A unique green residential tower is rising above the city in the centre of Frankfurt's business district. The iconic Eden Tower project, designed by architects Helmut Jahn and Magnus Kaminiarz, combines impressive architecture with brightness and lush greenery in the form of several SemperGreenwalls. These green walls reach a whopping 98 metres in height and include a total of 185,000 plants spread over more than 2,000 m². That is almost 3 times more area of greenery than the square metres on which the building is located! It is the first ever application of green facades at this height. The vertical gardens merge with the glass facades to form a living masterpiece.
Vertical gardens add green to the city
The quality of living and working in the building itself and its surroundings was central to the development of Eden Tower for developer Immobel Group. In the urbanised area, vertical gardens are the way to bring green back into the grey built environment. Building new homes while adding more flora to the city than would be possible to plant on the same number of square metres of land; that is the city's ideal future. With the Eden Tower - one of the tallest green façade projects in Europe - it has been proven that this ideal is already possible today!
Innovative solution to climate change
Markus Frank, alderman and responsible for economic affairs in Frankfurt am Main, is delighted with the architectural and at the same time climate-promoting effect for the metropolis:
"With the green façade of the Eden Tower, a vertical green area of 2,000 square metres is created in a place where previously there was only an enclosed car park."
Frank added:
"This building project is living proof that our economy is successfully developing and implementing innovative solutions to the challenges of climate change."
Green facade tested for high-level wind loads
Because the greenery extends from ground level to as high as 98 metres, the green façade on the upper floors is exposed to a lot and strong winds. To prevent plants or other parts of the green façade from coming loose, the Flexipanel - the building block of the green façade - was tested for its resistance to wind load, and approved according to the strict requirements for this.
Automatic irrigation system with several water groups
Another challenge with a green facade at height is temperature. As the height increases, the temperature drops. This affects the degree of watering. The plants receive water using an automatic irrigation system. If the entire strip of greenery received the same amount of water, it would not work optimally. To get the right amount of water in the right place, an advanced irrigation system was applied with temperature sensors and different water groups. This way, each plant receives exactly the amount of water it needs.
Flexipanel tested for calorific value and flame spread
The potential risks of high-rise fires are significant in residential towers of this height. To meet the strictest requirements of building regulations, Sempergreen has developed a new type of Flexipanel for this green facade and for future projects. In an independent test, the panel was tested for, among other things, calorific value and flame spread. In the process, the Flexipanel achieved fire safety certificate A2-s2,d0. This means that the panels contribute little or nothing to the start of a fire, cause no melted parts and produce only light smoke in the event of a fire. This meant that the SemperGreenwall system thus met the stringent requirements and made it possible to apply it at high heights.
