Green skyscrapers reach new heights

Design for efficient, self-sufficient skyscrapers reaches new heights

Rising up through the thick Guangzhou smog is the Pearl River Tower. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the curvilinear edifice sets out to prove that one can be very big and very green – yet beautiful, too. Due for completion in 2010, the Tower is expected to be the world’s most efficient super-building, and hopes are high that it will lead the way for more ultra-sustainable skyscrapers.

The Pearl River Tower boasts an array of green technology, including a greywater recycling system, and 3,000m2 of photovoltaic (PV) panels. Its concave façades increase the wind speed through four vertical axis turbines – each with a capacity of 10,000kWh per year on two of the building’s 71 floors. Combined, these micro-generation features will provide an estimated 3% of the building’s annual energy needs.

But this is not the only green giant of the construction world. Rivals include Dubai’s Lighthouse Tower. In terms of energy generation, the Lighthouse will have 4,000 PV panels and three large 225kW wind turbines which, alongside other green features, will help it become a LEED platinum-rated building when opened in 2010.

New build isn’t always necessary to take these concepts forward. In 2007, the 1960s CIS Tower in Manchester was brought up to date, with the installation of over 7,000 PV panels on the façade and 24 wind turbines on the roof. These features enable the tower to generate 180,000 kWh per year, or 10% of its energy needs.

While these features undoubtedly make a difference to a building’s eco-credentials, says Martin Hunt, Head of Built Environment at Forum for the Future, “any designer or builder professing to be green needs to back up their claims with hard facts, or it’s only so much eco-bling”.

And for any building, renewable energy generation is only part of the picture. Other considerations include the whole life of any construction, transport issues, and internal management.

As Hunt puts it: “a green building is only as green as its users”.

– George Wigmore

29 January 2010

George Wigmore