A plant-covered twisting tower shaped like a DNA strand by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut is under construction in Taipei, Taiwan

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures



Described by Vincent Callebaut as "neither single tower, nor twin towers", the 20-storey Agora Garden apartment block is designed with a double-helix structure that twists up around a fixed central core.

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

"Different from the modern city built of concrete, glass and steel, the Agora Garden tower appears in an urban centre as a green twisted mountain," says the architect.

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Balconies on each floor will be filled with plants, vegetable gardens and fruit trees, creating a cascading layer of greenery across the exterior. These will enable residents to grow their own food and compost all their biodegradable waste.

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Between TWO and four apartments will be located on each floor of the building and will integrate a number of sustainable technologies, including rainwater-harvesting and solar energy.

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

"The concept is to build a true fragment of vertical landscape with low energetic consumption," explains Callebaut. "The project represents a built ecosystem that repatriates the fauna and the flora in the heart of the city and generates a new box of subtropical biodiversity."

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Agora Garden is being constructed on ONE of the largest designated residential sites in the city and will be surrounded be a moat. As well as apartments, the building will also accommodate rooftop clubhouses, a swimming pool, gym facilities and car parking floors.

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Vincent Callebaut won a COMPETITION to design the building in 2010 and construction is set to complete in 2016.

The architect also recently unveiled a futuristic concept for "farmscrapers" made from piles of giant glass pebbles. See more architecture concepts by Vincent Callebaut.

HERE'S a detailed project description from the architect:

Agora Garden, An Ecologocal Residential Tower

Taipei, Taiwan, 2010-2016

In November 2010, Vincent Callebaut Architectures SARL was awarded as the successful tenderer for the construction of a new luxurious residential tower located at Taipei. The project is currently under construction and will be completed in 2016.

You will find below the conceptual design proposal PRESENTED during the competition phase in 2010 by Vincent Callebaut, design architect:

The Ecologic Philosophy of the Project

In the heart of the urban networks of Xinyin District in full development, the Agora Garden project PRESENTS a pioneer concept of sustainable residential eco-construction that aims at limiting the ecologic footprint of its inhabitants by researching the right symbiosis between the human being and nature.

On this site that is the last and only biggest parcel of land for residential use, the concept is to build a true fragment of vertical landscape with low energetic consumption. The building is thus eco-designed. It integrates not only the recycling of organic waste and used water but also all the renewable energies and other new state-of-the-art nanotechnologies (BIPV solar photovoltaic, rain water recycling, compost, etc.). The project targets thus the energetic performance so as to be officially approved by the Green Building Label, the norm for high environmental quality, delivered by the Home Affairs Ministry of Taipei.

Part of the concept of inhabited and cultivated vertical farm through its own inhabitants, this project of residential tower enables first to design by its avant-gardist architecture a new life style in accordance with the nature and the climate. Actually, the Agora Garden tower superimposes vertically wide planted balconies of true suspended orchards, organic vegetable gardens, aromatic gardens and other medicinal gardens.

Such as a living organism, the tower BECOMES metabolic! It overpasses its energy-consuming passive role (absorbing all the natural resources and rejecting only waste) to produce its own organic food. The architectural concept is thus to eco-design an energy self-sufficient building, whose energy is electric, thermal and also alimentary.

Therefore, the project answers directly to 4 main ecologic objectives of the After Copenhagen:

1. The reduction of the climatic global warming.
2. The protection of the nature and the biodiversity.
3. The protection of the environment and the quality of life.
4. The management of the natural resources and waste.

Finally, according to the Cradle to Cradle concept where nothing is lost, everything transforms itself; all the construction and furnishing materials will be SELECTED through recycled and/or recyclable labels. By imitating the processes of natural ecosystems, it deals thus with reinventing in Taiwan the industrial and architectural processes in order to produce clean solutions and to create industrial cycle where everything is reused, either back to the ground as non-toxic organic nutrients, or back to the industry as technical nutrients able to be indefinitely recycled. Biotechnological prototype, the Agora Garden project reveals thus the symbiosis of human actions and their positive impact on the nature.

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

Above: north and south facades

The Morphologic Philosophy of the Project

Neither single tower, nor twin towers, the project arises towards the sky with TWO helicoidal towers gathering themselves around a central core. This architectural party offers a hyper-compacted core and a maximal flexibility of the housing storeys (with the possibility to unify TWOapartments units in one without any footbridge). It brings a reduction of view angles towards the urban landscape and a hyper-abundance of suspended gardens.

The Agora Garden tower is, as its name indicates it, directly inspired of the structure in double helix of the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid), source of life, dynamism and twinning. Every double helix is represented in the project by two housing units forming a full level.

Thus, from its base to the top, the 20 inhabited levels in double helix stretch themselves and twist themselves at 90 degrees. By metaphor, the obtained sinuosity corresponds to the universal musical symbol of harmonic revealing the notion of ultimate balance praised by the project.

» This twist of 90 degrees answers to four major objectives:

1. The first objective is to be perfectly integrated in the north/south pyramidal profile of the building volume. Actually, the morphology of the project changes according to its orientation. Its east/west elevations draw a rhomboidal pyramid whereas the north-south ONES represent a reverse pyramid.

2. The second objective is to generate a maximum of cascades of suspended open-air gardens, not part of the F.A.R. (floor area ratio). Thus, the planted balcony surface area can easily exceed the limit of the required 10 percents. The global framework of 40 percents of building coverage ratio, i.e. 3 264 M2 is thus totally respected.

3. The third objective is to offer to the inhabitants exceptional panoramic views on the skyline of Taipei by multiplying the transversal views, especially towards the very close Taipei 101 tower and the Central Business District in full emergence.

4. The fourth objective is to generate from a flexible standardized level a progressive geometry with corbels which assures the intimacy and the confidentiality of each apartment by avoiding the indiscreet vision axes.

Inspired from nature, the Agora Garden project is shaped with an organic fluid and dynamic geometry. From the simple and standardized element of the double helix of housing superimposed vertically and put in successive rotation of 4.5 degrees level by level, a multi-facial morphology appears all in convex and concave curves.

Actually, according to the point of view of the pedestrian from the surrounding streets, the Agora Garden tower changes of faces and proposes new profiles. Besides this moving geometry wearing a planted dress with sensual style, the project represents a built ecosystem that repatriates the fauna and the flora in the heart of the city and generates a new box of subtropical biodiversity. It is a new nest in the city!

Agora Garden by Vincent Callebaut Architectures

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