians and Israelis who are non-violent and seek peace and cooperation, and is administered by the United Nations. Designers: Xiaoliang Lu, Yikai Lin
The Bridge of Hope is a symbolic structure that seeks to link the shores of the Dead Sea to promote peace between Jordan and Israel. Construction of the bridge would commence from both sides of the sea, ultimately meeting in the middle; there, a settlement for Arabs and Jews to live harmoniously is established. The water level of the Dead Sea is dropping by 1 meter per year, and plans are currently underway by the Jordanians to replenish the water levels by connecting it, via pipelines, with the Red Sea. In addition to the bridge’s construction, this project also proposes the creation of aqueducts from Israel’s side to help replenish the sea with water from the Mediterranean. These aqueducts would generate electricity as the water flow drops 400 meters; this electricity is used to desalinate the water, making it useable for irrigation purposes (residual water is discharged into the Dead Sea). Salt water pools (with normal salt levels) are created within the Dead Sea for fish farming, and other pools are also created to cultivate mineral baths for a variety of uses (potash is used for fertilizer, Bromine for fire retardants, fresh water for hydroponic farming, Dunaliella bacteria for its high CO2 sequestration rate, etc.).Designers: Mohammed Adib, Ivan Arellano, Jordi Cunill, Maria Teresa Farre, Christian Koester, Davide Roncato
The “Vertical Ground” project reexamines the “norm” for the organization of college campuses. Students today want proximity to the culture, activities and networks available in urban settings, but typical campuses are horizontally oriented and require large swaths of land for development, which are increasingly rare in desirable urban areas. By orienting a college campus vertically instead, colleges can locate in dense areas and perhaps even better facilitate social communication amongst students and faculty. Designers: George Kontalonis, Jared Ramsdell, Nassim Es-Haghi, Rana Zureikat
Ninety-seven percent of Chinese airports will need to be rebuilt by 2020, according to a recent survey, causing huge implications for cost and land use issues, and the city of Beijing is currently planning the construction of a second airport. The designers of the Air@Port propose avoiding using precious land for new airports by constructing one that is positioned 450 meters in the air. The airport sits atop the bases of dozens of thin towers that mushroom out at the top with wide platforms that all connect to support the runways and airport facilities on top. Locating an airport city so high in the air has many immediate benefits. Being so high up will mean that there won’t be height restrictions on the buildings erected on the platform, which will allow for great stimulation and creativity in the resulting development. Also, because wind speed is higher 450 meters in the air than it is at sea level, the length of the runway can be effectively reduced, saving space. Designers: ZhiYong Hong, XueTing Zhang
Aakash, the Hindi word for “sky,” provides the inspiration for this project, which proposes locating floating clusters of development high in the skies above Mumbai, one of the world’s most congested metropolises.The complex as a whole is comprised of tree-like structures that stem at nodes throughout the city, grow into the sky and then branch out into wide, floating modules that connect to create a road-less cityscape. The majority of the structural load is taken by cloud-shaped helium balloons; only some of the load is transferred to the ground by means of nodes. Designers: Lemire Abdul Halim Chehab, Suraj Ramkumar Suthar, Swapnil Sanjay Gawande
For many years we have been developing unsustainable models that year after year are taking more natural landscape and resources to satisfy the necessity for grow. The typical skyscraper offered the chance to have a small footprint in order to have more free horizontal space, but at the end, if we build a lot of them we will end up with the same unsustainable model.The main idea behind this project is to inhabit the natural vertical geographical conditions. The vertical plane with zero occupancy offers the possibility, with the help of technology, to conquest the apparently inhospitable wall areas in order to preserve the green horizontal plane exclusively for wild life. The cliffs are the new virgin territories to explore. Designers: PLUG: Román J. Cordero Tovar, Eric Israel Dorantes, Daniel Justino Rodríguez, Izbeth K. Mendoza Fragoso
Illegal acquisition of land by local Chinese government entities has caused thousands of residents incredible grief and even death recently, plus social instability, say the designers of the Structure of Human Rights in Beijing. Though private property doesn’t really exist in China (and buying a property only ensures its use for 70 years), the designers of this structure feel that land use needs to be reexamined in China, as a private home is a basic human right. Their proposal to bring every person a place to live takes into account the country’s exploding population and need for dense development, and thus is oriented vertically.
Noah’s Ark is a self-sustainable city on the water that can support all living species, from humans to animals and fish to plants and trees, that have been evicted from land by natural disasters, warfare, whatever disasters the end days may bring. In addition to providing protection from these disasters, the Ark concept also addresses overcrowding on land: 72% of the earth’s surface is already covered by water, so extension of the urban city grid onto water is both logical and useful, as solar, wind and wave energies are easily captured at sea, and it is these natural energy sources that will power the development. Designers: Aleksandar Joksimovic, Jelena Nikolic
Tundra City is located in the exhausted diamond mine “Lucky” which is the geographical center of the entire Russian Tundra – the last point of urbanization of the Russian North. The tundra is an unexplored region, which hardly anyone wants to go. It is associated with a “hole” due to poor living conditions. The Russian government has paid attention to the prospect and huge potential benefits of developing the region to the whole the country. This has been facilitated by the existing geopolitical threat posed by the rapidly development of China, India, and other countries.Tundra City is a launching pad to address the problems of the region: population, development of infrastructure, creation of new industry, agriculture, science, and culture. Designer: Pavel Sipkin
Inspired by the towering cranes found in big cities, the 380 meter-tall GreenGru skyscraper provides public transportation via air to residents of metropolises with traffic problems or airports located far from the core. It also works as an energy station, generating enough power from within to run its own systems and light up some of the surrounding city as well. Designer: Gerasimos Pavlidis
Constructing a building that floats in the ocean has inherent benefits, the main boon being buoyancy. Locating a structure in the sea allows the possibility for massive complexes to be constructed without the restraints of gravity, opening possibilities for great architectural experimentation. Designers: Hui Chen, Luying Guo
Tehran, Iran’s largest city and its capital, is plagued by extreme air pollution, 80% of which is caused by auto traffic. Amongst its 8.5 million residents, it is estimated that 27 people die daily from pollution-related diseases, showing the tangible and deadly dangers that result from the traffic caused by urban sprawl. To combat this reality, the designers of the Tehran Tower propose building up, locating massive skyscrapers within Tehran to house masses of residents centrally. Designers: Mahdi Kamboozia, Alireza Esfandiari, Nima Dehghani, Mohammad Ashkbar Sefat
(Tian-shan-ren-jian – Heaven and Earth) is the physical manifestation of the traditional Shanshui painting, which aims to reach the ideal lifestyle.Earth, with 7 billion people, is continuously increasing her load with three new babies born every second. With limited resources, the rapid growth of population has caused many problems included environmental degradation, ocean acidification, ozone holes, lack of fresh water, and constant loss of biodiversity. The “Heaven and Earth” project is a utopia wonderland residing in the air. There are mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, and animals. It solves the problems that exist on Earth, including food, water, and housing.
