From the 2010 eVolo Skyscraper Competition comes a design that uses "mangrove cities" to purify drinking water. Called the Freshwater Skyscraper, French designers have earned special mention in the competition for their creation, which looks to the untrained eye like a series of soap bubbles blown by a child stacked end-on-end.
Design principles surrounding the competition specify that the skyscraper is the primary type of building which can meet the needs of crowded inner cities. Working slightly outside that principle and focusing on the countryside for their imagined creation, designers targeted the one looming problem of the 21st Century: water. According to the World Water Council, more than one out of six people do not have access to safe drinking water.
Most of the water on earth is tied up in oceans, and desalination for use on crops or as drinking water is not yet economically viable. Of the balance, a meager three percent, two thirds is frozen as ice in glaciers and icebergs. The remaining one percent is all that keeps humanity from perishing, and much of this water (64 billion cubic meters, or 70 percent) is tied up in growing food crops.
The Freshwater Skyscraper will address the issue of increasing water scarcity through a process known as transpiration. Unlike desalination, a mechanical process, transpiration occurs when plants "sweat" clean water through their leaves. By planting the bubble-shaped tanks with mangroves - which readily take up brackish water and deliver it as clean water - designers anticipate collecting as much as 30,000 liters (almost 8,000 gallons) per each one-hectare (2.47-acre) tower. That is, the Freshwater Skyscraper will be able to irrigate a one-hectare field of tomatoes per day.
In seeking a site for their Freshwater Skyscraper, designers looked at Almeria Province in Spain, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea - the location where most of the fruits and vegetables destined for European markets are grown. BD+C
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
USGBC honors Brad Pitt's Make It Right New Orleans as the ‘largest and greenest single-family community in the world’
U.S. Green Building Council President, CEO and Founding Chair Rick Fedrizzi today declared that the neighborhood being built by Make It Right New Orleans, the post-Katrina housing initiative launched by actor Brad Pitt, is the “largest and greenest community of single-family homes in the world” at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York.
| Aug 11, 2010
AIA report estimates up to 270,000 construction industry jobs could be created if the American Clean Energy Security Act is passed
With the encouragement of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) conducted a study to determine how many jobs in the design and construction industry could be created if the American Clean Energy Security Act (H.R. 2454; also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill) is enacted.
| Aug 11, 2010
Architect Michael Graves to be inducted into the N.J. Hall of Fame
Architect Michael Graves of Princeton, N.J., being inducted into the N.J. Hall of Fame.
| Aug 11, 2010
Modest rebound in Architecture Billings Index
Following a drop of nearly three points, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) nudged up almost two points in February. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending.
| Aug 11, 2010
Architecture firms NBBJ and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz announce merger
NBBJ, a global architecture and design firm, and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, internationally-known for urban design and architecture excellence, announced a merger of the two firms.
| Aug 11, 2010
Nation's first set of green building model codes and standards announced
The International Code Council (ICC), the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) announce the launch of the International Green Construction Code (IGCC), representing the merger of two national efforts to develop adoptable and enforceable green building codes.
| Aug 11, 2010
David Rockwell unveils set for upcoming Oscar show
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and 82nd Academy Awards® production designer David Rockwell unveiled the set for the upcoming Oscar show.
| Aug 11, 2010
More construction firms likely to perform stimulus-funded work in 2010 as funding expands beyond transportation programs
Stimulus funded infrastructure projects are saving and creating more direct construction jobs than initially estimated, according to a new analysis of federal data released today by the Associated General Contractors of America. The analysis also found that more contractors are likely to perform stimulus funded work this year as work starts on many of the non-transportation projects funded in the initial package.
