PREVIEW

Architects have unveiled designs for skyscrapers that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) unveiled Urban Sequoia - a green tower concept - during last week’s climate change conference in Glasgow.

The idea behind the concept is to make buildings act like a tree by capturing carbon and purifying the air.

According to SOM, the tower could capture 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to 48,500 trees.

Urban Sequoia would be built using carbon-storing biomaterials such as hempcrete and timber, as well as direct air capture technologies available today, which according to SOM could sequester up to 400 per cent more carbon over the course of the building's 60-year lifespan than emitted during its construction.

SOM notes that 40% of global carbon emissions are generated by the building sector and 230 billion square metres of new building stock will be needed by 2060 to meet population increases.

Mina Hasman, SOM senior associate principal, said: “If the Urban Sequoia became the baseline for new buildings, we could realign our industry to become the driving force in the fight against climate change.

“We envision a future in which the first Urban Sequoia will inspire the architecture of an entire neighbourhood – feeding into the city ecosystem to capture and repurpose carbon to be used locally with surplus distributed more widely.”

Kent Jackson, an SOM partner, said: “We developed our idea so that it could be applied and adapted to meet the needs of any city in the world, with the potential for positive impact at any building scale.”