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1000 Trees, Shanghai, China

British designer Thomas Heatherwick has never been short of ambition. And now his seemingly farfetched vision of a tree-covered urban mountain has become a reality.

The 3.2-million-square foot development now occupies a huge stretch of riverside in Shanghai. Structural columns emerge from the structure's mass to hold some of the plants and greenery alluded to in the project's name, 1000 Trees.

More than a piece of architecture, this is, in Heatherwick Studio's own words, "a piece of topography."