How could the city of the future look? eVolo Magazine has been trying to find that out by hosting a Skyscraper Competition each year since 2006. The competition awards visionaries who try to design what could be the vertical architecture of the future with progressive ideas about technology, materials, programs and more involved.
This year there were three winners and twenty one honorable mentions showcased out of the near 500 entries received. Below are the three winners, as well as GizTrend’s top picks out of the honorable mention pool. Take a look at the ideas–and our comments–about what the city of tomorrow could look like.
First Place: New York Horizon, by Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu (U.S.).
The winner of the competition is actually the most ambitious design–and perhaps most preposterous. The design decides that instead of building up, they’d build down. Points for thinking outside the box. But that’s not the “preposterous” part. There’s more.
In their minds, Central Park is accessible, but not available enough. Sun and Wu plan to create what they call a “hybrid multi-functional mega structure” that reveals the bedrock that’s hidden under Central Park and turns it into an endless horizon using mirrors. Positioning reflective glass on all sides of the structure bordering the now deep pit of Central Park, an illusion is created that the park goes on forever. The removed soil is also relocated to various neighborhoods, neighborhoods that will be demolished and moved into the new structure.
This new so-called “urban condition” is meant to unite the idea of city life and nature, and it’s a bold, powerful idea to consider. But it seems impossible, barring some catastrophic change to New York City.
As a native New Yorker, I can’t see who would put up the immense amount of money for this. I can’t see residents of the park’s borders wanting to deal with the endless construction needed for this project. I can’t see people wanting neighborhoods to be demolished to be put into a new structure. And I can’t see how this will connect the whole city closer with the park since it seems like the project serves to only further isolate the park. Currently anyone can walk in and out of Central Park on a whim, and there are a few crosstown buses that run across it. Turning it in a pit paradise may sound lovely to some, but I just don’t see the practicality of it.
Second Place: The Hive, Drone Skyscraper, by Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Yifeng Zhao and Chengda Zhu (U.S.).
This project looks to the economic future of the world, specifically the implementation of drone technology. With various companies and serviecs–including Amazon, Walmart, UPS and the USPS–looking into drone delivery programs, this technology could become a huge part of daily life. The above design looks to give these drones a hub, a hive area where they can be centered to prevent the current legal restrictions of navigating drones in a city.
The project was actually proposed in opposition to the usage of the land that eventually went on to become the luxury residential building 432 Park Avenue. The designers argue that a central Manhattan location is needed for drone delivery, and if they get their way, a hive could still get erected sometime in the near-future. Seems like a good idea to me, assuming the idea of drones in our everyday lives fully gets off the ground (pun intended).
Third Place: Data Skyscraper, by Valeria Mercuri and Marco Merletti (Italy)
We all need data. Our technology is ever-more reliant on being able to use the power of our devices anywhere and everywhere we go. And yet the power needed for that leaves an ever-growing carbon footprint, as well as global data storage and global IP traffic problems. Mercuri and Merletti propose a solution: a data skyscraper that can use clean energy to provide data, keep costs low and be environmentally safe.
For this reason they’ve chosen their first location to be in Iceland, where it can provide services for North America and Europe from one location, use Iceland’s hydropower and geothermal energy for power, and use the proximity to the Arctic Circle to naturally cool down servers.
In my opinion, this project may not be as bold as New York Horizon or as forward-thinking as The Hive, but it’s probably the most pragmatic, the most useful and the likeliest to get made anytime soon.
Honorable Mention: Air-Stalagmite: A Skyscraper To Serve As A Beacon And Air Filter For Polluted Cities, by Changsoo Park and Sizhe Chen (U.S.)
This project reminds me of some of the technology we covered in the article “Can Pollution Save The World?” In this design, Park and Chen decided to create skyscrapers around the world in the most polluted areas. These skyscrapers would then filter highly contaminated air and turn the leftover particles into material. This material would be accumulated and used to construct the body of the skyscraper, effectively creating “rings” that build up little by little, year by year. Think the age of trees when you cut open a tree trunk.
It’s a lovely idea that I would take one step further: how about using this collected material to build homes? If the material isn’t dangerous, or could be made nonlethal, why not recycle them into nearby structures where the poor could get housing and fresh, clean air?
Honorable Mention: The Valley Of Giants, by Eric Randall Morris and Galo Canizares (U.S.)
Envisioned as an answer to droughts around the world, Morris and Canizares’ “Valley of the Giants” was conceptualized as a near-future solution to food and water scarcity. Avoiding a quick-fix and wanting to address both desertification and immigration, the structures are meant to house plant-spores, produce, collect and treat water, and pollinate the surrounding landscape, to provide a catalyst for changing the environment.
In a few decades, these so-called valleys of giants could tower over and protect their regions, and invite both permanent residents and nomadic travelers to explore potentially rich new environments. Written as a sort of near-mythological story involving the creation of a large oasis in North Africa and a home to the Tuareg people, it’d be a wonder to see these giants come to life, erected around the world and saving the planet one desert at a time.
Honorable Mention: Return To Nature Skyscraper, by Nathakit Sae-Tan and Prapatsorn Sukkaset (Thailand)
Considering a possible future where humanity exhausts all of its resources and nearly dooms itself, the Babel skyscraper is being considered as a way for humankind to return to nature. These skyscrapers would focus on using verticality to both house humans and take up less surface space on the planet. In these structures would be floors of open design where ventilation and sunlight could allow vegetation to grow, and where food storage and security could be set. Hopefully we don’t ever have to get to this point to survive, but it could possibly serve as a great design for our future settlements on other planets.
Honorable Mention: Cloud Craft: Rainmaking Skyscraper, by Michael Militello and Amar Shah (U.S.)
Our last choice of the honorable mentions goes to Militello and Shah’s rainmakers. Created as a way to combat California’s droughts, these skyscrapers would be used to filter air and to release water vapor that would stimulate clouds and lead to rainmaking.
This kind of weather manipulation could be our answer to current climate change conditions and provide solutions to drought and famine. With constant fires and droughts rising up in California, Florida and the hottest and driest areas in the world, this idea could be combined with the “Return to Nature” and “Valley of the Giants” ideas to quickly create mini-paradises.
For more on the competition and all of the other entries, check out the eVolo Magazine Competition, where you can also get more details on all of the projects mentioned above. Which project would you like to most see get made? Let us know in the comments below and paint us a picture of what kind of future you hope to see.
Source: eVolo Magazine Competition, via Factor Magazine