[Post #50] Underwater Architecture – Taiwan Skyscraper Project

The year is 2046 and the North and South Pole icebergs have melted, more than 40 percent of the Earth’s surface is underwater. The challenge is to build a skyscraper undersea with movable spheres and conducting tissue structures.

The new skyscraper would be located in the south western part of Eurasia near Taiwan. It will be equipped with a green ecosystem, residences, office space, and recreational areas.

Special Mention
2010 Skyscraper Competition

Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum
Malaysia

Throughout history, through his need for civilization, man has created buildings that consume resources. The skyscraper is the epitome of this voracious consumption, its highly dense grouping of activities ie work, play, rest etc has become an ominous harbingers of our ecologically bleak future. As a reaction to the modern skyscrapers and its dilemmas the world’s eminent minds have created many variations of the skyscraper in the form of the antithetical subscrapers, groundscrapers and even depth scraper. Yet still they still struggle to achieve zero input/zero output in terms of resource production. There are greenscrappers which , though themselves are ecologically sound, are tied to and urban fabric and interconnection of production networks which are still contributing negatively towards the environment.

The ^hO₂+ scraper proposes to break free of the urban fabric and functions as self-sufficient ambassadors in the sea. The ^hO₂+ scraper is an autonomous floating unit of livable, functional and self sustaining space which will function, in a collective manner, as a floating city.  It is self sufficient as it generates its own power through wave, wind, current, solar, bio etc. and it generates its own food through farming, aquaculture, hydroponics etc. It carries with its own small forest on top its back and supports places for users to live and works  in its depths. Its bioluminescent tentacles provide sea fauna a place to live and congregate while collecting energy through its kinetic movements. Such sustainability strategies aim to ultimately create and provide an oasis with ‘Zero’ negative impacts to the environment, not only that but also improves on it hence the ’Plus’. Aptly as poetic antithesis to a skyscraper which goes up into the heavens the ^hO₂+ scraper goes down to the depths of the sea.

The main components of the programme for the ^hO₂+ scraper consist of resource generation (i.e. power, food, air etc), living, work, play, waste treatment and maintenance. The programme is spread evenly in accordance to the proximity of any specific required external resource i.e. the wind generators are placed of the roof garden island, the livestock farming component is also placed there, the living areas are placed just below sea level where the natural light is the best etc.

The building itself is kept upright using a system of ballast and balancing tanks. The tentacles also serve as balancing elements as they, in generating their power, are constantly moving with the rhythm of the tide. The buoyancy and ballast controls are placed at the lowest portions to create the proper counterforce for keeping the building upright.

In the finality, we envision a future where land as a resource will be scarce; it is only natural progression that we create our own. Approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface is ocean, even more if climate change has its way, hence it is only natural progression that we will populate the seas someday. We picture a new metapolis, created from a collection of ^hO₂+ scrapers,   as a city that does not consume nature but creates and produces nature.  In the end becoming   ^hO₂+ Cities.