In a presentation at the Buildings Pavilion Auditorium during COP27, the UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) presented the Urban Sequoia NOW concept. The proposal, developed by an interdisciplinary team at SOM, represents a design that can sequester carbon from the atmosphere throughout its lifecycle. The design can be implemented with today’s technologies. This represents SOM’s concept of going beyond net zero carbon by combining multiple strategies: reducing embodied carbon, generating energy, absorbing carbon, and increasing the typical 60-year lifespan of the building.
We recognize the need to alter the trajectory of climate change by going beyond net zero. We need to take carbon out of the atmosphere through the built environment, and we have developed a design to do just that. - Chris Cooper, partner at SOM
The high-rise prototype manages to reduce upfront estimated carbon by 70 percent during the construction phase, compared to a typical high-rise. During the first five years of the tower’s life, the building would sequester enough carbon to reach a 100 percent reduction in whole-life carbon, achieving net zero. In the planned 100 years lifespan, the team estimates that the Urban Sequoia would absorb 300 percent of the amount of carbon emitted in its construction and operations.
The proposal rethinks the entire construction approach, moving away from the typical additive method. The new method represents a streamlined process, in which every part of the building would serve multiple purposes by consolidating and even eliminating the typically hidden systems like air ducts and other MEP equipment. This approach optimizes floor slabs to include systems within the floors, raises ceiling heights, and decreases material use.
Situated between the slab and a timber floor finish, underfloor ventilation openings would ensure airflow. Sky gardens are envisioned as large air capture zones while doubling as amenities. By employing open cavities in the building’s core, cool air moving through the gardens would go through a direct air capture technology embedded in the building’s core and roof. The captured carbon would be then stored and available for use in various industrial applications. The buildings in envisioned as an integral part of a new carbon-removal economy.
According to the team at SOM, the concept and technologies integrated into this prototype are applicable to any building type, at any scale, and in any location. Besides integrated technologies, the buildings also use carbon-sequestering materials like timber and bioconcrete, as a way of reducing embodied carbon emissions. Around the world, more and more companies are recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis and are conducting research to develop new building materials and find low-carbon solutions, looking into living material solutions and locally available skills and materials that are better adapted to create symbiotic relationships with ecosystems.
