eVolo Skyscrapers

Carlo Aiello

Established in 2006, the eVolo Skyscraper Competition has become the world’s most prestigious award for high-rise architecture. Over the last six years, an international panel of renowned architects, engineers, and city planners have reviewed more than 4,000 projects submitted from 168 countries around the world. This book is the compilation of 300 outstanding projects selected for their innovative concepts that challenge the way we understand architecture and their relationship with the natural and built environments.
The projects have been organized in six chapters: The first chapter, “Technological Advances,” is an investigation on the use of digital tools and computing fabrication. “Ecological Urbanism” explores sustainable systems. Projects that analyze the reconfiguration of existing cities and the colonization of new environments, such as underwater cities and floating habitats, are part of “New Frontiers.” The improvement of our way of living is the topic of the fourth chapter, “Social Solutions.” A more experimental approach to architectural design is exposed in “Morphotectonic Aesthetics,” with proposals that use fields of data and self-regulating systems to respond to internal and external stimuli–the results are fascinating explorations of function and form. Finally, “Urban Theories and Strategies” is a group of projects that establish new methods to alleviate the major problems of the contemporary city.