Engineers have released plans for a 5-km-high skyscraper that eats smog

[PHDNM]

Engineers have released plans for a 5-km-high skyscraper that eats smog

2017 only just arrived, but one manufacturing company is already looking 45 years into the future.

Arconic, a materials science company, has envisioned a 3-mile-high (4.8-km) skyscraper built from materials that are either in-development or have already been brought to market, including smog-eating surfaces and retractable balconies.

http://www.sciencealert.com/a-compan...that-eats-smog

[Jehan]

I'am always amaze by what humans are able to do.

[Atvend]

I'am always amaze by what humans are able to do.

Hate to burst your bubble but the field of architecture is in complete stagnation.

[Marzipan]

"All glass" and people are to live in it, no thank you.

This looks terrifying. And it doesn't help they are still working on its durability. I'm always quite pessimistic for such things. I like the idea of having a multi purpose building that cleans air but I wouldn't want to live in it or near it, especially when it looks as it does.

Do you know where this is planned to be built or has this yet to be determined?

[Linebacker]

I'll congratulate them when I see it built

[Jehan]

Hate to burst your bubble but the field of architecture is in complete stagnation.

You mean in the last few years or in the last decades? Without closely monitoring the field, I regulary saw new interesting stuff.

OP post a pretty good exemple of innovation. I also read about project about green city in China and Saoudia. In the last decades there were the artificial island in Dubai and others places.

[Atvend]

You mean in the last few years or in the last decades? Without closely monitoring the field, I regulary saw new interesting stuff.

OP post a pretty good exemple of innovation. I also read about project about green city in China and Saoudia. In the last decades there were the artificial island in Dubai and others places.

Well I'm sure most architecture related hack media would have you believe otherwise. There is definitely a pretty important debate to be had here and I couldn't do it justice with just a couple sentences, but I'll try.

In today's architectural community it is more rewarding to push the boundaries of absurdity than beauty, scale or craftsmanship. Why even bother with minuscule details and skillful craftsmanship anymore when some pre-fabbed post-modern work is gonna turn heads just as effectively, at much cheaper cost?

Part of the problem is that most landmark architecture is now commissioned by the corporate world. Whereas governments and religious institutions have traditionally demanded some sense of grandeur from their projects for the purpose of signaling their authority, the corporate world can only see numbers. Consequently their products are minimalist, sterile and often gimmicky, so as to draw attention. Whatever advanced engineering is employed to accomplish this often only exists for the sake of absurdity, rather than to serve the function of the building as it should.

The developments in the east are nowhere near as remarkable as they are made out to be. They are superficially innovative, just enough so that they can be shilled as novelty. Same old but with a newer, nicer coat of paint. Truly revolutionary projects and concepts of megacities, floating cities, modular cities, mountainous cities etc. have existed for decades, but no one actually has the balls to take those risks. And so it is that for as long as it remains in the hands of the corporate world, architecture will continue to stagnate. Unless of course your idea of pushing the boundaries is this: