eVolo Magazine recently announced the winners of the 2021 Skyscraper Competition. Three winners and twenty honorable mentions were selected from 492 projects received. One graduate team from the School of Architecture won the third place with their workAnother village in the skywhile another undergraduate team from the same school was awarded the honorable mentions for their workPrintscraper: Rapid 3D-Printed Skyscraper For Reconstruction In China.
The workAnother village in the skywas designed by Kong Xiangshu, Zhang Xiaoyong, and Sun Mingsong from Liuhe Studio under the guidance of Yuan Sinan and Tan Lifeng.
Hmong is an ancient ethnic group in China and they mainly live in Yunnan Province. In the new era, a relocation policy has been introduced to help Hmong people to leave their dilapidated dwellings and move to the outskirts of the city where they can enjoy modern living environment. But they miss their ploughs, yards, streams and other daily living elements. Therefore, this work attempts to design a skyscraper combining the local stilt style with their original wooden house by using a crane. By doing so, Hmong people are expected to maintain their life style as remembered, and to enjoy the conveniences of modern cities as well.
The work was awarded the third place as the jury agreed that the project provided a sky space to contain traditional Hmong house, thus expanding the skyscraper both vertically and horizontally with city space growing.
For the honorable mentions workPrintscraper: Rapid 3D-Printed Skyscraper For Reconstruction In China,its designers areLiu Yifei, Tian Yu, Wang Hangdi, and Zhou Beiyu. Wang Di is the facutly supervisor.
To address the current problems of losing building signs and urban update, the work proposed a future urban renewal system. The widespread use of 3D printing technology in the future may enable different high-strength materials to print complex building bodies and equipment. A future city will be a diverse life form that can be regenerated quickly, in which temporary 3D buildings that can be rebuilt quickly will replace permanent buildings as the main architecture body. The scrapes that the team designed to be distributed in various areas are like mobile operating tables in the city, which can accurately retrieve, rebuild or repair buildings. The Printscraper is powered by solar and nuclear power and can be moved within urban service. The demolished buildings will be treated and stored internally as greening soil or reusable materials. The lower part of the building is equipped with an observation deck and a vertical park open to all citizens.
EVolo's annual sky scraper competition, founded in 2006, is one of the world' s most prestigious high-rise building awards. As the official website puts it, the competition recognizes visionary ideas that through the novel use of technology, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, challenge the way people understand vertical architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.
By the School of Architecture
Editor: Yang Fan & Eva Yin
