LAss="firstpara">Californian architecture practice Nardi Associates have unveiled renderings for a mixed-use tower in downtown Los Angeles designed as “a giant urban tree”.

Situated on the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street in the district of South Park, the Olympic Tower is visualised as a 60-storey structure featuring an open-air atrium and vertical gardens created by a combination of real vegetation and digitised landscape images projected by LED displays.

According to local reports, the Nardi proposal is linked to plans by local developer Ben Neman to build a tower on the site of a 1980s car wash, which has been purchased for an estimated US$25m (€23m, £17m). That project is said to include a 343-room hotel, restaurant and retail space and residential units.

South Park is home to the city’s famous Staples Center sports arena and a host of other high-profile leisure developments, including the US$2.5bn (€2.3bn, £1.7bn) L.A. Live complex and its 54-storey Ritz Carlton and J.W. Marriott hotel.

In a statement, Nardi Associates said: “Located in one of the most prominent and visible corner of downtown Los Angeles, the Olympic Tower will be compatible with the existing urban environment, with the facade designed on a sensitive scale.”

The studio’s design is the latest in an ever-growing line of projects merging urban landscapes with vertical gardens. The mixed-use Marina One development in Singapore, created by Ingenhoven Architects, will comprise four 30-storey towers infused with greenery on every floor, while Heatherwick Studio recently revealed its vision for a mountain-inspired mixed-use development next to Shanghai’s arts district.