Solar Tower Set to Help Make Greenest Olympics

A Swiss architectural and design organisation has put forward a radical new renewable energy concept intended to form a centrepiece of the 2016 Olympic Games, which are set to take place in Rio.

Current plans see the Rio Olympics being the greenest yet - the first in the series to be 100 per cent carbon neutral - and, in connection with this, there is a International Architecture Competition in which many countries are represented.

RAFAA Architecture and Design’s entry into this is its Solar City Tower.

RAFAA is seeking to site the Tower on Cotunduba Island in Rio de Janeiro Bay, meaning it would among the first sights to be seen by visitors arriving in Rio for the Games.

Solar City Tower

Solar City Tower is self-sustaining, and here’s how it works. The tower is covered in an array of photovoltaic cells that collect solar energy and convert it into electricity for Olympians and Rio residents to use. Any surplus energy created drives a seawater pump and the water created is harnessed for night-time energy use. Alternatively, this water can be cascaded down the side of the tower to create an ‘urban waterfall’, in RAFAA’s own words.

This waterfall, the firm says, will highlight the power of nature, but it will also, simultaneously, be a “...representation of a collective awareness of the city towards its great surrounding landscape.”

Renewable Energy: Olympics

This renewable energy tower can be accessed by people attending the Rio Olympics through a plaza situated 60 metres ASL (Above Sea Level), and the structure features a shop, a cafe and multiple viewing decks.

'Our project, standing in the tradition of “a building/city as a machine”, shall provide energy both to the city of Rio de Janeiro and its citizens while using natural resources', RAFAA states in its company literature.

It adds: ‘We hope to attain an international Olympic message with a political appeal. After hosting the United Nation’s Earth Summit in 1992, Rio de Janeiro will once again be the starting point for a global green movement and for a sustainable development of urban structures. It will perhaps even become a symbol for the first zero carbon footprint Olympic Games.’

Solar City Tower Image kindly provided by and copyright of RAFAA Architecture and Design