forests in the sky

The design blogs go on about deco featuring combined with stunning modernity, but bluntly, to me,  this crazy high-rise New York building looks a bit Elven:

And elves, of course, build with trees. Trees up high, trees down low, trees inside, trees all around. This one isn't quite achieving that, but it feels like a step in the right direction:

I particularly like this penthouse terrace. Note the loose paving over a gravelled base, with greenery growing between. Practical as well as as beautiful; surface water is wicked away into the plants, and can be reservoired in the gravel layer.

That ethereal Elven sheen about the pictures arises because these are architectural renderings, not the real thing.  Though the sales office for the units (note the bonsai in the ecstatically designer occasional table - they clearly have the idea that the trees are a selling point) has a similarly otherworldly aspect, so either a) they're using renderings throughout for consistency or b) you can tell your photographer to imitate the look of an architectural rendering. Either is plausible.

Right now, the building looks rather more like this, and any planting is yet to come.