UK studio Foster + Partners has unveiled designs for a skyscraper near Athens named Marina Tower, which will be covered in plants and become the tallest building in Greece.
The 200-metre-tall building has been designed by Foster + Partners for Lamda Development as the centrepiece of a 620-hectare masterplan called Ellinikon on the site of Athens' former international airport.
When complete, the skyscraper will be almost twice as tall as the current record holder – the 103-metre-high Athens Tower 1 designed by Ioannis Vikelas.
Marina Tower will be covered with greenery, which the studio claims will also make it "the first green high-rise building" in the country.
It will contain 200 apartments spread over 45 floors. They will all be dual-aspect to ensure unobstructed views of the coastline and natural light and ventilation.
Externally, it will be characterised by its slim silhouette that is covered in planting, which has been developed to blend in with "the special character of the Mediterranean landscape".
The skyscraper will be divided into two towers, connected by multiple platforms containing swimming pools.
According to Foster + Partners, it has been designed as "one of the greenest high-rise buildings in the world and is a model of sustainable design". However, details of how this will be achieved are yet to be disclosed.
Marina Tower is expected to open within the next five years alongside five other high-rise buildings in the Ellinikon development.
Ellinikon is being developed to transform the old airport into a series of neighbourhoods arranged around a 200-hectare coastal park. According to the studio, this will be the "largest coastal park in Europe" and "increase the allocation of open space per Athenian resident by 44 per cent".
"Ellinikon masterplan gives new direction to urban development in Athens, bringing together new ways of living, working and playing, centred on a metropolitan park – a generous amenity for local communities and the city of Athens," said Foster + Partners senior partner Antoinette Nassopoulos-Erickson.
"Our proposals for Marina Residential Tower builds on these sustainable principles to generate a new paradigm for high-rise living and a green beacon in the landscape."
Foster + Partners is an international architecture practice founded by Norman Foster in London in 1967. Elsewhere, it is also developing a pair of plant-covered apartment blocks for a site in Beverly Hills.
Covering buildings with greenery has become a popular trend in architecture in the last decade. Heatherwick Studio recently completed a skyscraper in Singapore with balconies overflowing with plants, while Ingenhoven Architects created Europe's largest green facade for an office in Düsseldorf.
However, French landscape architect Céline Baumann told Dezeen that while this trend is ultimately positive, plants can be used as a way to greenwash developments.
The visuals are by DBOX for Foster + Partners unless stated.