Fantastical skyscraper competition lets designers' imaginations fly

The winners of the annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition have been announced. Featuring a climate-controlling tower and tsunami-resistant high-rises, plus a food producing tower, it offers a look at architectural design unconstrained by practicalities.

For those unfamiliar with the contest, the eVolo Skyscraper Competition is less concerned with plans for towers that could ever actually be built and instead focuses on highlighting interesting ideas. There's no official overriding theme to join them all together, however climate change looms large this year, plus there are a few designs influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic too.

"eVolo Magazine is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Skyscraper Competition," said eVolo. "The Jury selected three winners and 20 honorable mentions from 427 projects received. The annual award established in 2006 recognizes visionary ideas that 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."

The three winning projects are shown below, while our gallery has the entire list of 20 honorable mentions, including a beehive skyscraper and a tower designed to host flying cars/homes.

First place position went to the Climate Control Skyscraper, which was designed by a South Korean team made up of Kim Gyeong Jeung, Min Yeong Gi, and Yu Sang Gu.

Featuring an unusual futuristic tapering form, the idea behind the design is that a number of the skyscrapers would rise above oceans near coastal areas. The towers would then be used to convert seawater into rainclouds, which would in turn encourage rainfall and help areas nearby suffering from drought. It would run from solar power and include some kind of cloud generator that makes use of pressurized water vapor.

Second place went to the Tsunami Park Skyscraper, by China's Wang Jue, Zhang Qian, Zhang Changsheng, Li Muchun, and Xu Jing.

This interesting conceptual design would be built off the coast of Tonga to help protect the country from tsunamis. The skyscraper – really it looks more like a collection of high-rise residences on stilts – would feature an overall form inspired by mangroves. During normal use it would enable people to live on and around it, with the spaces between its concrete columns hosting tidal fishing. However, when a tsunami strikes, its shape, alongside large water cisterns would help reduce the power of the tsunami, keeping the land-based communities safe.

New Spring: Agro-ecological Skyscraper was designed by Michał Spólnik and Marcin Kitala, from Austria and Poland, respectively.

The pair's project envisions a mostly timber skyscraper that looks a little like a thin pine cone standing upright. It would be used to help alleviate global food production shortages by increasing the number of crop and livestock species used. The tower would host a number of timber-based modules that serve as experimental gardens, offering scientists and researchers a place to pursue new ideas for reliable food sources in the face of climate change.

Source: eVolo