Winning skyscraper concept makes ice and energy while it floats in the arctic

Skyscrapers are normally associated with society’s forced decline of the environment’s quality and sustainability. They represent man’s destructive ways against nature for the sake of progress. Not all skyscrapers are made this way and one concept design won the 2013 eVolo Skyscraper Competition.

The Polar Umbrella isn’t just a skyscraper design that tickles the imagination with future technological wonders. It stems from a concept that buildings can go beyond being eco-friendly. Built properly, they can actually start reversing some of the damage that has been done to the environment.

First, it takes salt water and uses a desalinization technique to establish a renewable source of energy through an osmotic power facility within the skyscraper’s core. Then, it shields the ice with a huge umbrella-like top structure that reduces the surface temperature, slowing melting. Finally, it has ice harvesting chambers that actually freeze the ocean water to build back some of the melted ice.

It’s clearly ambitious but compared to many of the other entries, it’s not completely unrealistic. Buildings like this could be produced. Buildings like this should be produced. Here’s some spec images: