As the pressure to provide increased modern housing and commercial buildings intensifies around the globe, an increasing number of cities are looking at tall buildings as potential sustainable solutions.
‘Eco_Scape’, is a research project exploring the design and construction of environmentally friendly tall buildings in Chinese cities. The project is a practice embedded, collaborative project devised by Woodhead in partnership with Arup, and China’s Tonji University and Beijing University.
The Eco_Scape project aims to produce a dynamically responsive ‘vertical village’ that can integrate into Chinese culture. It is designed to interact positively with the environment, reduce rather than increase carbon emissions and take advantage of free energy sources to provide comfortable and sustainable living and working spaces.
Eco_Scape seeks to produce a sustainable, site-specific tower that can be used as a benchmark for future projects. It will have to be virtually self sufficient, include power generation from wind turbine and photovoltaic solar cells, combined with low energy heating/cooling/ventilation systems to produce maximum gain for users and minimum impact on the environment.
Using digital based modelling systems enabled exploration into areas such as wind design, structural efficiency and speed of construction, aesthetic impact on sunshade and shade, maximising human spaces at ground level. ESD initiatives are co-ordinated into the design from the outset aimed at a zero ecological footprint.
