By Anna Yudina

How can our urban jungles be transformed into skyscraper forests that help our cities provide new forms of sustenance, from urban farms to breathing buildings? The topic is increasingly in the public eye, and the answer is already cropping up on our streets. Garden City: Supergreen Buildings, Urban Skyscapes and the New Planted Space captures the global movement among contemporary architects for biodesigning buildings that are less structure and façade, more living entities, capable of being ecologically autonomous, horticulturally productive, and both pleasing to the eye and relevant to our day-to-day lifestyles. More than 100 projects are presented, from offices that incorporate urban farms and exchange the CO2 produced by humans for food and oxygen produced by plants, to lightweight systems for growing gardens on vertical surfaces; from “tree houses” the size of city blocks to civic buildings that connect to existing water-management systems—there are rich and often unexpected ideas for every designer. The future of our urban architecture is biologically alert, naturally self-sustaining, and alive. Garden City is the visual resource charting this frontier of new urban architecture.