Design intentions
Skyscrapers started to emerge in cities like Chicago and New York towards the end of 19th century. Over a century has passed since, and the skyscrapers became the norm for the big city centers throughout the world. Although the skyscraper itself is truly an achievement of modern technology and vision, the urban space that are created by the collection of these seems to be fragmented, limited and unkind to the nature. This project takes place in this urban context, investigating the way to reunite the isolated city blocks and insert multi-layered network of public space, green space, and nodes for the city. This unit is designed to incorporate 4 wind turbines which convert the kinetic energy of the wind that flows through the skyscrapers into electrical energy. Vertical-axis wind turbine among the various types of wind turbine is chosen due to it’s flexibility in locating the generator and the efficiency in utilizing the wind energy from both windward and leeward sides. The energy generated from this unit will be the energy source for the proposed tower and the extra energy will be utilized by the adjacent skyscrapers. The Vertical Garden unit is an open structure which provides habitat for plants, insects, and animals and also becomes a public park for the city where natural spaces are limited. This unit is combined and multiplied throughout the towers in order to achieve positive effects to the city such as reducing the urban heat island effect and filter pollutants out of the air. The main structure of this facility consists of two components. The first is the core which acts as a spine for the units to be plugged on and the second is the interlocking structure which distributes the overall load of the tower to the surface, slab, and the main structure of the existing skyscraper. The Sky Dock unit is the node where the network between the towers and the existing skyscrapers takes place. The bridge connects the nodes to create a city where activity, movement and events occur in multiple layers rather than just on ground level and inside the skyscraper. The Program Unit is an enclosed space which accommodates multiple functions such as café, meeting room, observatory, museum, information center, vender commissary, game room, restroom, media library, mini stores,…etc. The program will be determined according to the location and the users of the unit.