an ecol-tower

An International Sustainable City La Tour Vivante : an ecol-tower

Parting between town and countryside, urban and natural spaces,
places of consumption, life and production is increasingly problematic
for the territory planning. The tempting idea of a dense city opposed to
a natural landscape comes today with the creation of gigantic places of
essential production to the man. These zones outside of the city do not
come in any of these categories and give place to increasingly
unqualifiable landscapes, destroying the structure of the territory by
urban spreading out and polluting the atmosphere by the increasingly
important grid systems.
The city, if one can call it so, is spread on the territory with its zones of
horizontal production and consumption extracted from the center of the
city (trade, factories, storages, greenhouses...), which are heavily
consuming space.
However, becoming more and more competitive, these various
systems of productions are technically less and less forced to be in a
horizontal production. Why should places of manufacture of
consumption or food not find their place in the heart of city ? And join
by mixing housing, trade and production/transformationthat are so
important for the city?
The concept of the Living Tower’s aim is to associate the agricultural
production, dwelling and activities in a single and vertical system. This
system would allow to make the city denser meanwhile a greater
autonomy could be gained reliance in agricultural plains, reducing the
need of transportation between urban and extra-urban territories. The
yet unusual superimposition of these programs finally makes it
possible to consider new practical and energetic relations between
agricultural culture, tertiary spaces, housing and trade inducing a very
strong energy saving.

Eco-city
\ Advantages
● A continuous agriculture, emancipated from seasons and climatic
hazards (drought, flood, weather), which provides a production 5 to 6
time better than open fields cultures.
● Urban hydroponic culture avoids the use of pesticides, herbicides
and fertilizer.
● A biological food : The salvage of habitants and collective
restaurants wasted food provide, after composting, a powerful and
ecological liquid fertilizer witch feeds fruits and vegetables.
● The Tour Vivante concept allows to consume fresh, ripe and no
preservative produces.
● A significant reduction of a non renewable energy consumption by
the abandon of agricultural engines and ploughing.
● The TV allows a local production and to wipe out transportation
needed for food supply and thus, the process of the very energyconsuming
preservation.
● The Agricultural production purifies the district’s air by the provision
of plant’s oxygen.
● An efficient use of salvaged rainwater is transformed into drinking
water by the evaporation/respiration of plants.
● The TV generates a large amount of methane or electricity by the
fermentation of food waste and végétals.
● The TV reduces the agricultural impact on the natural territory and
restore biodiversity and the ecosystem balance.
● The Tour Vivante offers a sustainable perspective of urban
development.

\ Biological production
Standard off-ground production corresponding to the climate of Paris
with an artificial night lighting.
Estimate for tomatoes, salads and strawberry production :
Tomatoes : Approximately 8 to 10 kg/head/year. For a head every
30cm.
> 27kg/ml/year
Salads : Production with 4 rotation/year.
>16 salads/ml/year
Strawberry : 1,2kg/head/year. For a foot every 30cm.
> 4,8kg/ml/year
The 7 000m² greenhouses offers a continuous linear of 875m
For an hydroponic production with tomatoes, salads and strawberry
equally spread, we can estimate :
63 000 kg of tomatoes per year
37 333 feet of salads per year
9 324 kg of strawberry per year

\ System
With a topographic game of opposition between full and unfilled spaces,
the system of the Living Tower is designed as an autonomous ecological
machine which associates places of production, places of consumption
and spaces of life. The full spaces systematically fulfill the requirements
of housing and the offices, in term of comfort, heat insulation, acoustic
and sunning, while the unfilled spaces can adapt to various functions of
production.
The production can be directly related to local consumption (as in the
out-ground greenhouses) or more widely feed the district, the city, the
country or the whole world.
The residences and offices entwine with the unfilled spaces (cultures offground,
hypermarkets, factories) making it likely to release additional
eyesights on an agricultural territory in urban environment.
The typology of the Living Tower declines naturally. The association of
full and the unfilled spaces can be carried out on variable heights and
shapes. The interweaving creates new spaces in a tower, possibilities of
exposures and rich and varied yields.
The concept of log-lasting development becomes a tangible reality dint
the association of spaces of production, from an ecological and social
point of view.

\ Program
How to associate offices and residences in the same building? How to
articulate them favourably?
The experimentation of the Living Tower consists in inserting places of
off-ground production in these two programs transversely in order to
improve their association and the vertical link with the city.
The building system allows free plates and a great suppleness of use.
Program for the first proposition of Living Tower (# 1 Rennes site)
Residential
130 appartements in the first 15 floors (T2 x 30, T3 x
50, T4 x35, T5 x 15)
> 11 045 m²
Offices Offices in the last 15 floors
> 8 675 m²
Out-ground
production
Horticultural Out-ground from down the street up to
the top of tower
> 7 000 m²
Shopping Shopping centre and hypermarket
> 6 750 m²
Equipements Media library and nursery
> 650 m²
Parking 475 parking spaces in basement
> 12 400 m²

\ Constructive system for a tower of 30 floors
The Living Tower includes 30 floors, for a height of 112m (except wind
mills). Its hold on the ground and its plates measure 25x48m. Its
structural system entirely lies on concrete technology.
The structural design is strongly associated the architectural concept of
the tower. The idea of an opposition between full spaces (offices and
residences) and unfilled spaces (greenhouses) requires to build a tower
without peripheral weight-beariers. To achieve this goal, the core of the
tower is structured to take the supports of wind-bracing and the totality of
the descents of load. It breaks up into three parts.

\ A functional core

The core of 8m X 30m which includes vertical circulations and allotment
of the floors. The proportion of this core with double skin matches with
the outline of the tower from a practical point of view.

\ A peripheral concret veils system
In BHP, they girdle this core which makes it possible to ensure the windbracing
of the tower and the recovery of descents of loads by the
intermediary of the consoles.
The stiffness of the core is ensured by this additional footing of an
average of 2m which brings back the total width to 12m. The thickness
of these veils increases according to the descent of the loads. If it is
considered that this cores made up must be in a minimum ratio of 1/10e
total height of the tower, 12m to ensure easily the wind-bracing of the
unit tower + windmachine.
This system of veils enables to associate structure, architectural space
and function coherently. Indeed, this peripheral band of 2 m all the
humid technical premisesof the tower, simplifying the descents of ducts.
These partitions also improves the plates with offices and make spatial
and visual distinctions.
The weft of the veils (6m) match with a weft of crossing consoles of BHP
which support the floors. They ensure the stiffness at the ends of the
floors and take over the load of the external light ready built wall panels :
panels made up with ceracem concrete (fine and highly capable,
template formed) for the offices and residences, and horticultural light
and transparent for the greenhouses. The joints between the panels are
designed to embank the alternatives of arrows according to the loads on
the floors.
The consoles, of a range of 6.30m (floor of 5.30 + envelope 1m) are
dimensioned with 1/7e of which 20% is added for the resumption of the
exterior wall panels.

An energy productive tower
\ Wind mill

Located at the top of the tower, two large wind machines directed
towards the dominant winds produce electricity facilitated by the height
of the tower. The produced electric power is about 200 to 600 kWh per
annum. These wind machines are also used as station of pumping in
order to ensure the circulation and the recycling of rainwater recovered
in roof and on the urban development of the complex.

\ Photovoltaic panels
4,500 m² of photovoltaic panels included into the facades generate
electricity from solar energy. Completed by the wind mill production, the
Tour Vivante is a self-sufficient building.

\ Canadian wells
The core of the tower receives a network of ventilation shafts in which
circulates of the air drawn from the ground with approximately 15°C.
This system enables to refresh the new air in summer and to heat it in
winter. The chimney effect generated by the linear of the greenhouses
acts as complement of this system of ventilation.

\ Rainwater
After filtration, the rainwater is re-used for the facilities of the offices and
residences and the watering of the hydroponic cultures. The rainwater of
the urban development, from the facades and roofs of the tower is
collected, pumped by the windmachines then stored in tanks at the top
of the tower.

\ Black water
Black water produced by the tower is recycled and purified in order to
feed and to fertilize the agricultural production of the greenhouses.

\ Ecological or recycled materials
One of the objective of the project is to use a minimum of material. The materials
of the tower favours the use of ecological, recycled products or which can easily
be recycled. The double skin wall inhabited facades have reinforced heat
insulation.

\ Thermal and hygrometrical regulation
The agricultural greenhouses act like a green lung in the heart of the
tower. They favour the control of the solar contributions and the thermal
regulation between north and south. In winter, heat is stored in the solid
elements of the concrete core. In summer, interior volumes are
controlled hygrometry by the evaporation of the water contained in the
plants.

Fiche technique
Partners : Lafarge
Date : 2006
Architecte : soa architectes
Pierre Sartoux & Augustin Rosenstiehl
Collaborators :
Martin Frei et Carlos Alvarez (chefs de projet), Elsa Junod (responsable
infographie) ; manager développement durable : Koudjo Aidam
Engineering Consultant : SETEC (Paris) & Dr Dickson Despommier
(Columbia University)
mixed program : offices, housing, shopping and horticultural hydroponic
production
Levels : 30
Total area : 50.470 m²
Cost : 98 100 000 €HT
Height : 112m (140m with wind mill)
Height : 112 m without wind mill (140m with wind mill)
Energy : photovoltaic panels : 4500m²; solar hot water on roof : 900m² ;
a wind factory of 2 wind mill on roof.
More informations on the project :
www.ateliersoa.fr
www.eco-tower.fr
www.verticalfarm.com
Publications sur la Tour Vivante
• "The living tower, by soa architects", quotidien Die Welt, rédaction
immobilière, Berlin, pp. 9, n°1256, déc. 2007
• "Urban Farming", Financial Times, London, pp. 9, n°1756, déc. 2007
• "soa architects projects", Diseñart Magazine, Madrid, pp. 17-18, déc. 2007
• "Les fermes gratte-ciel", in : Mon quotidien magazine, Paris, pp. 14-16, déc.
2007
• "Urban Farming", National Géographic magazine, dutch, Amsterdam, pp. 13-
21, déc. 2007
• "Une tour vivante à Rennes", Techni.Cités, la ville et les territoires, Paris, pp.
17-20, n°139, déc. 2007
• "A Rennes, la première Tour Vivante ?", Ouest-France, Rennes, pp. 17, jeudi
8 nov. 2007
• "Des fermes dans nos villes", VSD, Paris, pp. 70-73, n°1573, 23 oct. 2007
• "44 Young International Architects 2007", Grupo Via, Barcelone, pp. 10-12,
oct. 2007
• "Quand l’architecture respecte l’environnement", Ministère des Affaires
Etrangères, Actualité en France, n°78, Paris, sept/oct 2007, pp. 7.
• "Architecture Now vol.5”, soa architectes, Éd. Taschen, par Philipp Jodidio, pp.
88-93, 2007
• "Green buildings, The living Tower", l’ARCA, Milano, maggio 2007, n°225
• "The living Tower, building Analysis", Pasajes de arquitectura y critica,
Madrid, mai 2007
• "The Living Tower", Maison Figaro, Athens, avril 2007
• "Skyfarming", New York Magazine, New York, 1er avril 2007, pp. 23-27
• "Biennale Autodesk", amc,d’A, le Moniteur, La Tour vivante, fév. 2007
• "La Tour Vivante", CasAmica, supplément, Il Corriere della Sera, janv. 2007
• "Futur of cities", Welt der Wunder, Science magazine, Hambourg, febr. 2007
• "Welcome to the Home of the futur", The living Tower by SoA, CNRS
international magazine, n°5 janv. 2007
• "Living Tower : vertical farming - A hope of humanity", Enclave Magazine,
Calgary (Canada), Kyle Francis, 2006, pp. 78-83
• "50 raisons d’aimer/haïr l’architecture", dossier Archistorm, n°21, oct. 2006.
• "Les gratte-ciel se mettent au vert", Ça m’intéresse, n°308, oct. 2006, pp. 86-
88.
• "Serra formato grattacielo", Flair, mars 2006, Milan, pp. 110.
• "La fattoria verticale", La Republica delle donne, février 2006, Rome pp. 26-
27.
• "La Tour Vivante", hors série amc : les 100 bâtiments de l’année, n°157, pp.
28, janv. 2006
• "Béton en concours, l’atelier SoA", l’Arca international, n°67, déc. 2005, pp.
91.
• "Skyscraper Farming", inhabitat, USA nov. 2005, http://www.inhabitat.com
• "Wildfire/ did you hear... The Vertical Farm", Contagious Magazine, London,
n°4, may 2005, pp. 30-31