What grows organic produce, consumes CO2, and is over 30 stories tall? The answer is Eric Vergne’s Dystopian Farm skyscraper, a winner of 2009's Evolo Skyscraper Competition. The Evolo Skyscraper Competition, held each year, encourages some of the world's most creative architects, engineers, and artists to design new structures to meet the needs future urban residents.

One of this year's three winning designs was the spiraling Dystopian Farm tower, a green skyscraper designed for the Hudson Yard area of Manhattan. The tower is modeled after the cells in ferns and other plants. Its organic design provides stability to the structure, and a network of housing for the tower's growing systems. The tower is equipped with advanced growing technologies such as airoponic watering, nutrient feed systems, controlled lighting, and CO2 level regulation.

The end result is a tower which not only looks natural, but is home to a rich green garden that consumes carbon dioxide and provides food for the growing urban population. Mr. Vergne describes, "Through food production and consumption, this skyscraper sets up a fluctuation of varying densities and collections of people, bringing together different social and cultural groups, creating new and unforeseen urban experiences that form and dissipate within the flux of city life."

World population in urban centers is on the rise. Experts predict that by 2050 80% of the world's citizens will reside in an urban setting. These residents will need an estimated 109 hectares of arable land to provide their food. As space on the ground is limited, one increasingly attractive solution is to build upwards, creating vertical farms. While few such farms currently exist, several projects are planned and the field could grow tremendously in the next couple decades.

The Evolo Skyscraper competition drew 416 entrants this year from 64 countries. Ultimately, three winners, including the Dystopian Farm, were picked, with 15 special mentions.

Via Inhabitat

The most effective building insulation materials currently in widespread use are polystyrene and polyisocyanurate panels and polyurethane spray foam. These materials have an R-value of about R-5 to R-6 per inch.

Fiberglass batts, which are widely used in residential construction, have an R-value of about R-3 per inch. Aerogel is an intriguing material which has an R-value of R-10 per inch, but it is still very expensive to produce and, because it is so fragile, it is difficult to incorporate into building materials. As these R-Values increase, so does the efficiency of heating and cooling, the largest slice of the home power-use pie.

Specialty panels with significantly higher performance are available. Vacuum boards can provide as much as R-30 per inch. And a company called Glacier Bay offers Barrier Ultra-R panels, which use aerogel inside a sealed, evacuated panel. Ultra R panels offer R-50 per inch insulation value, roughly 10X better than a conventional polystyrene or polyiso insulation board.

By incorporating the aerogel core inside the vacuum panel, the panels require a less extreme vacuum to obtain their insulation performance. And the reduced pressure differential due to the lower vacuum level translates into a longer life for the panel. A typical panel needs to have internal braces to keep the panel from being crushed by the outside atmospheric pressure (and these braces reduce the effectiveness of the vacuum insulation by acting as a thermal bridge that lets heat move from one side to the other). Aerogel is a very strong material, and supports the panel faces to prevent them from being crushed.

Even if the panel is punctured and the vacuum is lost, these panels will continue to perform at R-9 per inch, still nearly double a conventional insulation board. And the panels carry a 25 year warranty.