Urban Cactus by UCX Architects

Urban Cactus by UCX Architects

Living in a building usually means you’ll have no access to your own garden, but the Urban Cactus which is a housing project located in Vuurplaat Rotterdam solves that. Each unit owner now gets a chance to grow his own vegetable garden or bask in glorious sunlight. This unusual piece of architecture was created by UCX Architects / Ben Huygen and Jasper Jaegers. It sits at the end of the harbor in Rotterdam and proves to standout amongst the rest of the urban architecture.

This building contains 98 residential units in 19 floors. The concept of what seems like a stack of plates in an alternating pattern allows extreme amounts of exterior and garden space. The orientation of each floor also enables more natural light to enter into each unit.

The architect’s website can no longer be found so not much can be extracted about how “green” this structure is in terms of architecture. It was noted that a lot of things can be done with a concept like this. Collecting and re-using rain water for instance will definitely earn points for this project and concept. Nevertheless, seeing architecture that stands out like this Urban Cactus is surely something quite inspiring.

Article by Marilen Faustino-Montenegro