The supertree at dusk
There’s a moment around 7:30 PM in Singapore when the supertrees at Gardens by the Bay start to glow. Eighteen vertical structures, 25 to 50 meters tall, covered in 162,900 living plants — ferns, vines, orchids, bromeliads — with solar panels on top harvesting the equatorial sun all day. The trunks light up with embedded LEDs powered by the daytime solar generation. You stand underneath them and it does not look like any building you’ve seen before. It looks like a still from a solarpunk illustrator’s portfolio. Except it’s been there since 2012.
Solarpunk gets dismissed as aesthetic-only fantasy. But the buildings the genre has been drawing for the last decade are increasingly real. Built, operating, lived in, photographed. Here are ten that count.
What makes architecture “solarpunk”
Loose working definition: buildings that integrate biological abundance (plants, water, animal habitats) with renewable energy and ecological function, in ways that are visually beautiful as a deliberate political choice. Not just “has solar panels.” Not just “has a green roof.” Both, ideally, plus circulation, water cycling, food production, public commons, biophilic design.
The buildings on this list mostly hit four or more of those criteria. None are perfect. All are real.
1. Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest), Milan, Italy
Two residential towers (110 and 76 meters) covered in 800 trees, 4,500 shrubs, and 15,000 perennials, equivalent to 30,000 square meters of forest stuffed onto vertical real estate. Designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti, completed 2014. The plants absorb CO2 and dust, provide habitat for 1,600+ bird and butterfly species, and shade the building (reducing AC needs by ~30%). The maintenance is non-trivial: full-time gardeners abseil the facades. But the proof-of-concept worked, and Boeri is now replicating it in Eindhoven, Lausanne, and Nanjing.
2. CopenHill (Amager Bakke), Copenhagen, Denmark
A waste-to-energy plant with a ski slope, hiking trail, and climbing wall on its roof. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, opened 2019. The plant burns Copenhagen’s non-recyclable waste to generate electricity for ~150,000 homes and heat for ~72,000. The slope is artificial turf you can ski year-round. There’s a forest growing on the structure. The chimney emits puffs of CO2 only when local CO2 levels exceed a threshold — a literal visual indicator that something’s wrong. Copenhagen wanted to demonstrate that civic infrastructure could be beautiful, useful, and public-facing. It worked.
3. The Bullitt Center, Seattle, USA
A 6-story office building completed 2013, called “the greenest commercial building in the world” by its developers. Net-zero energy (rooftop solar produces more than the building uses across a year), composting toilets, rainwater cisterns for non-potable use, all materials Red List-free (no PVC, no formaldehyde). It rents to tech tenants at market rates. Proof that “Living Building Challenge” certification is commercially viable.
4. Gardens by the Bay (Supertree Grove), Singapore
The supertrees mentioned above, plus the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome biomes — gigantic glass-and-steel structures housing cloud forest ecosystems in 90% humidity at controlled cool temperatures (powered by efficient cooling using the geothermal differential of the sea). Designed by Wilkinson Eyre, opened 2012. The whole park functions as a working ecosystem and a tourist destination. Singapore’s deliberate effort to embed biophilia into civic infrastructure at large scale.
5. ParkRoyal Collection Pickering, Singapore
A 367-room hotel with 15,000 square meters of “sky gardens, waterfalls, planter walls, and reflecting pools” distributed across the building. Designed by WOHA, opened 2013. The vegetation is roughly twice the footprint of the building. Solar panels, rainwater harvesting, automatic shading, and motion sensors for lighting. Functions as a working hotel while serving as a vertical garden. The kind of building solarpunk has been drawing for a decade.
6. Eden Project, Cornwall, UK
Geodesic biome domes built into an old clay quarry. Houses two artificial ecosystems — tropical rainforest and Mediterranean — under the world’s largest greenhouses. Designed by Grimshaw, opened 2001. Functions as research facility, educational center, and tourist destination. The structures themselves are weight-engineered to be lighter than the air inside them. Influenced solarpunk’s geometric aesthetic substantially.
7. The Crystal (now London City Hall), London, UK
An all-electric building (no fossil fuel heating) using ground-source heat pumps, solar thermal hot water, rainwater harvesting, and natural ventilation. Originally opened in 2012 as a Siemens sustainability showcase; converted to City Hall in 2022. BREEAM Outstanding rated. Demonstrates that public administrative buildings can be net-zero without sacrificing function.
8. Pasona Group Headquarters Urban Farm, Tokyo, Japan
A 9-story office building in central Tokyo with 200 species of fruits, vegetables, and rice growing across its floors. Employees harvest the produce; it’s served in the building’s cafeteria. Designed by Kono Designs, completed 2010. Demonstrates urban farming integrated into office workspaces. Mostly criticized for being labor-intensive, but the underlying idea (food production at the workplace) is influential.
9. Bahrain World Trade Center, Manama, Bahrain
Twin towers (240m) with three large wind turbines integrated between them, designed by Atkins, opened 2008. The turbines generate about 11–15% of the buildings’ electricity needs. First commercial-scale building-integrated wind turbine deployment. The aerodynamic shape of the towers funnels wind speed up to the turbines. Influence on how solarpunk illustrators draw wind: as architectural feature, not just standalone turbines.
10. The Edge, Amsterdam, Netherlands
An office building that produces more energy than it consumes. Designed by PLP Architecture, opened 2014. Solar panels on the roof and south facade, geothermal aquifer for heating/cooling, and an aggressive smart-building approach that turns off lighting and HVAC in unused spaces in real time. BREEAM “Outstanding” with a record-high score. Demonstrates that office space, the most aggressively-engineered building category, can go net-positive without exotic technology.
FAQs
Are these buildings expensive to build?
Yes, generally — 10–30% premiums over equivalent conventional construction. Some pay back through energy savings; some are funded as showcases or research projects. The premium is shrinking as techniques mature.
Do the plants actually survive on the towers?
Yes, with active maintenance. Bosco Verticale has had ~5% plant mortality over its first decade. Replacements are part of operating cost.
Aren’t these mostly in rich countries?
Yes. Singapore, EU, US, Japan dominate the list. The technology and labor cost favors wealthy places. Solarpunk-aligned buildings in developing economies tend to be smaller, vernacular, lower-tech versions of the same ideas.
What’s the difference between solarpunk architecture and “green building”?
Green building optimizes for measurable metrics (energy, water, materials). Solarpunk architecture adds the aesthetic and political layer: visual beauty, public accessibility, ecological integration, biological abundance. Not just net-zero. Net-positive in life.
Can ordinary homeowners apply these principles?
Yes. Green roofs, rainwater harvesting, rooftop solar, vertical gardens, native plant landscapes, heat pumps. None require building from scratch. We cover specific techniques in other articles.
What’s the next frontier in solarpunk architecture?
Probably regenerative buildings (sequester more carbon than they emit), biophilic interiors as standard, and mass timber construction (using engineered wood instead of concrete/steel). Watch the Pacific Northwest and Scandinavia.
The landing
Solarpunk gets dismissed as fantasy, but the fantasy got built. Milan, Copenhagen, Singapore, Seattle, Amsterdam, London, Tokyo — these buildings exist and work and are full of people every day. The vision is no longer aspirational; it’s already a small but growing piece of the built environment. The question isn’t whether solarpunk architecture is possible. It is. The question is how fast we replicate it. And whether the next 15 years build more Bosco Verticales or more glass-and-steel boxes that look like every other glass-and-steel box on every other corner of every other city. That’s a policy question, a market question, and a cultural one. Solarpunk’s job is to make the answer obvious.