2024-10-30T19:22:51-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/10191694/mock-firms-international-skyscraper-competition-2nd-place-proposal Brian Ng 2011-06-17T02:33:23-04:00 >2011-06-17T14:56:53-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/s9/s975khottgvh3yud.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>The Mock Firms model aims to help facilitate the formation and function of simulated architectural design firms by collegiate and secondary school students. Entering in its 4th year, the Chicago-based Mock Firms Architectural Competition is already highly regarded on the landscape of student-based design competitions.</p></em><br /><br /><p> Students Brian Ng, Michael Zhang and Grant Cogan of The Danish Institute for Study Abroad and California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo have taken second place in Chicago Architecture Today&rsquo;s 2011 International Mock Firm Skyscraper Design Challenge with their skyscraper proposal: &ldquo;Reconcile: The Stensta Tower&rdquo;</p> <p> &nbsp;</p> <p> Below is their concept proposal brief:</p> <p> Skyscrapers today represent social inaccessibility and commercial obsession, completely disengaged from any sense of ethical responsibility. How can the tower, a source of unaccepted scrutiny in Sweden, become good for the people?</p> <p> In reigniting the social question of architecture, how can the tower reconfigure itself into something that reconciles sites of conflict, catalyzing social sustainability?</p> <p> The biggest challenge with designing a skyscraper for the city of Stockholm&nbsp; is the &ldquo;towerphobia&rdquo; of Scandinavia. Any protrusion in the low, homogenous skyline of Stockholm is seen as a display of power; in the past, the ...</p>