With a biofuel-producing facade and an unusual spiraling design, the ‘Acupuncture Tower’ designed by grad students at the I.A. Lab of Taiwan University is definitely unlike most modern buildings. Created for Taiwan’s Khaosiung port city, the tower would desalinate ocean water, harvest wind and solar energy, and recycle waste. The greenery on the facade is not vertical trees or vines but algae membranes.
If water can be purified and reused indefinitely in the Space Station, a similar technology can be used to recycle the water within the building. The waste water can feed inner gardens before going through a filtering process to be reused. Taps could be replaced by fountains. Little creeks could flow through the apartments and corridors and feed waterholes where the people can bathe. Apartments, living spaces, corridors are customized inner gardens and reproduce the natural environment that the people most enjoy. Water flows through the whole building being purified by gardens and natural processes.