‘Floo-Scraper’ is a Parametric Skyscraper proposal featuring technologies for environmental sustainability.
Architect Abeer Basha: Rising seas are one of the central impacts of global warming and they are not some abstract challenge for a future day; The annual loss cause by this flooding is about $6 billion today per year which will rise to $1 trillion by year 2050.The design proposal aims at preventing the major coastal cities around the world from getting flooded due to rise in sea levels.
To avoid this huge loss due to flooding, a FLOO-SCRAPER (skyscraper) is proposed along the coastal part of the flood affecting cities. The Floo-scraper draws water from the sea,stores in its reservoir and distributes to the city. Since water is drawn into the Floo-scraper, it prevents the water level from raising to the hazardous level and keeping the coastal cities safe. The Floo-scraper also works as a large-scale fire fighter,air purifier, water reservoir, powergenerator, wind mill. The tower draws water from the sea and distributes into the city through underground pipes without disturbing the city’s existing terrain .The tower also generates electricity with turbines and generators. This electricity generated is transferred to major transformers in the city with the help of underground cables. These underground cables also act as alarm for fire emergency situations.In case of fire in an area, the underground cable detects the smoke with the help of transformer in that particular area and it triggers the drone attached to the tower.The drone on getting triggered identifies the zone and flies to the target area and/or building and extinguishes the fire.The drones will reach the target are as faster than fire engines due to clear air traffic.
Serving the essential and emergency functions in the city at a large scale, Floo-scraper becomes an indispensable part of the city and also serves as a symbol of resilience. While it proposal appears to be presenting a utopian model to tackle the major challenges of flooding and other significant environmental issues in coastal cities, the Floo-scraper offers valuable design solutions that can be achieved through the developing cutting edge technology. These structures gradually will become inevitable entities of coastal cities which make a physical, experiential and symbolic statement facilitating the dynamic evolution of future urban landscapes. Floo-scrapers will pioneer in representing an emerging futuristic design cult of radical technologies for environmental sustainability which focuses on design and technological strategies to develop innovative and prototypical sustainable models for addressing the challenges of our future cities.
Function:
The Floo-scraper has a central water reservoir pod which is raised few metres above the ground in order to make the water flow at high speed when it is being distributed into the city and it will also flow through hydro turbine generating electricity for the city. The pod is supported by swirling water pipes and coiling steel structures. There are essentially three types of water pipes which coils the pod.1. Pipes which draws water from the sea and drains it into the pod, 2. Pipes which transfers water into the city from reservoir pod, 3. The third type is thick pipe which stores the water, in case there is excess of water in reservoir pod.The tower derives its form from series of helical rings. The reservoir pod act as a central piece which is supported by helical pipes. These helical pipes is made of titanium coated with carbon granules. The carbon granules are CO2 absorbing elements which purify the air by removing CO2 before letting it back into the atmosphere.These carbon granule coated pipes act as breathing element of the tower which purifies the air in the city.
Project Info:
Firm name: L_eA – Lab for experimental Architecture , India
The proposal is submitted as an entry for evolo skyscraper competition 2015.
