Description

The Madrean Tower seeks to regenerate a city Icon using nature-inspired solutions to protect the region’s most precious resource through vertical agriculture. The mixed-use Tower is inspired by the region’s “sky islands” isolated mountain ranges within the desert “sea”. As elevation changes, so do the ecosystems resulting in extraordinary biodiversity. This tower follows the same composition with biomes growing vertically to celebrate the desert’s ancient and timeless mystique.

Arizona is a laboratory for a changing climate. Deserts account for 33% of the world’s land mass, with California and Arizona ironically producing 90% of all the country’s leafy greens. 1 in 10 of all Americans are getting their water from the drying Colorado river. The region’s food security / economy is at risk. Creating buildings that can integrate vertical farming will use 95% less water than current methods. The innovations seeded in the desert will be cultivated globally.

Rising from the Union Station the project revitalizes a “food desert” through the economic impacts of both a market and food production. The existing infrastructure of the rail yard is leveraged for transportation and shipping creating a closed ecosystem for a new vertical vernacular that creates a new future from the relentlessly horizontal.