AURORA

Towers have too often become symbols of power and ego. We would like to reveal a new kind of icon expressing the fragile balance and interconnected nature of our world. A symbol of love and of peaceful duality in California, a state that fostered an entire generation around a peaceful movement singing “The times they are a changing’”. The tower is a homage to the Eiffel Tower, but with a Silicon Valley Twist: a digitally generated timber tower swirling into the sky, celebrating the environmental technology of our age.

One of Gaia’s side elevations resembles an X Chromosome, which is found in many organisms, both male and female. Chromosomes are the molecules defining DNA, the blueprint of all living species. We believe that an icon must speak to all of us, in an inclusive way. It cannot favour one organism over another. It must unite.

The internet has helped connect people worldwide, and has made technology empowering and democratic. Isaac Azimov and James Lovelock envisaged “Gaia” as the ideal planetary state, in which all beings would connect into one, in the spirit of Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. The Tower of Gaia will help us remember: we’re all in this together.

The Tower of Gaia is an exemplary beacon of net zero carbon design. The tower features a unique self-sufficient restaurant serving organic food that grows within the structure itself, providing panoramic views of the Silicon Valley. The rich flora forms an educational journey that the public will be able to experience whilst venturing up the platforms through an intricate staircase or an exciting lift following the curvature of the building.

Throughout the building the life cycle and waste management systems have been considered to give Gaia a regenerative approach. The tower will deploy active systems that sequester carbon during its operation to offset its own embodied carbon, and generate enough energy to operate and store for a vertical hydroponics farm targeting beyond zero carbon.