Designs by Italian architect Stefano Boeri for a verdant mixed-use tower have been given the green light by officials in Lausanne, Switzerland, Gizmag reports.
Office spaces, luxury apartments, and a 53,819-sf retail center will comprise the 36-floor structure, which renderings depict as a tower stacked Jenga style with white rectangular units and patches of green trees and shrubbery strewn throughout.
Dubbed La Tour des Cedres (or Cedar Trees Tower), the architect says the green design will be boosted by other sustainable technology, such as solar power and rainwater collection. Among the plants will be 100 of the tower’s namesake plant, cedar trees, 6,000 shrubs, and 18,000 other plants, most of them native to the area. Together, the plants will make up more than 32,200 sf of greenery.
The cantilevered concrete planters and loggia are being engineered by BuroHappold “as prefabricated units that connect directly to the tower’s reinforced concrete frame,” Gizmag reports.
But green architecture writer and critic Lloyd Alter of TreeHugger argues that the amount of reinforced concrete needed to accomplish Boeri’s design may cancel out all the other conservation and sustainability endeavors of the building.
“Trees, and the soil they need to survive and grow, are heavy, and it takes a lot of reinforced concrete to support them on these cantilevered balconies. Concrete is responsible for 5 to 7 percent of the carbon dioxide we produce, so the responsible and sustainable thing is to use less of it,” Alter writes. “Without an analysis of how much concrete is needed to support these trees, [versus] how much CO2 the trees absorb, you can't call this sustainable design.”
According to DesignBoom, La Tour des Cedres is due to begin construction in 2017.
Related Stories
| Aug 19, 2014
Goettsch Partners unveils design for mega mixed-use development in Shenzhen [slideshow]
The overall design concept is of a complex of textured buildings that would differentiate from the surrounding blue-glass buildings of Shenzhen.
| Aug 18, 2014
SPARK’s newly unveiled mixed-use development references China's flowing hillscape
Architecture firm SPARK recently finished a design for a new development in Shenzhen. The 770,700 square-foot mixed-use structure's design mimics the hilly landscape of the site's locale.
| Jul 17, 2014
A new, vibrant waterfront for the capital
Plans to improve Washington D.C.'s Potomac River waterfront by Maine Ave. have been discussed for years. Finally, The Wharf has started its first phase of construction.
| Jul 17, 2014
A high-rise with outdoor, vertical community space? It's possible! [slideshow]
Danish design firm C.F. Møller has developed a novel way to increase community space without compromising privacy or indoor space.
| Jun 30, 2014
OMA's The Interlace honored as one of the world's most 'community-friendly' high-rises
The 1,040-unit apartment complex in Singapore has won the inaugural Urban Habitat award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which highlights projects that demonstrate a positive contribution to the surrounding environment.
| Feb 13, 2014
Related Companies, LargaVista partner to develop mixed-use tower in SoHo
The site is located at the gateway to the booming SoHo retail market, where Class A office space is scarce yet highly in demand.
| Feb 5, 2014
Extreme conversion: Atlanta turns high-rise office building into high school
Formerly occupied by IBM, the 11-story Lakeside building is the new home for North Atlanta High School.
| Jan 29, 2014
Notre Dame to expand football stadium in largest project in school history
The $400 million Campus Crossroads Project will add more than 750,000 sf of academic, student life, and athletic space in three new buildings attached to the school's iconic football stadium.
| Jun 4, 2013
SOM research project examines viability of timber-framed skyscraper
In a report released today, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill discussed the results of the Timber Tower Research Project: an examination of whether a viable 400-ft, 42-story building could be created with timber framing. The structural type could reduce the carbon footprint of tall buildings by up to 75%.
| Apr 30, 2013
First look: North America's tallest wooden building
The Wood Innovation Design Center (WIDC), Prince George, British Columbia, will exhibit wood as a sustainable building material widely availablearound the globe, and aims to improve the local lumber economy while standing as a testament to new construction possibilities.
