high is a 21-story hybrid wooden skyscraper completed in Amsterdam in 2022. It was designed by British engineering collective Arup and Team V, a Dutch architecture firm. Haut has 55 apartments, a bicycle parking area, an underground parking lot and an urban garden. It was the first residential building in the Netherlands to receive certification from the BREEAM sustainability rating system. The fusion of wood and hybrid technology has minimized the ecological impact of the building. Hybrid wooden skyscrapers have increased in number around the world and offer a building model with a lower carbon footprint. Port Plus, a skyscraper made entirely of wood, was built in Yokohama, Japan, in March 2022.
Tokyo Bay eSG Project
Tokyo, Japan
IMAGE: TOKYO BAY ESG PROJECT
The development of Tokyo Bay is essential for the future of the city. In 2021, the Governor’s Office of Policy Planning announced the Tokyo Bay eSG Projectan urban development plan in the areas of Tokyo Waterfront City and Central Breakwater. The project envisions a sustainable city that combines nature and comfort. Every year, project organizers attract the public to projects based on themes such as “environmental improvement and resource circulation” and “cutting-edge renewable energy.” To date, they have chosen projects from companies working on growing microalgae and producing hydrogen from seawater. Tokyo Bay promises to be an incubation site for the future of regenerative cities.
The regenerative city
In July 2024, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global organization promoting a circular economy, published its Building prosperity report. He described the shift towards a circular economy in European architecture and cities and presented six strategies that will be crucial to creating circular cities: redevelopment of brownfield land (land that was once used for industry but, due to soil contamination, they cannot be redeveloped or sold); convert vacant commercial buildings; employ a design that takes advantage of materials; use low impact materials; expand green-blue spaces; and the increase in tree canopies. The report also presents examples of these strategies implemented, such as the investment firm Ginkgo, which specializes in the restoration and redevelopment of brownfield sites in Europe, and the hybrid wooden skyscraper Haut, described above.
Another area of interest, in addition to these six strategies, is the use of ecosystems found in cities. Engineering collective Arup, which was involved in the construction of Haut and also contributed to the Building Prosperity report, published another report on the topic of urban redevelopment in 2023 and focused on regenerative design. Arup’s report uses the Billion Oyster Project as an example of urban redevelopment. The goal of that project is to restore one billion oysters to New York Harbor by 2035 as part of an effort to reduce the impact of erosion from torrential rains and protect the coast from high tides and storm surges. Another example from New York is Brooklyn Grange, shown above, which aims to reduce the impact of rainwater on New York’s sewer system through a network of rooftop green spaces.
The circular city movement is not limited to North America and Europe; It is also attracting interest in Asia. Kongjian Yu, founder of Chinese architecture and landscaping firm Turenscape, proposed the idea of sponge cities, an urban planning approach that involves increasing green spaces to harvest rainwater and prepare for water shortages due to climate change. In an interview with WIRED, Yu said: “The sponge city is an urgent and immediate solution that can adapt cities to climate change, heat, floods and drought.”