Torre Mata Atlântica by Benedito Abbud Arquitetura Paisagística

Introduction
Located within the Cidade Matarazzo complex, Torre Mata Atlântica is a mixed-use building with hotel rooms, residential apartments and commercial spaces at its base. Designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, the tower spans approximately 3,000 m² within the 30,000 m² complex.
Cidade Matarazzo’s landscape design plays a central role, aiming to integrate the site’s historic and modern architecture with lush greenery. The complex blends early 20th-century buildings with contemporary structures, unified by dense vegetation that connects the spaces. Its landscape design reflects this vision, with large, stepped terraces covered in trees evoking the mountains of Serra do Mar, the lush mountain range that characterizes the region.

Project
Unlike traditional buildings, the landscaping of this tower spans the entire structure, with vegetation extending from ground level to the rooftop. The front garden is a dense forest, in direct contact with the sidewalk. This expansive green space protects the privacy of the occupants and disguises the massive volume of the building from those passing by on the street, revealing it only when we approach its main entrance.
Large, raised planters were installed on the 10th, 16th, and 21st floors, where the building features its most prominent constructive setbacks. These suspended gardens shade the glazed facade of the apartments.
The rooftop on the 27th floor, exclusive to the largest apartment, serves as a private garden, overflowing with tree canopies, palms, shrubs, and cascading plants and offering a striking visual feature that crowns the tower.

Environment and Sustainability
Despite municipal laws establishing parameters for land use and environmental compensation, new buildings typically maximize allowable construction potential, resulting in less greenery on the site than before. However, this project reversed that logic by verticalizing greenery and utilizing all viable garden spaces. Paved areas, bare rooftops, and unused slabs were replaced with deep planters that collect and slow rainwater runoff, helping minimize flooding.
Originally home to just 12 trees, the site now boasts over 300, including 60 species, most native to the Atlantic Forest, and hundreds of shrubs, vines and epiphytes species. By combining mature trees with younger plants, the project mimics a natural ecosystem, with canopies in several layers and different stages of growth, attracting a broader range of species to cohabitate. The decision to use large specimens, despite the logistical challenges, avoided ecological waste, as nurseries often discard these trees and repurpose them as firewood or charcoal. Many species were chosen for their potential to provide food for wildlife, such as Schinus molle, Schinus terebinthifolius, Eugenia involucrata, and Syagrus romanzoffiana, offering fruits, seeds, and nectar. The results are already visible, with increased bird populations in both quantity and diversity shortly after the project’s implementation.

Challenges
Creating a vertical forest presented unique challenges. Extensive risk assessments and computational modeling were conducted to evaluate each tree species’s wind resistance and structural stability. Factors such as wood strength, branch arrangement, and crown shape were analyzed to ensure the trees could thrive safely at height.
Each tree was individually selected with the help of agronomist consultants, considering its health and morphology to ensure it had no pathologies or structural deformities that could compromise its stability and resistance.
Anchoring and physical containment systems were developed for the buried parts (root ball) and aerial parts (trunk and branches), ensuring extra safety even in worst-case scenarios.
Post-construction care was also a priority. Maintenance teams follow specific guidelines to monitor tree safety, manage growth, and ensure the long-term success of these suspended forests.

Legacy
In a country of recent development, where forests and the natural environment were seen as something to be transformed or suppressed for the sake of progress until a few decades ago, inadequate urban planning completely ignores the necessity for green infrastructure, exacerbating the effects of climate change, like flooding and heatwaves. Amidst these problems, Torre Mata Atlântica emerges as a forward-thinking example of how to reconcile high-end construction with nature-based solutions, incorporating several environmental and green solutions on a high-rise tower.
With green spaces taking over all the height of a skyscraper, Torre Mata Atlântica exemplifies how nature and urban development can coexist harmoniously. It underscores the importance of integrating green infrastructure into cityscapes, demonstrating that these solutions are viable and essential for combating climate change and building sustainable, resilient urban environments for the future.

• Prject location:
São Paulo – Brazil

• Project typology:
Mixed-use tower with integrated landscape

• All landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape:
Benedito Abbud Arquitetura Paisagística

• All architecture offices involved in the design:
Ateliers Jean Nouvel (concept)
Triptyque Architecture (development)

• Other credits:
Structural Study: JKMF Soluções Estruturais
Agronomics Consultant: Companhia das Árvores
Security: Projar Soluciones Ambientales
Structural Consultant: Oriciclon, VMC Consultoria
Wind Consultants: Vento-S Consultoria em Engenharia de Ventos
Landscape Design: Benedito Abbud, Eduardo Ikoma
Landscape Team: Camila Mathias, Camila Opipari, Felipe Abbud, Fernanda Ruggeri Savietto, Gabriel Singeski, Lilian C. Massari e Sergio Fernández Pérez