Sydney’s Newest Building Isn’t Just Going Green. It’s Literally Green.

Cities the world over are realizing that, with all the recent development, they might be running out of room. There’s barely room for buildings, people and plants. Green spaces are vital for cleaning the air, cooling the city and keeping the residents sane. It’s extremely difficult to create green space in a packed urban area.

In Sydney, Australia, architect Jean Nouvel wanted to create this elusive green space. However, he wanted to do it in a way that worked with the modern city’s existing profile–a compromise, of sorts. What he came up with was One Central Park, a dual-tower apartment and retail complex that rises 116 meters. The towers are 16 and 33 stories, and feature four floors of retail space and 563 apartments above.

The buildings is also wrapped in a series of gardens that house a variety of vegetation. Vertical planters and vines climb the panels along the sides of the buildings. In the residential decks, trees and plants grow in miniature gardens. What might otherwise be a sterile-looking high rise has a lush, verdant look.

Each unit gets its own bit of greenery, so even city-dwellers can enjoy a bit of nature. For the apartments that might not get enough sun to sustain their gardens, the reflector shines light on shaded areas. At night, it lights up, but there’s no word yet about how the residents like that.

In addition to looking nice and breaking up the monotony of the urban setting, city greenery also provides a way to clean and filter the air. It also cuts down on the phenomenon of heat islands, which collect heat from the sun and trap it, raising the temperature of the city and, on a macro scale, the planet.

Via designboom|images courtesy of Frasers Property and Sekkisui House