Among the winners and honorable mentions from the 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Contest are an expected array of wilderness scenes and animal portraits, but also a surprising number of unnatural environments.

Over 12,000 submissions for this year’s competition included mesmerizing images of art installations, aerial views of urban architecture, suspenseful shots of elegant bridges and window-reflected construction scenes.

Even some photographs of purely natural places seem strikingly architectural, like this photo of rocks carefully perched on eroding earthen columns.

Above: People’s Choice, “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” by Daniel Cheung; Honorable Mention, “Alone in the Crowds” by Gary Cummins; Third Place Winner, “Reflection” by Gaanesh Prasad; Nature:Third Place Winner, “Mars” by Marco Grassi.

Even rather mundane settings can make for wonderful photos. Above and below: People’s Choice, “Traveling to Heaven” by Trikansh Sharma; Cities: First Place Winner, “Another Rainy Day in Nagasaki” by Hiro Kurashina.  (via Colossal).

The first skyscrapers were impossible drawings at the times they were imagined, yet today glass towers that scale to the skies are everyday structures.  On land, by sea, in the air (or in one case: outer space), these entries are daring and visionary, defying convention, technology and at times even gravity.

First, the winner of the 2013 Evolo Skyscraper Competition, the Polar Umbrella (by Derek Pirozzi), a buoyant skyscraper that protects and regenerates the polar ice caps. The umbrella helps shade the ice below it, which is, in turn, rebuilt via water frozen by energy generated “through an osmotic (salinity gradient power) power facility housed within the building’s core.”

It can much more than just a remote outpost: “Through its desalinization and power facilities, this arctic skyscraper becomes a floating metropolis equipped with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) research laboratories, renewable power stations, dormitory-style housing units, eco-tourist attractions, and ecological habitats for wildlife.”

From the sea we shift our sights to the sky, where a high-flying design (third-place winner) aims to supplement dense cities with much-needed recreational and green space. Capped with a helium balloon and supported by solar-powered propellers, Light Park (by Ting Xu and Yiming Chen) is a floating skyscraper.

Lofted greenery helps clean the air above urban centers, and the plan balances program and structure: “Programmatic platforms that host parks, sports fields, green houses, restaurants, and other uses are suspended from the top of the structure by reinforced steel cables; the platforms fan in different directions around the spherical vessel to balance its weight. These slabs are also staggered to allow for maximum exposure to sunlight on each level.”

Before we get to a few back on the ground,  we have covered sea, sky and the next step? Space. That’s where the Stratosphere Network of Skyscrapers comes in – a bold idea by a Chinese team to create a skyscraper grid in space. The Buckminster-Fuller-worthy hex network of globe-spanning architectural infrastructure is mind-boggling in its implications. Independently, these incredible towers are impossible to support, but as a network, they reinforce one another, and are mutually suspended above the Earth.

If is a tall order in practice, but a brilliant concept in theory: “In this case the network of buildings and bridges connected to each other, covering the entire circumference of the earth, will no longer need structural ground support and can be suspended in the air by the effect of the earth gravity. The elevated bridges and buildings that relate the grid can reach any height with out worrying about overturning, earth-quakes, floods and any other natural disasters.”

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Future Architecture 7 Surreal Award Winning Skyscrapers

Design awards are about more than a mere prize or praise – they can and should be a platform for greater exposure to potential partners, sponsors and clients. Last week WebUrbanist highlighted winners from previous rounds of A’ Design Award – this week we will give you the inside scoop on the nature and submission process for this unique global competition.

The upcoming deadline is the last day of September, so now is the time to mark your calender and prepare your submission to have a shot at an award in various categories ranging from furniture and decor to products and packaging, interiors and architecture, fashion and advertising, movies and animation, writing and music and more.

In addition to a physical award, certificate and gala-night exhibition invitation, winners of A’ Design Award are featured in an annual yearbook and online portfolio, promoted to blogs and magazines, and provided connections to industry agencies, consultancies and institutions. Unlike some awards, this one requires no further fees from its entrants upon being declared winners.

“A’ Design Award & Competition is the the first and only scientifically developed design award, based on a Ph.D. work in Advanced Design Studio of Politecnico di Milano university, the competition is a result of analysis of 800 prior design awards and competitions, and from a survey of 2000 designers regarding what they want to achieve through design awards. We have developed, and still developing mechanisms to improve returns to designers in means of publicity, recognition, matchmaking and other services, and we have developed extensive methodology, and design award theory, to provide the most to the participating designers and companies.” To register & learn more about the competition visit: whatisadesignaward.com