A residential vertical forest

Italian architect, Stefano Boeri, has won a Swiss design competition with his proposal for a 36-storey residential tower that would be a ‘vertical forest’. This will be featuring more than 100 cedars, shrubs and other flora.

The 384-foot tower called LaTour des Cedres (The Cedar Trees Tower), is scheduled to go up in 2017 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Its facade will support 10,000 sq feet of greenery, partially obscuring chic apartments with wood decks and floor-to-ceiling windows.

Extensive vegetation is expected to improve local air quality while regulating temperature and noise levels inside the units. This is the third ‘vertical forest’ designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti. The design was unanimously accepted from among seven proposals by architecture firms in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the United States.

The new Lausanne tower will include six floors of offices and 29 floors for 195 residential units, ranging in size from two to five rooms. It is expected to house many hundred people in a mix of rental apartments and condominiums. 

“With the Tower of Cedar Trees, we will have a great role in the Lausanne landscape,” said Stefano Boeri in a statement. “The tower, also thanks to its shape and the changing colours of cedar trees and plants during the seasons, could become a landmark in the panorama of Lake Geneva. This will make Lausanne a cutting-edge city in the global challenge to implement urban quality together with sustainability and biodiversity.”