A significant amount of greenery is headed to inner-city Dallas, Texas, in the form of a new high-rise that will boast North America’s tallest living wall. Located at 1899 McKinney Avenue, the building will rise to a height of 320 ft (97.5 m) and feature 40,000 plants growing vertically on sections of its exterior.
The high-rise is being developed by Rastegar Property Company and was designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz. It will consist of a contoured glass tower with heavily landscaped balconies and a total of 26 floors and 270 apartments. The ground floor will host a coffee shop or retail space. A pocket park and an underground garage are planned for the project too.
The developer says that the living wall (or green wall) on the exterior of the building will improve the local air quality by capturing over 1,600 lb (725 kg) of carbon dioxide and producing 1,200 lb (544 kg) of oxygen annually. It will also feature sensors to monitor plant health and an efficient irrigation system. A representative from the developer on how these impressive figures were arrived at and received the following response from Zachary Smith, CEO and Founder of Zauben, the firm handling the design of the living wall.
“The CO2 absorption and air purification were taken by the city of London Citiscape project that we’re also in conversations with, but the study did an estimate on 40,000 plants and the impact of air purification and CO2 absorption,” says Smith. “These are supported by industry research and the EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) but what we’re excited about is what our sensors will report. Will it be more than we estimate? Will it be less? We don’t have a clear answer now. This is very much a case study but from everything we know about plants, we’re confident that they will at least absorb 1,600 lb of CO2.”
The project is slated to begin construction in the third quarter of 2020 and to be completed by 2023.
About the author: Adam Williams
Adam scours the globe from his home in Spain in order to bring the best of innovative architecture and sustainable design to the pages of New Atlas. Most of his spare time is spent dabbling in music, tinkering with old Macintosh computers and trying to keep his even older VW bus on the road.
