French architect Jean Nouvel has designed a lattice-covered tower to house guest rooms and residences at the Rosewood São Paulo resort, which features interiors by French designer Philippe Starck.

Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Nouvel's 25-storey concrete Mata Atlantica Tower houses the majority of accommodation at the Rosewood São Paulo, which is located close to the major Avenida Paulista thoroughfare and many of the Brazilian city's important cultural institutions.

The tower steps inward gradually as it rises, creating spaces for large roof gardens as well as balconies for the 114 guest rooms and 100 private Rosewood Suites available for purchase inside.

Jean Nouvel's Mata Atlantica Tower is wrapped in wooden lattices that will eventually be covered in local plants. These gardens and the vertical timber screens that cover the building were planted as part of a biodiversity programme, which aims to repopulate the indigenous flora and fauna from the Mata Atlantica rainforest.

"Covered in wood and wrapped in generous nature, the vertical garden tower features 10,000 trees and rises 100 metres into the sky," said a statement from Rosewood.

This one of several recent Nouvel projects that heavily incorporate plants, including the Aquarela complex in Ecuador.

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