Best Tall Building of 2014

The 116-meter-high (323-feet) residential tower bested the three other finalists that were announced in June as winners in their respective regional categories, when One Central Park won for Asia & Australia: Cutler Anderson Architects' The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, Portland, USA (Americas); OMA's De Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands (Europe); and SOM's Cayan Tower, Dubai, UAE (Middle East & Africa).

Nouvel's design transforms an old brewery site into a vertical garden, with the help of go-to green-wall gardener Patric Blanc and a grid of mirrors suspended from the tower. The expressive vegetation impressed the jury, which included CTBUH executive director Antony Wood: "Seeing this project for the first time stopped me dead. There have been major advances in the incorporation of greenery in high-rise buildings over the past few years – but nothing on the scale of this building has been attempted or achieved. One Central Park strongly points the way forward, not only for an essential naturalization of our built environment, but for a new aesthetic for our cities – an aesthetic entirely appropriate to the environmental challenges of our age."

One Central Park's "Best Tall Building Worldwide" naming comes one year after OMA's CCTV Television Station and Headquarters, also from the Asia & Australia region, won the award.