(FORTUNE Magazine) – WHERE WOULD YOU expect to find the tallest residential tower in Europe? London, perhaps? Booming Berlin? Guess again. It's gritty Leeds, a former textile city in northern England. A 54-story, 680-apartment complex, designed by Philippe Starck and London property developer John Hitchcox, is scheduled to break ground in late May and be completed by 2010.

The project, the Lumiere, isn't the first that their company, called Yoo, has created in a place ripe for revitalization. "When I made the Asahi building, it was in a very poor area of Tokyo, but it transformed the area," says Starck. "I always try to work with people who want to build a new society for the future, who don't just follow along, and in this respect Leeds is perfect."

That's because Leeds, a city of 700,000, has managed to forge a 21st-century image of shops and cultural centers out of an industrial wasteland. Redevelopment started in 1996, when a Harvey Nichols department store opened. Other high-end stores followed, turning Leeds into a major retail destination. Some of the Lumiere apartments will be aimed at people over 55, an age group that has been pouring back into city centers from the suburbs.

Yoo has at least 30 other projects, including residential towers in Mexico, Dallas, Sydney, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, and even Bulgaria, where a 650-apartment complex is rising on the coast of the Black Sea. The most extravagant: their $1.2 billion, 1,855-unit Icon Brickell complex on Miami's waterfront, to be completed in 2008.

The eight-year-old company has been dubbed the "Prada of the property industry" by the British press. In 2004, Hitchcox, who previously founded the Manhattan Loft Co., and Starck were joined by a third partner, Jade Jagger, Mick's daughter. Jagger's first project was the Jade, a recently completed 57-unit building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

Hitchcox, who boasts that Yoo can weather any property downturn, says he wants to raise "vertical villages" around the world. "It's all about trying to replicate the atmosphere of a traditional village in an urban environment," he says. "Society is changing, with more single-person households, many who want to be in the city center." And to be on the cusp of a residential trend while doing it.