Since 2006, eVolo Magazine has been holding a competition to recognize remarkable ideas and visions for skyscrapers in our urban future. The Skyscraper Competition was drawn in over 6,000 projects from all over the world and this year’s winner is a doozy called ESSENCE Skyscraper. Designed by Poland’s BOMP (which is made up of Ewa Odyjas, Agnieszka Morga, Konrad Basan and Jakub Pudo), the huge building holds within it 11 different natural habitats—including jungle, desert, glacier, ocean and cave—that are meant to be actual living ecosystems.
“The main goal of the project is to position non-architectural phenomena in a dense, urban fabric, by using the building as a neutral background. An inspiration rooted in the nature allowed to form a representation of external worlds in a shape of the vertical structure,” explains BOMP.
ESSENCE Skyscraper begins with the underwater habitat on the first floor—which is the entrance—and the landscape changes with each floor you ascend. In order from bottom to top, the futuristic building takes you through ocean, jungle, swamp, steppe (which is a semi-arid climate), desert, cave, waterfall, river, grasslands, mountain, and glacier environments. Three additional levels for technical facilities are also sprinkled in between, which maintain all of the different climates and conditions needed.
The 2,066-foot-tall vertical tower is meant to give the visitor a wealth of sensual stimulants—from visual and thermal to olfactory and kinesthetic—in a very open and “roam-like” setting. For example, the underwater floor is beneath a huge fish tank that is around 98 feet off the ground.
For a look at BOMP's detailed plans, which delve deeper into the project, check out their submission to eVolo.
