The annual Skyscraper Competition from eVolo Magazine is intended to recognize “outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. The award seeks to discover young talent, whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments.”

The 2012 winners (as depicted on the Talking Points Memo site) include some really fascinating ideas, from variations on traditional skyscrapers to cities on the sides of mountains and cliff faces to a floating, mostly-underwater factory town “skyscraper” recycling plastics in the Pacific garbage patch. Some of the ideas are far-fetched or even borderline crazy (an airport runway atop a skyscraper looks downright scary), but they’re all worth a look.

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