Property Hunter Magazine Property Hunter Magazine Issue 50 - January 2014 | Page 64

/// International Property News INTERNATIONAL PROPERTY NEWS Catch up on the latest property and real estate news, views and analysis from across the globe featured The World’s Tallest Vertical Garden waterfall of flowering vegetation running down the facade of One Central Park, a major mixed-use development in Sydney. The One Central Park building facade is 50% covered in green living plants. The leaf-sprouting skyrise features hundreds of species of native and exotic plants overflowing from planters lodged between 14 floors. It is the highest vertical garden in the world. One Central Park Vertical Gardens, Sydney, Australia Patrick Blanc is a French botanist who has pursued his life passion of building vertical gardens since the late 1960s. The plantman has worked with many architects over 64 www.PropertyHunter.com.my the decades to grow sustainable green walls. His latest project is his career’s masterwork: a 545-foot-tall The development’s primary architect, Jean Nouvel, is a Pritzker winner who has designed many striking buildings – the Technicolor tusk that is Barcelona’s Torre Agbar, for instance, and the block-stuffed Musée du quai Branly in Paris. The sprawling green wall will suck up sunlight during the afternoons and artificial light at night, thanks to a tremendous contraption mounted high above. A heliostat, an assemblage of motorized mirrors captures sunlight and directs its rays down onto Central Park’s gardens year round. After dark, the structure becomes a canvas for leading light artist Yann Kersalé’s LED art installation of firework movements. It is an exciting time for Sydney in terms of ambitious architectural projects.One Central Park apartments start at $750,000 and it contains some luxurious penthouses that is attracting a lot of people with green fingers and deep pockets.