Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu won the first place in the eVolo’s Annual Skyscraper Competition, with a proposal to have Central Park excavated and use the cliffs as housing.


The annual award recognizes ambitious architectural ideas that harness the potential of technology through the incorporation of different materials and unexpected aesthetics. The goal of the competition  is to fundamentally challenge the way we understand architecture and its role in our world. These ideas inspired two of the 489 submissions this year to the 2016 eVolo Skyscraper Competition, now in its tenth year.



 

Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu

 


This year, a jury selected three winners and twenty-one honorable mentions. New York–based Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu, recent graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, took top honors with their lofty redesign of Central Park in Manhattan. Titled “New York Horizon,” the plan completely reimagines the 843 acres of public space by excavating more than 1,000 feet of soil to create a space that not only includes boulders and lakes but, according to Wu, “returns the land and the park to its natural state—a rugged, bedrock-strewn landscape.” The two included a highly reflective glass cover on all sides of the park, creating a mirrored illusion that the park has no physical boundaries. 

 EXCAVATED LANDSCAPE

Solutions to the problems related to urban architecture have been many and varied. But a problem that persists is the dull and dreary landscape of the urban jungle. In particular, those living in Manhattan are surrounded by many skyscrapers. The only sizable patch of green is Central Park; however, only a fraction are able to enjoy it on a daily basis, and the skyscrapers are still visible from virtually anywhere within.
This is why Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu have created a risky proposal: to excavate Central Park.
Specifically, they proposed to dig down to the bedrock beneath Central Park and erect a reflective “horizontal skyscraper” around its perimeter, providing 11 sq/km (7 sq/mi) of peripheral housing with views out over the park.
With its highly reflective glass cover on all sides, the landscape inside the new park can reach beyond physical boundaries, creating an illusion of infinity (true, the reflective nature of the structure may raise concerns related to sunburns, but coatings on the surface should, theoretically, address these issues).

Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu

NEW HOUSING

Most importantly, the design provides an important feature: Housing. The wall provides additional space so more people could live nearer to the new Central Park. Thus, more people could use it to escape from the daily rigors of life.
The project would also democratize access to the park by providing more people (who live in the complex) with greater proximity while retaining access points along the periphery for rest of the public
While excavating the Central Park seems like a joke, subterranean and underground housing alternatives are being developed, in NYC and in other parts of the world. As cities become more crowded, alternative housing will become more important.

Yitan Sun and Jianshi Wu

Second place went to “The Hive,” a project that imagines a skyscraper made exclusively for drones, providing urban dwellers with no residential benefits and serving only personal and commercial functions. Rounding out the top honors, the third prize was awarded to a duo from from Italy for their project, “Data Tower.” That proposal envisioned a sustainable skyscraper made of data servers that are meant to store information for companies around the world. Because traditional servers expend a lot of energy to cool down hardware, the two inventively decided to locate their structure in Iceland, thus exploiting the cold temperatures for more eco-friendly server maintenance.

Second Place: The Hive

Third Place: The Data Tower

The annual competition resulted in some bold designs, including a structure built to dock and charge drones

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