'Tower of tomorrow' unveiled at World Future Energy Summit » Housing » 24dash.com

The unveiling of a conceptual design for a skyscraper that can do “everything a tree can do except replicate” will be one of the highlights of the inaugural World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi next month.

William McDonough – recognised by Time magazine as a “Hero for the Planet” – was recently commissioned by Fortune magazine to come up with a design for a skyscraper office block that would overcome the environmental drawbacks of conventional buildings.

Since his firm of architects embarked on the project, he has been approached by numerous companies keen to turn the idea into reality.

“We’re really excited because everyone in the building world that’s seen it has said ‘can we do this together?’ We’re now looking for a patron that will hire us to get it done," said McDonough.

“Fortune magazine asked us to speculate on ‘the building of the future’. What we came up with was ‘a building for the present’, something that would be possible today that accommodates the idea of a building that emulates a tree – a building that receives its energy from the sun, that grows food, that builds soil, that provides a habitat for hundreds of species, that changes colours with the seasons, that creates micro-climates, that would purify water.

"A building that would do just about everything a tree would do except self-replicate.”

McDonough will unveil his team’s ideas in a keynote speech on the first morning of the World Future Energy Summit (WFES), which takes place in Abu Dhabi from January 21-23.

Following on the heels of this month’s UN climate change conference in Bali, the WFES conference and related exhibition will explore practical and pragmatic strategies and technologies that the world urgently needs to mitigate the threat of global warming.

In the spirit of international co-operation so evident in Bali, senior executives from oil and gas majors like will be rubbing shoulders and sharing the podium with leaders of environmental NGOs – a gathering that would have been hard to envisage even a decade ago.

The list of speakers includes: BP’s Vivienne Cox; Total’s Phillipe Boisseau; European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs; Greenpeace CEO Dr. Gerd Liepold; and Jonathan Porritt, founder of the Forum for the Future.

The World Future Energy Summit is part of Abu Dhabi’s response to the need to mitigate climate change, part of which was the launch in the spring of 2006 of the Masdar Initiative.  Key elements of this initiative are education, research and investment in the future of energy and environmental sustainability.

WFES 2008 is being held in partnership with Masdar, which has plans to create the world’s first “zero-carbon, zero-waste” city and to develop a national carbon-capture and storage network. Masdar’s ultimate objective is to create a new economic sector dedicated to sustainable and clean energy technologies.

Commenting on the role of architects and construction firms in tackling climate change, McDonough said: “Around 40% of the climate change emissions and waste come from construction and buildings – so we have a crucial role to play.

"If we can cut the energy consumption of buildings in half, which isn’t that hard to imagine, we can have an effect of 20%, a dramatic amount.

“And if we can do buildings that are energy-positive – that produce more energy than they need to operate – then we’re ahead of the game.”

McDonough’s current design for a futuristic “skyscraper for today” is intended for a temperate, northern-hemisphere climate, but could, he said, be adapted for the desert climates of the Middle East. That is the version he intends to present in Abu Dhabi.

Commenting on the economics of “green” architecture, McDonough said: “Green buildings shouldn’t be seen as something that adds cost, they should be seen as high-performance buildings – high-performance in terms of the productivity of the people that work there, in terms of energy, in terms of materials. Our buildings don’t cost much more than normal buildings but they out-perform them.”

McDonough believes that the sector is poised for “explosive growth”.

“The design professions haven’t been trained in this way of designing – so it’s taken a while for them to catch up with these kinds of strategies. But they’re catching up fast. Pretty soon, you won’t be able to hire a high-quality design firm without it taking this approach.”

The World Future Energy Summit (WFES) is a global summit of leadership coming together to discuss key issues around sustainable and alternative energy solutions and technologies.

The inaugural 2008 summit will bring together the world’s leading innovators, educators, scientists, venture capitalists and experts in the field of future energy – people who are champions and catalysts in creating sustainable solutions.