The architecture giants at Agence Chartier Corbasson have imagined a design feat worthy of a green future.

 

Their new, London-based conceptual project, "Organic Skyscraper," proposes a high-rise building built from the recycled materials of its residents. The building would essentially "grow" vertically as inhabitants discarded waste like plastic bottles and paper, their garbage turning into insulated panels for floors to come.

 

Just imagine a building that self-generates like a mound of coral, while a skeleton of metal tubing holds the structure together until completion. The team estimates that it would take just one year to accrue the amount of trash necessary to construct the building's up-cycled facade. Which, for those familiar with the amount of time it takes to bring a skyscrape to life in an urban center, seems like no time at all.

 

Bonus: the hollow tubes would also help generate electricity, minimize wind load and ventilate the space. And the gradual building plan would allow the team to work as investments grow.

 

Inspired by the use of bamboo scaffolding in parts of Asia, the building materials would be manufactured on-site, with a reconditioning plant installed in the top of the building as the construction area lurches up, and recuperation containers on the bottom floor to collect the paper and plastic used in the office building. There'd be no need for tower-cranes, amounting to an entirely new vision of what urban construction might look like.

 

"The scaffolding structure allows a continuous growth, inspired by the vegetal world, while developing an aesthetic of this evolution," the architects wrote in a statement. "By using exclusively one single size of tube, profile or structure, not unlike bamboo scaffoldings, work on site is limited to assembling (no cutting, whether the structure be made of wood or steel). All elements prefabricated, limiting nuisances on the site and allowing cohabitation of offices."