Green skyscraper’s algae walls eat pollution

A skyscraper with algae walls and floating flat-pack houses that rise above a flood are some of the more unusual designs being proposed by architects in response to climate change.

With buildings and construction accounting for up to 40 per cent of carbon emissions it is perhaps no surprise that the next generation of designers is determined to go green but the six eco-friendly concepts up for the future project of the year award at the World Architecture Festival in Amsterdam in December range from the fantastic to the fantastical. There are forest dwellings proposed for a site at Samutprakarn, Thailand, and the masterplan for Oslo Airport City, a district powered entirely by renewable energy and served by driverless electric vehicles, has received the backing of the Norwegian government. A project to protect the Port of Houston from storm surges with mid-bay islands and gates remains largely speculative.

Grimshaw, responsible for the £1 billion transformation of London Bridge station, has proposed floating modular dwellings for a site at Bergen in the Netherlands, which would offer protection from flooding as sea levels rise. Perhaps the most unusual proposal is from a young practice called Desi(tect)ure, which has designed a skyscraper for Beijing sheathed in an algae wall. It features a huge number of tiny tubes in which the algae live and is intended to absorb CO2 and polluting particles to combat the vast dust cloud that plagues the Chinese capital.

The Times started a Clean Air Campaign in May for new laws to protect the British public from the effects of toxic air, which is believed to result in up to 40,000 premature deaths a year in the UK and about 1.6 million in China.

Paul Finch, the World Architecture Festival’s programme director, said: “We have been inspired by the levels of innovation in this year’s entries, that show the incredible range of ways in which architects are responding to the global climate and biodiversity emergencies we face.”

Of the 534 shortlisted projects from 70 countries competing for the various awards, 61 are British. Vessel, a 150ft sculpture in Manhattan by the London-based Heatherwick Studio, is an early favourite to be named building of the year, as is the twisting Morpheus Hotel in Macau by Britain’s Zaha Hadid Architects. They face stiff competition from a shopping centre with the world’s largest indoor waterfall at Changi airport in Singapore.