Wildfires are becoming a common occurrence, some places like California and Australia even have wildfire seasons which are now becoming longer and more aggressive. According to this official research paper, data shows that since 2000, an annual average of 70,600 wildfires burned an annual average of 7 million acres in the USA alone in 2020 while Australia has seen 46 million acres destroyed since September 2019. The need for sustainable design has never been more urgent and in all verticals of the industry, not just packaging or product. Keeping this in mind, architect Alberto Roncelli created Regenera – a skyscraper that aims to heal ecosystems that have been burned down by wildfires.
The skyscraper will be located in the center of a burnt ecosystem and as it degenerates it will spread nutrients and seeds through winds while also becoming a temporary shelter for birds and small-sized animals. Think of Regenera as a supporting pillar to the recovering ecosystem. Through the erosion of its own structure, Regenera will transform and spread itself into the ecosystem in a purposeful manner. During the initials phases, a laboratory on the lower level is dedicated to experimenting, monitoring, and researching the process and the progress of the ecosystem. In the following phases, scientists will abandon the skyscraper and make more space for the undisturbed re-population of small to medium-sized animals and plants.
Regenera proposes a new paradigm that creates the possibility to carefully program and diversify each part of the structure, defining a life cycle determined by erosion and constant transformation…which is exactly what the cycle of life is all about. Materials chosen to build the structure include mixing substances needed by the forest with the architectural capability to be a temporary shelter while slowly dissolving. This design can be a success with a team of chemists, phyrogeographers, meteorologists, engineers, and biologists, all working together to understand the necessities and needs of a dead ecosystem. Regenera wants to be a manifesto for a new way of relating architecture and nature, structure and ecosystem, time and erosion, skyscrapers and forests.
Desinger: Alberto Roncelli
