Spiraling Self-Sufficient Eco Skyscraper Provides Water, Food, and Energy for Noida, India

Architect <a href="http://www.architizer.com/en_us/people/profile/vikas_pawar/">Vikas Pawar</a>'s Eco Skyscraper concept envisions a tower capable of providing clean water, food and energy for the citizens of Noida, India. The conspicuous spiral elements that make up the building are more than just aesthetic features -- they serve as vertical farms supplemented by a sophisticated system of <a href="http://inhabitat.com/labbox-the-worlds-smallest-hydroponic-growing-system/">hydroponics</a> that allow humid air to be converted into drinkable water. In addition to bringing potable water to its inhabitants, the Eco Skyscraper would be a full fledged vertical community that makes use of renewable sources like the wind and sun for power.

Pawar's Eco Skyscraper is a self-sufficient vertical city composed of two twisting towers linked by soaring sky bridges. The project's mixed-use high-density program offers space for commercial areas, offices, and residences, while the tower's rotating axis provides each unit with a <a href="http://inhabitat.com/revision-dallas-honorable-mention-inspired-by-anasazi-indians/">rooftop terrace</a> where food can be grown.

The skyscraper harvests humidity to provide for its needs, and it would recycle waste water with a living machine system that includes live plants, trees, grasses and algae, fish, and other living creatures.

The walkways spanning the upper levels are studded with a massive set of wind turbines - not unlike the turbines spanning the <a href="http://inhabitat.com/bahrain-world-trade-center-turbines-activate/">Bahrain World Trade Center</a>.

The skyscraper supplements its wind energy with power produced from solar arrays, while passive design strategies reduce the building's overall environmental footprint.

According to pawar, "Eco Skyscraper is about rethinking the future: it is a profound challenge of survival, at the end of an era of cheap oil and materials to rethink and re-design how we produce and consume; to reshape how we live and work, or even to imagine the jobs that will be needed for transition"

The building is designed to be constructed from modular units, which can be cheaply and efficiently constructed and then quickly assembled together on-site.