International Architecture Competition

SKYHIVE

Skyscraper challenge! Edition #1

Results

Foreword

Competition organisers

SKYHIVE

Official Partners

SKYHIVE

The purpose of the SKYHIVE Skyscraper Challenge is to generate design ideas for iconic high rise buildings in cities around the globe. Architects, design students, engineers, and artists are challenged to submit proposals that question the potentials of high-rise construction, to redefine skyscraper design with new technologies, materials, programs, forms, facade solutions and other tools.

The competition is organised in collaboration with Manipal Executive Education (MEE), a leading provider of corporate and executive education solutions in the Middle East and Africa. The winning entries will be showcased at the Manipal University Dubai School of Design & Architecture campus during its annual Global Tall Building Studio, a five-day workshop where architecture students and industry experts discuss and develop new concepts for the future of high-rise structures.

Dubai is the ideal centre for such a discussion, as the world's testing ground for experiments in high-rise construction. Since the stabilisation of the world economy in the 1990s Dubai became a financial centre for foreign trading communities - following key political alignments and a global increase in oil prices Dubai began a large-scale reinvention of its infrastructure. The city today is home to more than 900 high-rises, 88 taller than 180 metres, and 18 above 300 metres. The Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest man-made structure at a height of 829.8m.

The SKYHIVE is an open architecture ideas competition, with few design restrictions: participants are free to interpret the brief as they choose. Proposals are not constrained by site, program or height. To place emphasis on the need for towers to recognize issues of density, the submitted design is requested to be limited to a site of 130x80m.

Submitted projects touched on issues of globalisation, sustainability, design adaptability, digital trends, and developing concepts in engineering. Each of the winning projects shows an ambition to rewrite the definition of the 21st-century skyscraper. The jury evaluated entries based on a number of factors, including sensitivity to the environment, potential to serve as a landmark, analysis of form, and creativity. They found that entries proposed a wide variety of structural themes, materials, and facade and typical floor plate design. Bee Breeders would like to thank each entrant and team for for their participation.


PLEASE NOTE - COMPETITION RESULTS CHANGED FEBRUARY 18, 2018 [read more here]

1st Prize Winner

Project name

Aero Hive

Authors

Suraksha Acharya

India

Why do you enter architecture
competitions?

Competitions help spur our creativity and encourage lateral thinking. This is our second international vision competition that we have participated in and find that they give us a unique opportunity to be creative and free with our vision. Also we find ideas valuable in the sense that it help us as a community discuss and debate over various issues. Developing a brief for a competition is a complex task and the overall process can be very demanding both financially and creatively. If we were purely concerned with the business of architecture then very few of us would be in the profession.

Jury feedback summary

The design resolves a large site by dividing the volume into two towers, reducing the monumentality of the high-rise with a porous and organic form. Each tower is further fragmented into three semi-opaque vertical elements connected by spaces in transparent glass which allow daylight to reach the core, and permit outward views surrounding the proposed Hong Kong site. The towers are connected at mid-height by a sky-bridge and each features a dense rooftop garden open to the sky. The method of how the proposed design meets the ground plane is unclear, but given the facade porosity it seems feasible for the building to have positive interaction at the street level. The entry shows great potential for becoming a beacon of sustainable design.

2nd Prize Winner

Project name

Chicago Pillar

Authors

Jon Carag

United States

Why do you enter architecture
competitions?

This was my first design competition. I love the freedom to push the boundaries of design and to explore futuristic concepts of form, space and technology. The majority of us will lose that vision when leaving school and entering the workforce, but these competitions allow us to rekindle why we wanted to be an architect in the first place.

Jury feedback summary

There has been much demand for proposals considering the famous 'Chicago Spire' site which awaits development in that city's downtown. Though the submission focuses on this particular site, the design has the potential to be used anywhere. A simple cylindrical tower is wrapped in a ribbon of perimeter green spaces that transform the typical office, and which are well-designed with details showing deep planters permitting the growth of trees and appropriate drainage. The resulting form is attractive and unique, related directly to its program. The jury would encourage the designer to further express the 'green' nature of the design in the exterior rendering and sections.

3rd Prize Winner +
BB STUDENT AWARD

Project name

The Wall

Authors

Elizabeth Compeán Michel
Gabriel Alejandro Madrigal Betancourt
Juan Jesús García Castro
Rodrigo Zertuche Rodríguez

University

Universidad autonoma de san luis potosi
+158 points Buildner University Rankings!

Mexico

Why do you enter architecture
competitions?

Buildner is a platform that allow us to exercise our design skills and explore unconventional situations, that is why we have the opportunity to experiment and address the projects with ideas that might not be feasible in real life.

Jury feedback summary

While among the least developed designs in the winner's category, this was also one of the judges favorites. There is so much tension and debate today concerning desires to close national borders by building walls, or making them more impenetrable by increasing their security. This proposal poses the very interesting question of how to spacialize the number of people crossing America's border - what would happen if immigrants were to be given housing at the border? As shown in these images, towers stretch across the frontier, reminiscent of the watchtowers stretched along China's Great Wall, somehow giving order and rhythm to an infrastructure otherwise so winding and vast. The towers as shown in this submission become part of this infrastructure, forming a sort of intermediary nation of people in-between, the basis for a great design project with so much more to explore.

BB GREEN AWARD

Project name

Evoluzione

Authors

Alessandro Buffi
Gian Maria Angelini

Italy

Why do you enter architecture
competitions?

When we decided to join the SKYHIVE Skyscraper Challenge, our first participation in an architecture vision competition, we were fascinated by the idea to open our minds to a new design topic.

Honorable mentions

VIEWclose HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Project Name

Climate Tower

Country

Netherlands

Project authors

Bastiaan Muilwijk
Paul Ouwerkerk

Project Name

Timber Towers

Country

United States

Project authors

Rosa Zlotkovsky
Sean McTaggart
Anthony Maiolatesi

Project Name

Flocks In Flux

Country

Egypt

Project authors

Mohamed Ezzeldin Abdelaziz Hassan
Ayman Mohamed Assem
Sherif Morad Abdelkader

Project Name

SkyBeehive

University

Iuav
+102 points Buildner University Rankings!

Country

Italy

Project authors

Francesco Maria Fratini
Marco Padovani

Project Name

Dam Scraper

Country

Poland

Project authors

Marcin Janulewicz
Patryk Jaskulski
Agata Ślusarek
Jim Yeo

Project Name

Vertical Walkway 12°

Country

Switzerland

Project authors

Gabriel Ciosu
Adrian Gustavo Moreno
Luis Miguel Arcas Murillo
Vladimir Slachtovsky

Shortlisted projects

VIEWclose Shortlisted projects

Canada

University of Calgary

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
jordan hart

Canada

karolina grujic
olivera neskovic

Taiwan

National United University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
shiyen wu
jun-han huang
pei-shan chen
chun-teng lin

Taiwan

National United University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
shi-yen wu
bo-ruei huang

Iran

Islamic Azad University Kerman Branch

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
shabnam salehi
raziyeh sadat emrani
mahnaz bazzaz
mahsa hajipour

Argentina

Universidad de Moron

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
florencia maggi
florencia tatiana gomez

United States

fatima al doukhi
brian berk

Argentina

Universidad de Moron

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
lucas bracalente
lucas zlotnik

Turkey

dilan Şenses
selanur demir
pinar soylu

Vietnam

Vo gia corp company limited

thanh vo trung
anh phan tuan

United Kingdom

Company arup + company mamou-mani collaboration

stephanie pieri
arthur mamou-mani

United Kingdom

krishna salim
joseph sebastian
sudhir ambawata
pon pacharapan hinmuangkow

Sweden

KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
morong lin
siyu wang

United States

Iowa State University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
tarun bhatia
obhishek mandal

Italy

natalia giacomino
facundo damian taborda
victoria gauna
alberto cassano

Italy

elisa dellarossa
federica filippone
giulia filippone
salvatore cicero

United States

Thomas Jefferson University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
mashael alhothali

India

Dr. D.Y. Patil College of Architecture

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
mohit patil
nilesh khare
amruta pathak
rutuja nivate

United States

Philadelphia University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
marisa mines

United States

Thomas Jefferson University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
elizabeth wiatrolik

United States

Thomas Jefferson University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
kelly hayes

United States

Thomas Jefferson University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
michael penzel

United States

Thomas Jefferson University

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
alexander good

United States

University at Buffalo, SUNY The State University of New York

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
alexandrea volungus
gavin reeb

Mexico

johann wilhelm timmermann gastélum
jose daniel jacobo ahumada
alejandro arias

Poland

mateusz binkowski
joanna targowicz

Russian Federation

Moscow Institute of architecture - MARHI , Московский архитектурный институт - МАРХИ

+72 points Buildner University Rankings!
anna vylegzhanina
natalia kalistratova
 

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Competition results

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