An urban skyscraper divided into 11 natural landscapes has been recognised as the most outstanding new concept for high-rise living in an annual competition.

Polish architecture firm BOMP – whose partners are Konrad Basan, Ewa Odyjas, Agnieszka Morga and Jakub Pudo – took first place in the 2015 Skyscraper Competition, organised by eVolo Magazine.

Recreation and leisure ranked high on the agenda in many of the winning entrants’ designs.

BOMP’s Essence Skyscraper combines architecture and nature, with overlapping landscapes – mountains, glaciers, swamps and a jungle – to stimulate a “diverse and complex range of visual, acoustic, thermal, olfactory, and kinesthetic experiences”.

The practice envisages the spaces being open to the public, and including water floors and fish tanks lifted up to 30 metres above ground, among other elements.

Second place in the competition was awarded to Shanty-Scraper by Suraksha Bhatla and Sharan Sundar for a project that would provide housing, work and recreational spaces to the inhabitants of slums in Chennai, India. The building would make use of the city’s post-construction debris, including pipes, corrugated metal sheets and timber.

Third place was taken by a project which combines the digital and physical worlds in a future city that would change according to its inhabitants’ needs. Cybertopia, designed by Russia’s Egor Orlov, would feature digital areas that have a “large number of physical and mechanical laws alien to real space”, as though “landscapes of computer games have woven into the city space becoming its integral part”.

Spanning all seven continents, 480 entries were received in total. As well as the three winners, 15 projects were given an honourable mention.

Members of the jury selecting the winners included Massimiliano Fuksas, principal at Studio Fuksas; Benedetta Tagliabue, principal at EMBT Miralles Tagliabue; Alvin Huang, principal at Synthesis Design + Architecture; Wenchian Shi, project manager at MVRDV; and Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ, principals at WOHA.