The eVolo competition has been held annually since 2006. The task is always as flexible as possible: to come up with an unusual high-rise building, “sustainable”, innovative from an architectural and urban planning point of view, with a progressive program. The result is projects that are easier to imagine in fantasy novels than in real life. This poses a particularly difficult task for the jury, which this time included Jurgen Mayer. The experts, obviously, solved it, first of all assessing the “usefulness” and relevance of the project - this is evidenced by the works that won prizes.
In addition to the three winners, 22 honorable mention recipients were identified. A total of 473 works were submitted for the competition.
First place
Epidemic Tower of Babel: Ambulance Skyscraper
D. Li, Gavin Shen, Weiyuan Xu, Xinhao Yuan (China)
The skyscraper consists of a pre-fabricated steel structure (it should take no more than five days to assemble) and factory-made functional blocks. The tower is being built in a place affected by the epidemic in order to provide all sick people with beds. A specific set of blocks is determined by medical workers, depending on the characteristics of the epidemic.
Second place
Nature for Equality: Vertical Park for Cities
Yutian Tang, Yuntao Xu (USA)
Cities often lack natural areas, and skyscrapers are usually reserved for the wealthiest citizens only. The project solves both of these problems at once. This is an artificial “mountainous landscape” that you can walk along, climbing up the zigzag route. It is open to everyone: anyone who has enough strength can get to the top, not just a millionaire.
Third place
Coastal Breakwater: Vertical Settlement in Senegal with Rising Ocean Levels
Charles Zi Wei Chian, Alejandro Moreno Guerrero (Taiwan)
The city of Saint Louis in Senegal is located on an island at the mouth of the Senegal River, on the border with Mauritania. The inhabitants are engaged in fishing and suffer from constant conflicts over the delimitation of fishing zones between the two states. The second problem is the rising sea level, forcing them to move further from the coast. To help the St. Louis, the architects are proposing to build piled, modular housing there with a timber arched frame, reminiscent of the local traditional architecture.
Honorable MentionSelected works
"Drilling water-scraper: power plant and underground processing center"
Xuejun Bai, Chucheng Pan, Lei Zhai, Yuyang Sun, Dianao Liu
The authors propose a way to develop methane hydrate as a "fuel of the future" in the deep-sea parts of the world's oceans. Cracks resulting from the extraction of hydrate in the seabed are proposed to be closed by 3D printing from plastic debris, which the seas of our planet are full of.
Boeing 737 Max Tower
Victor Hugo Acevedo, Charil Lu Xu (USA)
The aircraft of the new Boeing 737 Max model are idle after several accidents that showed their unreliability. Their shortcomings will probably be impossible to fix, and they will never take off again. The project proposes to use the liners stored in hangars in Victorville to build specialized housing for homeless military veterans in nearby Los Angeles County.
It is the veterans who make up a significant part of the constantly growing homeless population of this metropolitan area. They will be offered not only housing based on robust and well-insulated aircraft hulls, but also psychological support and vocational training opportunities.
"Root-scraper: terraforming permafrost"
Kim Bomsu, Kim Sang Hoon (South Korea)
If the percentage of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise, hundreds of millions and even billions of people will become "climate refugees" by the end of the 21st century: due to climate warming, almost a third of the land will turn into desert, and densely populated coastal regions will be submerged. Already in 2018, out of 28 million refugees on the planet, 18 million were precisely "climatic".
The authors of the project note that Siberia, as well as the permafrost zones in the Far East and the European part of Russia, will acquire an "ideal climate", so these refugees can be accommodated there. However, the specific geological structure of permafrost territories will lose stability during thawing, and methane and carbon dioxide released to the surface will accelerate global warming. Therefore, terraforming is necessary there, that is, the transformation of this region into suitable for human life.
Instead of wedges of melting ice, it is proposed to insert root towers into the polygonal lattice structure of permafrost, which will not only hold layers of soil and rock in place, but also accommodate about 60,000 people on an area of 1.4 km2, will be able to purify water and air, and operate like power plants, capturing methane from the soil before it enters the atmosphere.
"Carbon wool"
Adham Sinan Abdullah Hamidat (West Bank)
The structure should become a symbol of hope and concrete action to combat environmental pollution, which often threatens - for example, in the form of smog - human life and health. The inaction of the authorities, which, in the opinion of the author of the project, could turn to
technologies for capturing CO2 from the air are a companion problem. It is with the help of this capture process that the "wool" of this structure is formed, clearly demonstrating the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the effectiveness of this method.
"Skyscraper - a trap for dirt"
Surush Amelie, Sharare Faryadi, Laya Rafyanjad, Sorush Attarzade (Iran)
Structures in the form of huge wheels were invented to deal with floods, especially those where the stream is saturated with mud and therefore more destructive (but still does not become a mudflow). As conceived by the authors, the wheels will remove animals and large debris from the stream that have got there, as well as clean the stream of dirt, filtering it out and turning it into balls of clay that are easy to store and move.
