Summary
A New York City skyscraper design called "The Living Refuge" won first prize in an international contest for visionary architecture. The building is planned as a home for both people and endangered pollinators, using a special ecological facade to create habitats high above the city.
Key Facts
- The design won the 2024 Skyscraper Competition by eVolo, which focuses on innovative building ideas.
- Created by Changsi Wang from the United States, the skyscraper is meant for Manhattan.
- It aims to protect and help endangered pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, threatened by urban development and chemicals.
- The building includes a 3D-printed facade that forms a vertical ecological landscape with pockets for moisture and plants.
- This facade creates small areas with slower wind and good conditions for mosses, fungi, and lichens to grow.
- Pollinators can move freely between outdoor vegetation and indoor cavities designed like hollow tree stumps for nesting.
- The skyscraper is designed to be a vertical sanctuary, helping nature recover in the middle of the city.
- The project hopes skyscrapers will help support and restore ecosystems, not just provide office or living space.
