Many years ago, I was in a design meeting for a tall building we were working on and I brought up the idea of planting greenery all the way up the tower. You know, something like the Bosco Verticale in Milan.

But after I said this, our landscape architect looked at me and simply said, "No, it doesn't work, not in our climate." And that was it.

Of all the people in the room, I thought I could get the landscape architect excited about this suggestion, but nope. It got immediately shot down, and for good reason.

The greenery would be dead here in Toronto for not an insignificant part of the year, and the additional dead loads created by water-saturated soil and structural planters raise questions about whether it's the most sustainable way to build tall buildings.

But there are climates where green towers make a lot more sense, namely in places like Brazil. In fact, São Paulo rewards developers for integrating features such as green facades.

Here's a specific project example: The Rosewood Hotel in São Paulo, designed by Jean Nouvel. The 25-storey tower features an extensive lattice system on its exterior that, over time, is expected to fill in with greenery from adjacent roof gardens.

The hotel opened in 2022, and street view images from 2024 reveal that it still has some growing to do, but clearly it's a popular idea. I was just in the wrong city.

Photos via Rosewood São Paulo