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
Mixed-Use | May 19, 2021
Salt Lake City mixed-use residential community will feature micro units
KTGY is designing the project.
Multifamily Housing | May 12, 2021
Affordable mixed-use housing complex completes in South Los Angeles
KFA designed the project.
Mixed-Use | May 7, 2021
Mixed-use development tops out in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood
The project will bring 160 affordable housing units to the area.
Mixed-Use | May 4, 2021
Renderings of Williamsburg’s largest new residential development revealed
Woods Bagot designed the project.
Mixed-Use | Apr 28, 2021
The Dime is Williamsburg’s newest mixed-use development
Fogarty Finger designed the project.
Mixed-Use | Apr 22, 2021
Jakarta’s first supertall tower tops out
The project will anchor the Thamrin Nine development.
Mixed-Use | Apr 20, 2021
EskewDumezRipple and Wolf Ackerman unveil the Center for Developing Entrepreneurs
The Charlottesville, Va. project is slated for completion later this year.
Mixed-Use | Apr 19, 2021
BIG unveils design for the new OPPO R&D Headquarters in Hangzhou’s Future Sci-Tech City
The project sits between a natural lake, an urban center, and a 10,000-sm park.
Mixed-Use | Apr 16, 2021
Wrigleyville Lofts to bring 120 apartment units to Chicago’s Wrigleyville neighborhood
The project will also include 14,000 sf of ground floor retail.
Mixed-Use | Apr 8, 2021
New mixed-use development under construction at Naperville’s CityGate Centre
The project will comprise 285 multifamily units and the shell for a future event center.