When you think about the heaven reaching skyscrapers, they usually are an embodiment of utter vanity and frivolity. The likes of this Cobra shaped skyscraper or the 360 rotating one is nothing more than an epitome of luxury and wastefulness. But the latest sky-touching design, Mashambas Skyscraper, is more than just an eye candy.
This incredible modular skyscraper has farm-integrated design and aims to placate the pressing problem of the world hunger and poverty. Designers Pawel Lipinski and Mateusz Frankowski are behind the noble and unique concept of Mashambas Skyscraper, as they plan to bring a “green revolution” for the impoverished small farmers in the rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa.
The modular Mashambas Skyscraper has movable floors which can be assembled, disassembled, transported, and can function as a center for growing crops, hosting markets, and even as an educational platform to impart training of the latest agricultural techniques. While world poverty has dropped down to 20 percent in the last three decades, it is still the same in African countries. Over 40 percent of the total population in sub-Saharan Africa lives under the line of poverty. This concept can be a golden opportunity for them to break the shackles.
Pawel and Mateusz think that the real obstacles holding back the populace include,
“poor infrastructure, limited markets, weak governments, and fratricidal civil wars.”
The Mashambas Skyscraper derives its name from the Swahili word for cultivated land. It has arched modules that are placed on the top of each other to create a scalable high-rise while ensuring a flexible design as well. These modules can be used for a multitude of purposes, such as a ground floor marketplace, warehouses, drone services, classrooms, and farming areas on the upper levels.
“Mashambas is a movable educational center, which emerges in the poorest areas of the continent,” write the designers. “It provides education, training on agricultural techniques, cheap fertilizers, and modern tools; it also creates a local trading area, which maximizes profits from harvest sales.”
“Today hunger and poverty may be only African matter, but the world’s population will likely reach nine billion by 2050, scientists warn that this would result in global food shortage. Africa’s fertile farmland could not only feed its own growing population, it could also feed the whole world.”
The designers plan to employ drones to bring supplies that will include construction and agricultural raw materials, along with the transportation of the product to the needy and hard-to-reach areas. A market at the ground floor will encourage business activities in the area. Hopefully, a point will come soon when the local community becomes self-sufficient to allow the transfer of the entire building from one place to another.
This amazing modular and multipurpose design has also won first position in the renowned 2017 eVolo Skyscraper Competition.
What do you think about the design of this skyscraper? Share with us in the comments’ section below.