EcoCycleSkyscraper

In recent decades, skyscrapers have become central to urban renewal in Israel and worldwide. In Tel Aviv Jaffa, where land prices continue to rise, and the National Outline Plan 70 promotes maximum land use, high-rises appear to be a natural solution to density and the growing need for housing and offices. Yet their design and construction raise two pressing challenges. First, the dominant materials, concrete, steel, and glass, age more quickly than anticipated. Second, their production, transport, and upkeep emit large amounts of carbon, deepening the climate crisis and making future demolition and rebuilding costly and highly polluting.
When today’s material-based towers begin to deteriorate, demolition becomes the default solution. Bringing down a 150-meter tower generates tens of thousands of tons of waste, emits massive CO₂, and disrupts the city for months. Beyond these environmental costs, critics such as Rachel Alterman highlight social drawbacks, including alienation from street life and the erosion of the human scale. Towers, therefore, are more than technical solutions to land scarcity; they reshape urban life and carry long-term ecological consequences.
This project argues for a shift in perspective: skyscrapers should be designed as long-lasting urban infrastructure rather than disposable products. Instead of following the cycle of construction, deterioration, and demolition, we must rethink towers to allow renewal without destruction. My research explores strategies such as modular facades, adaptable service systems, and replaceable building components that can be swapped without touching the structural frame. This approach reduces waste, lowers emissions, and extends the tower’s lifespan.
The guiding research question is: How can we design skyscrapers today to ensure durability, sustainability, and adaptability in an uncertain future? To address this, I examine skyscrapers as integral elements of the urban fabric, trace the historical evolution of their forms and technologies, and investigate how concepts of sustainability and circular design can be applied to tall buildings.
The goal is to outline a future skyscraper that does not require demolition but is capable of continuous renewal. Such a model would transform the high-rise from a short-lived object into resilient, adaptable infrastructure, fully integrated within a sustainable urban ecosystem.