A Garden City In A Mega-City

Tokyo's lively Toranomon district recently welcomed two new skyscrapers that encompass the principles of green and inclusive architecture.

- Sasha Gonzales

The Tokyo skyline has two impressive new additions – a 36-storey, 185m-high office tower and a 54-storey, 220m-high residential skyscraper, which were recently constructed on either side of Toranomon Hills Mori Tower, one of the city’s tallest skyscrapers.

Both the office tower and residential high-rise – the latter is Japan’s tallest residential skyscraper – were designed by ingenhoven associates, the first German architectural firm since 1895 to build in the Japanese capital; construction of the office tower took place between 2017 and 2021, and the residential tower, between 2017 and 2022.

“The client’s brief for the development of the Toranomon district, where the skyscrapers are located, aimed to create a new business and lifestyle quarter,” says Christoph Ingenhoven, the project’s lead architect and the founder of the namesake architectural firm.

Both ingenhoven associates and Japanese real estate developer Mori Building shared the same vision for the high-rise ensemble – a ‘vertical garden city’ that implemented the principles of green and inclusive architecture. The highest sustainability standards were equally important, as were the social-return goals.

The team at ingenhoven associates was guided by their “supergreen” principles – a holistic system of insights and requirements for future-forward construction that is continuously evolving and exceeds the highest green building standards wherever possible.

sense of place

When designing the towers, Ingenhoven’s team considered the surrounding area, which is home to many corporate headquarters as well as art and cultural attractions, gardens and parks.