Eco Factor: Eco-skin to transform old towers into sustainable buildings.
UTS Tower in NSW, Australia has often been singled out as Sydney’s ugliest building, which is desperately in need of a facelift. Multinational architectural practice, Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) has proposed a green way to transform the UTS Tower and other 1960s Sydney icons into next-gen sustainable buildings with a unique “Tower Skin”.
Tower Skin is a transparent cocoon that generates renewable energy with photovoltaic cells, collects rainwater and betters day lighting to further conserve energy. The skin also uses convective energy to power the tower’s ventilation requirements. The tower is to be wrapped with a lightweight, high-performance composite mesh textile.
The surface tension of the materials allows the membrane to freely stretch around walls and roof elements to help achieve maximum visual impact with minimal effort. After dark the skin acts as a dynamic sculpture that communicates information such as performances and campus events.
