Architects are often pushing the boundaries of vision and scope with their ideas, but the profession has outdone itself on this occasion.

The designers at Vincent Callebaut believe they have an answer to China’s mass urban migration, polluting cities and resource-hungry people.

Their Shenzhen-inspired “Asian Cairns” vision is aptly named the “farmscraper”.

China’s mass-migration has led to a tipping point as the number of city-dwellers has now exceeded that of the rural population and that is expected to rise to 800 million people by 2020.
Vincent Callebaut Architecte say Shenzhen is a microcosm, adding the city has outgrown its resources.  Their solution is more blocks of towers, but not as we know it.

From the pictures on their website, they propose a “green, dense, smart city connected by the TIC (total integrated communication) and eco-designed from biotechnologies.”

Shenzhen may have transformed more than any other city in China since Deng Xiaoping launched reform and opening more than 30 years ago.  Back then, Shenzhen was mostly farmland, while today it’s filled with skyscrapers and high-rise apartments.

This latest concept can only be politely described as asthetically bonkers, with an almost out-of-this world vision, presenting a mid-air house within a garden made up of six self-sufficient, self-sustaining towers.

The numerous layers of pebble-shaped floors give it the scale of a supersize Stonehenge.

“The Asian Cairns project syntheses our architectural philosophy that transforms the cities in ecosystems,” say Vincent Callebaut Architecte.

They call it the “farmscraper.” We’d like to think of this as a skyforest.