EVOLO 2018 - A Symbiont
The skyscraper is a unique example of the exploitation of sources, it is a concentration of sources: financial, social as well as natural. We get up in the morning and elbow our way through the crowds and excessive traffic to get into our skyscraper. On the way we come across several dirty people, ignore them, enter the lobby, pass through the detection frame and rise in one of the lifts to reach our open office. We sit down at the computer and connect to the enhanced world. Having sent several metres of emails, we go to have a coffee, in the corridor we meet just a few colleagues, we do not know what is happening outside, one storey above us, one storey below us. We need to go to the toilet, we go there and when finished we flush the toilet: 5 litres, 15 litres, 40 stories, 200 toilets, 80 flushes per hour, 3700 litres per shift, 450000 litres a day, 10,000,000 litres a year.
Water consumption keeps growing while water sources are becoming inaccessible and polluted. The tendency of the development is leading towards radical measures. Rationed water, the reduction of consumption, overheated cities and the global changes in climate. On the other hand, the solution is easy to see.
The skyscraper is a manifestation of individual strength and power. The collective power – the whole, the system and nature – is however much stronger that an individual. We have spent too much time competing and fighting each other and found out that, although we are able to surpass ourselves, we forget about the whole, we forget that through our competition we have destroyed our surroundings, our environment, our relationships. Modernity meant progress based on inexhaustible resources but how to continue: we are beginning to realize that our resources may run dry. We consume thousands of litres of water a day. Our cities are grey concrete areas and rainwater is not retained – just after rain it runs off into the sewerage.
System of wetland roofs and rainwater retention
The building’s roof will include horizontal and sloping wetland elements. These are green roofs composed of substrate satiated with water in which wetland plants grow.
a) retains rainwater on the roof
c) cools and moistens the surroundings
Excessive rainwater runs off into the retention tank on the roof. When there in not enough water on the roof, the wetland roof is irrigated from the retention tank.
The parts of the of the system of wetland roofs and rainwater detention:
- horizontal wetland roof
- a retention lake for rainwater
- pumping and accumulation reservoirs
Secondary influence: cooling and shading
The common skyscraper facade warms up to the temperature of 50-60°C in summer, the green facade can absorb sunbeams and thanks to this its temperature during summer is 26-32°C. With the use of at least 15-21% we manage to save 6600KW of energy needed for cooling.
Tertiary impact: Communications, the spatial city. Thanks to the root zone water treatment plant we obtain a new level of the city that can be used to get to know new spaces, not accessible until now, by walking.
I leave the toilet flushed with pre-washed water. I pour myself water and go for a walk on the 35th storey. Thanks to the symbiont we manage to save up to 98% of water. Thus skyscrapers change from closed individuals into the interlinked community of the co-existing and cooperating sociological ecological new reality
Team : jiri vitek, martin dlabaja, kristyna uhrova, vojta marek
