Stefano Boeri is a famous italian architect who with his architecture studio has designed the Vertical Forest in Milan in 2009-2014.
The Vertical Forest is the prototype building for a new format of architectural biodiversity which focuses not only on human beings but also on the relationship between humans and other living species.
The first example was built in Milan in the Porta Nuova area and consists of two towers that are respectively 80 and 112 metres high. There are a total of 800 trees, 15,000 perennials and ground covering plants and 5,000 shrubs, providing an amount of vegetation equivalent to 30,000 square metres of woodland and undergrowth, concentrated on 3,000 square metres of urban surface. Unlike the typical facades in glass or stone, the plant-based shield does not reflect the sun’s rays, but filters them, creating a welcoming internal microclimate without harmful effects on the environment. And at the same time, the green curtain regulates humidity, produces oxygen and absorbs CO2 and microparticles.
The concept behind this building is to be a home for trees that also houses humans, defines not only the urban and technological characteristics of the project but also the architectural language and its expressive qualities. The towers are mainly characterized by large and overhanging balconies, designed to accommodate large external tubs for vegetation and to allow the growth of larger trees without hindrance.
The contrast with a series of elements in white stoneware (the stringcourses of the balconies and some modules on the front of the windowsills) introduces a rhythm in the composition which breaks up and “dematerializes” the visual compactness of the architectural bodies and amplifies the presence of the plants even more. More than just surfaces, the façades can be viewed as three dimensional spaces not only because of the denseness and function of the green curtain but also in aesthetic-temporal terms, due to the multi-coloured cyclical and morphological changes in the size of the plants.
In just a few years this characteristic building has becoming a new symbol for Milan. The development of the botanical component is the result of studies conducted by Boeri studio in collaboration with a group of botanists.
Rather than just a simple architectural object therefore, the presence of the plant component means that the Vertical Forest is more akin to a set of processes – partly natural, partly man-managed – that accompany the life and growth of the inhabited organism over time. Maybe the most unique component of this highly developed system is that of the “Flying Gardeners”, a specialized team of arborists-climbers who, using mountaineering techniques, descend from the roof of the buildings once a year to carry out pruning while checking the state of the plants in addition to their eventual removal or substitution. All the maintenance and greening operations are in fact managed at the condominium level in order to maintain control of the anthropic-vegetal balance. Irrigation is also centralized: the needs of the plants are monitored by a digitally and remotely controlled installation while the necessary water is largely drawn from filtered effluent from the towers. All these solutions overcome the still essentially anthropocentric and technical concept of “sustainability” while moving in the direction of a new biological diversity. A few years after its construction, the Vertical Forest has given birth to a habitat colonized by numerous animal species establishing an outpost of spontaneous flora and fauna recolonization in the city.
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