Built on an island within a lake, the towers are more than
just towering. Their design goes far beyond the usual green building features.
When the world's tallest tower is built in Wuhan, China, it
will also be one of the most environmentally friendly skyscrapers anywhere. The
building, paired with another slightly shorter tower, goes beyond the usual
sustainable design features to try to help restore the surrounding environment.
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| At one kilometre high, these new towers will clean the water and air around them while generating sustainable power for neighbouring buildings. |
Set on an island within a lake, the towers will help suck
pollution out of both the air and water. The larger tower pulls water up from
the lake, cleans it, and then puts it back. “The water goes up through a series
of filters,” explains Laurie Chetwood,
chairman of U.K.-based Chetwoods, the architects on the project. “We don’t use
power to pull the water up, we’re using passive energy. As it goes through the
filters and back, we’re also putting air back into the lake to make it
healthier.”
The towers also have pollution-absorbing coatings to help
clean the air, vertical gardens that filter more pollution, and a chimney in
the middle of the larger tower naturally pulls air across the lake for better
ventilation. Wind turbines, lightweight solar cladding, and hydrogen fuel cells
running on the buildings’ waste will generate all of the power used by the
towers, plus a little extra for the rest of the neighborhood.
The designers hope the building will serve as a catalyst for
more sustainable design in the industrial city. "Wuhan is an unusual city,
dotted with huge lakes," says Chetwood. "Protecting the lakes could
lead to other projects that protect them even more."
At 3,280 feet tall, the largest tower will edge out Burj Khalifa in
Dubai as the tallest building in the world. The two towers were inspired by the
Chinese symbols of the phoenix, and the concept of yin and yang--one tower
feeds the other with renewable power in a symbiotic relationship. Spheres
hanging between the two towers will hold restaurants with views of the lake.
Pending approval by the city's mayor, construction may begin
by the end of the year and could be completed by 2017 or 2018, a pace that the
architects say would be unlikely in other countries. "The most amazing
thing for me is that in the U.K. we strive as designers to get things built,
and there’s a lot of red tape, but the Chinese seem to have a different view of
things," says Chetwood. "I think they’re incredibly optimistic."
"If you have an idea and you think, 'Oh, is this going
to be too exciting, they’ll actually want it more exciting," he adds.
"It’s more ambitious. They’re quite keen to push the boundaries. For a
designer, that’s fantastic. It’s a thrill."
This article by ADELE PETERS via fastcoexist
