Silver Futuristic Design · 2025
Eden Rise Vertical Eco Living Community
by Yuhan Zhang and Dreama Simeng Lin
- A' Design Award 2025 Silver Winner in Futuristic Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- CLIENT: Yuhan Zhang & Dreama Simeng Lin
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 208,836
- Verification code D3B53DD26B · Verify this award
About Eden Rise Vertical Eco Living Community
This project addresses Chicago's food deserts by creating a mile high vertical community at the lakefront, incorporating vertical farms that provide fresh produce within the urban fabric. Inspired by water droplet patterns, the four interconnected towers feature a tubular structure supported by a diagrid exoskeleton, maximizing structural depth and allowing for natural light and air circulation. Renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and cloud harvesting, create a self sustaining environment that can be reproduced in the future.
Positioned within the contemporary discourse surrounding sustainable urbanism and ecological architecture, Yuhan Zhang's Eden Rise Vertical Eco Living Community represents a compelling meditation on the potential synthesis between advanced structural engineering and biophilic design principles, the work emerges from a rich lineage of visionary architectural propositions that have long imagined towers as vertical ecosystems capable of sustaining complex communities while maintaining symbiotic relationships with natural systems, the distinctive latticed exoskeleton demonstrates sophisticated understanding of both structural efficiency and expressive formal vocabulary, its ovoid penetrations suggesting cellular organization found throughout the natural world from microscopic biological structures to geological formations, the chromatic sensitivity evident in the rendering captures the ephemeral qualities of atmospheric light as it interacts with complex curved surfaces, creating passages of remarkable luminosity where warm interior illumination meets the cooler ambient environment, technically the work exhibits masterful command of spatial representation, establishing convincing depth through carefully orchestrated value shifts and atmospheric effects while maintaining the commanding presence of the central architectural form, thematically the composition engages enduring questions about humanity's relationship with the natural environment and the possibilities for reconciliation between urban density and ecological vitality, the inclusion of visible vegetation throughout the tower's apertures suggests not merely decorative greening but fundamental integration of living systems into the architectural fabric, viewers might consider how such visions of vertical living communities propose alternative futures where technological advancement serves rather than opposes natural flourishing
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Imagine a future where Chicago's skyline symbolizes sustainable living, with food grown just floors below, making "food deserts" a thing of the past. This project transforms urban life into vertical ecosystems, where skyscrapers become green spaces that nourish body and soul. Inspired by water droplet patterns, the mile-high community extends Chicago’s green belt into the sky. Vertical farms in the towers reduce food inequality and carbon footprints, powered by advanced green technologies.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The four conjoined towers are laterally supported by two layers of bracing structure to increase the structural depth. On the outer tube, based on a diagrid pattern spanning 25 stories in one unit, exoskeleton structures weave the building in a network of fluid lines that integrate mega-bracing with lateral support. Supported by the diagrid structure, the inner void allows more light and air into the tower.
- Tags
- Sustainable development, Super tall tower, vertical farming, vertical community, Renewable energy, Cultural integration, Circular economy
- Production Technology
- The tower incorporates a range of sustainable and green technologies that ensure self-sufficiency and environmental harmony, embedded seamlessly within its architectural design. Vertical farming, housed within the core tubular structure, addresses food deserts by producing fresh, local produce for the community. Cloud harvesting and rainwater collection systems, integrated into the tower’s outer shell, ensure efficient water recycling, while wind turbines are strategically placed along the exoskeleton to generate renewable energy. The breathable atrium and natural ventilation systems, enhanced by the diagrid structure, maximize airflow and natural light, reducing energy consumption while improving indoor environmental quality. These forward-thinking design elements push the boundaries of sustainability, setting a future example for urban architecture that not only coexists with nature but actively restores and enriches it.
- Design Challenge
- The project embraced exciting research challenges, turning them into opportunities for innovation. Integrating vertical farming into skyscrapers required advanced exploration of efficient agricultural systems, energy solutions, and water recycling, driving breakthroughs in sustainability. Balancing the structural demands of a mile-high building with green technologies like cloud harvesting and natural ventilation fostered creative engineering. Understanding food deserts also inspired in-depth community engagement to promote equitable food access.
- Project Duration
- The project is proposed as a future icon for the next half century of Chicago's skyline.
- Operation Flow
- The tower hosts a diverse array of programs, creating a dynamic vertical community that supports living, working, learning, and leisure. Residential units are integrated with commercial spaces, offering a complete urban lifestyle within the same structure, while hotels provide short-term accommodations with panoramic views of the city. Schools are embedded throughout the tower, ensuring education is accessible and integrated into daily life for families living within the complex. Multiple sky terraces, positioned at various levels, function as communal hubs where residents and visitors can enjoy green spaces, relax, or engage in recreational activities. These terraces sustain all functions and activities within the tower, providing essential outdoor areas that enhance the quality of life and foster community interaction, all while maintaining a strong connection to nature in an otherwise dense urban environment.
- Research
- Food deserts in Chicago primarily affect low-income, urban neighborhoods, where residents often struggle to find affordable, nutritious food within a reasonable distance from their homes. The lack of accessible grocery stores and fresh produce has created significant health disparities, as many are forced to rely on convenience stores or fast food, which contribute to poor diet and related health issues. These food deserts exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities and highlight the need for innovative solutions to provide sustainable, fresh food to underserved communities.
- Inspiration
- The project is inspired by two key aspects: programmatically, it addresses the food desert crisis in Chicago by integrating vertical farms into skyscrapers, creating a self-sustaining urban ecosystem where fresh food is grown locally. Formally, it draws inspiration from the city’s water landscape, with the tower’s organic shape inspired from a water droplet. This combination of program and form creates a sustainable community that tackles food inequality in Chicago.
- Image Credits
- YUHAN ZHANG
DREAMA SIMENG LIN
Colors of Eden Rise Vertical Eco Living Community
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G0E23 ShopGrand Interview about Eden Rise Vertical Eco Living Community
The integration of vertical farming stemmed from a simple but urgent realization: food deserts in cities like Chicago aren’t just a public health issue—they’re an architectural one. As I began analyzing the city’s food access map alongside high-rise zoning overlays, I saw an opportunity for the building itself to become part of the food infrastructure. The design evolved from there: we began treating the façade as a vertical farm bed, integrating hydroponic modules that aligned with solar orientation, ventilation paths, and structural grids. The farming layer became a performative skin—contributing to food equity, thermal regulation, and occupant well-being.
The droplet form is both symbolic and functional. Water—its scarcity, collection, and reuse—became a central theme in our ecological performance goals. The tapering geometry mimics the aerodynamic efficiency of a droplet while maximizing wind exposure at higher altitudes for turbine placement. It also facilitates natural water flow along the façade for cloud harvesting and rainwater collection. This biomorphic shape allowed us to fuse form with function, reinforcing the idea that sustainable technologies don’t need to be hidden—they can become the architecture.
The diagrid system was chosen for its high strength-to-weight ratio, ideal for extreme verticality. Beyond structural stability, it provides a geometrically expressive lattice that supports modular ecological inserts. The triangular modules naturally accommodate small-scale wind turbines—positioned in high-flow corridors—and act as anchor points for the atmospheric water collection membranes. The diagrid becomes an infrastructural scaffold: enabling environmental systems to plug into it without interrupting the building’s structural or aesthetic integrity.
We designed Eden Rise as a vertical village, not just a tower. The interconnected bridges and shared sky gardens act as community condensers—spaces where residents converge organically. Agricultural production is zoned vertically, with certain floors dedicated to food growing, processing, and sharing. This mix fosters a daily rhythm of interaction around a common purpose—urban sustenance. Rather than silo farming into a basement or rooftop, we brought it into the public spine of the building, turning food into a social catalyst.
The primary challenge was vertical airflow management—ensuring air could rise and fall naturally through such an immense structure without requiring intensive mechanical systems. We developed a central atrium stack effect strategy, where differential pressure drives air through operable floor vents and sky lobbies. Daylighting required complex simulation to prevent glare and overheating while maximizing ambient light across diverse floor plates. The design employed angled fins, light shelves, and reflective cores to bounce natural light deeper into units. Balancing passive strategies with user comfort across 150+ floors pushed us to develop hybrid adaptive systems that respond seasonally.
While the project remains conceptual, we grounded it in data and dialogue—studying USDA food access research, city health reports, and community garden initiatives across Chicago’s South and West Sides. The intent was to elevate—not just symbolically but literally—the community’s right to grow and access food. This translated into design elements like communal greenhouse floors, local market kiosks, and educational farming modules embedded within the tower. We envisioned a system where residents could grow, exchange, and learn—turning architecture into a civic commons that supports food literacy and dignity.
At the core of Eden Rise is a closed-loop infrastructure. The building harvests atmospheric moisture through cloud condensation membranes and rainwater capture skins. Greywater is filtered through bio-reactive façades and recirculated for vertical farming and irrigation. Energy is sourced from wind turbines embedded in the exoskeleton, solar façades, and biogas from organic waste. By linking water, waste, and energy flows across floors, we reduced external inputs and created a circular metabolism—where one system’s output feeds another. It’s a symbiotic ecology engineered into the building’s DNA.
Eden Rise envisions a shift where architecture is no longer just background—it becomes an active ecological actor. As urban populations swell and climate volatility increases, cities will need buildings that produce—not just consume. I see Eden Rise influencing a new typology of productive towers: generating food, energy, and clean air. Its vertical farm model is scalable to a range of densities and climates. I hope the project sparks policies that incentivize integrating urban agriculture, renewable systems, and public commons into vertical developments.
I was inspired by the concept of the 15-minute city, but reinterpreted vertically. Schools, libraries, clinics, and maker spaces are often the first to be displaced in dense developments. Eden Rise re-centers them. By embedding these programs within vertical nodes—every 20–30 floors—we ensured that education, health, and culture remain accessible to all residents. Each cluster is linked by public sky gardens and staircases, forming a continuous civic thread. It’s about bringing horizontality into the vertical realm, ensuring that density doesn’t mean disconnection.
The recognition affirmed that architecture with a deep ecological ethos can also be compelling in form and narrative. Winning the Silver A’ Design Award gave the Eden Rise project visibility—and momentum. It encouraged me to continue merging systemic environmental design with emotional and cultural resonance. More than anything, it’s reinforced my belief that design is a tool for equity. My future work will continue to challenge the idea that sustainability is technical or optional. It is, and must be, foundational to architecture’s public mission.