This proposal for EVOLO’s 2020 skyscraper competition was designed by 3A students Chi Un Lee and Annie Wang. As the palm oil industry struggles to meet zero carbon emission and deforestation targets without halting economic activity, RE: Forest 2020 suggests a solution. The skyscraper acts as an “artificial lung” that harvests forests and captures carbon dioxide, while maintaining Indonesia’s palm oil industry.
Premise
Indonesia is an eclectic country, rich with culture and beautiful landscapes. It is also home to one of the most biodiverse forests in the world thanks to its rainforests, which account for over 10% of the total remaining rainforests left in the world. These rainforests greatly impact the world by absorbing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and rewarding the atmosphere with freshly produced oxygen. This productive system gave them their designation as the lungs of the world.
However, since the mid-20th century, substantial logging from plantation industries have exponentially reduced the rainforests. Indonesia’s rainforests are now one of the fastest disappearing rainforests in the world. In 2012, Indonesia’s rate of deforestation surpassed that of the Amazon, the most well-known rainforest in the world. This investigation begins in Sumatra, one of the regions most affected by deforestation due to the palm oil industry.
Proposal
RE:Forest 2020 aims to revive Sumatra’s rainforests, which have been substantially deforested due to high demand of palm oil worldwide. The solution, however, cannot be as simple as getting rid of Indonesia’s palm oil industry as a whole. After all, the industry plays a major role in Indonesia’s economy as well as being a key ingredient in many food products we consume today.
With this in mind, RE:Forest is a systematic skyscraper that functions as a massive storage system for both oil palms and rainforest trees. The proposal consists of two towers connected by a conveyor belt. The taller tower acts as a palm oil plantation where the oil palms are harvested, processed and packaged for selling. The shorter tower preserves and harvests a diverse collection of trees. This reduces the need to clear large areas of forests, and the palm oil industry can offset the destruction of forests
RE: Forest 2020 mimics the function of existing rainforests which inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Consequently, the skyscraper becomes a prosthetic organ for the rainforest to rely on until it has substantially developed.
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