French architect and urban planner Edouard François’ latest following the vertical garden trend: A quartet of flower towers in Morocco that will be planted with bougainvillea and jasmine.
Edouard François Designs Mixed-Use “Gardens of Anfa” for Casablanca
Maison Edouard François has master planned a new mixed-use neighborhood for the Moroccan city Casablanca: “The Gardens of Anfa.” Scheduled for completion in 2017, the plan calls for three mid-rise office towers, and a series of residential blocks connected by a central piazza and concealed within a lush multicolored landscape. Each floor of the three 16-storey residential towers will feature wrap-around balconies with screens made from an interwoven mesh. The balcony walls will be planted with air pollution filtering jasmine or white bougainvillea, an ornamental vine native to South America.
STORY: Sustainable Vertical Urbanism: The Future of Cities?
A large, dense park conceals the “organically-shaped” towers with trellised vegetal façades, creating mimetic games with the surrounding nature and providing solar resistance to the hot desert living spaces. In the foreground, Washingtonia date palms will be planted as if in a dense grove. In the mid-ground, multi-colored flowers cover the topography. In the background, trees and bushes flourish with blue and white blossoms.
Located in the Les Hopitaux district of the North African port city, lower buildings will surround the park, set back from the adjacent roads. The façades of these small buildings are vertical gardens. These residential buildings break down the scale of the high-rise towers to give the park an inhabited character. This architecture of individual buildings demarcates the limits of the gardens.
The Moroccan government is spending a lot of money to bring Casablanca up to the standards of a European city and attract more foreign investors. This 50,000 square-meter development will be connected via a new 31-km Rapid Transit Tram System designed to connect the city’s points of interest, reduce air pollution, and ease vehicular congestion in Morocco’s busiest city. Once complete, the Gardens of Anfa will become an aesthetically organic focal point for housing and office for Moroccans of a decidedly wealthier demographic.
Check out other literally green architecture in Milano, here.
And Frank Gehry’s living sculptures in Toronto.
Yet another innovative work of bee-friendly, biodiversity-exploring sustainable architecture from Edouard François, architect, urban planner, and certified French national treasure who was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2012.
Sources:
Updated 24 February 2021
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