A Vertical Forest is Growing in the Middle of a City

Denizens of Milan, Italy will have a brand new 2.5 acre forest smack in the middle of their city by the end of 2013. You might think that’s a city with its priorities straight. But this particular forest didn’t require the sacrifice of precious commercial real estate—because it’s of the vertical variety.

Brainchild of Italian architecture firm, Stefano Boeri Architetti, the Bosco Verticale(literally, “vertical forest” in English) is two residential apartment buildings peppered with cantilevered terraces. Each terrace is specially designed and engineered to support a small community of trees, shrubs, and other greenery.

When complete, Bosco Verticale will house 730 trees from three to six meters (10 to 20 feet) in height and irrigated primarily by the buildings’ grey water—runoff from baths, sinks, washing machines, and dishwashers. 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 plants will keep the trees company. A true forest.

Milan is the second biggest city in Italy and one of the most polluted in Europe. Bosco Verticale, an “anti-sprawl measure,” is intended to set a new course for the fashion capital. Vertical green spaces expand biodiversity without expanding city limits.

Trees and other green things filter dust and carbon dioxide and breathe out fresh oxygen. They’ll also produce humidity and shield residents from city noise. Along with all that, of course, they’ll bring a touch of nature into central Milan.

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If city buildings all looked like these then I think I could handle living in one. I have always disliked the look of high-rise buildings but these actually look nice.

This project is an unknown they have done what they can as far as theoretical now they are doing the next step testing how it works. I imagine there will be some problems to work through but I hope they are easy enough to solve. Fall season will be a pain with all the leaves. I wonder if the residents can go out on the balconies. For some reason though I keep thinking this wouldn’t work out very well in countries with certain wildlife lie monkeys.

reply to post by Grimpachi


A tree's root system is usually as deep in the ground as the height of the tree above ground (unless I'm totally wrong about that), so I can't see how these trees will survive in good health. They probably have backup trees for when a tree dies.

wow, thats cool...we need more ideas like this!

reply to post by Grimpachi


You certainly wouldn't want to be hit from a falling branch from a tree that high up, It would probably kill you. How will they stop that from happening?

Yes, this looks like a good idea. Typical architects, no thought to tomorrow.

That thing will be overgrown within a year. How does anyone prune a tree of a bush on the outside. I can see residents falling to their death pruners in hand. AAAAAHHHHHHH arivadurteeeeeeeeee!

Or do they just snip and let it fall! Let alone what trees and bushes can do to concrete over time. I know on day one everything will be fine, but five years from now?

I see this ending badly.

Nice story OP

P

How would you like to live next door when all those leaves start to fall off in the fall. I bet it could bury a house.

reply to post by pheonix358


From the article.

Further, engineers had to calculate the weight of the trees, containers, and soil and appropriately reinforce the concrete terraces. Each tree container is lined with a waterproof membrane, a root barrier, and a polypropilene grid to avoid leakage and keep roots away from walls.

Ultimately, the only way to fully vet the design is in practice. But if all goes to plan, tenants will soon retire to their apartments after a long day in the grit and grime and drift off to the sound of wind in the leaves—and muffled car horns.

Also I don't think the tenent's will be pruning the trees it looks like the buildings are sealed off so that would be done by the same crews that would normally be washing windows. The only thing you mentioned that may be a problem would be falling debris.

I read the title and thought, "Aren't all forests vertical?"

I too despise high rises but if this green experiment works, then how great would that be, huh? Its residents would find it nice to look outside while sipping the morning brew logging on to ATS and seeing the squirrels and birds in the trees. The fall foliage would be an especially awesome sight. However I'm not sure if I would want to be standing down at street level during a hurricane or earthquake.

reply to post by aboutface


If this works out I would love to see this done in Japan. I once traveled there and went to a cherry blossom park. When the leaves fall from those trees were unbelievable. I could imagine sky rise buildings full of cherry blossom trees there being popular.

It all depends I think on what they decide to plant there are many varieties of evergreen trees so this can work in most places without high winds.

Christmas lights would be awesome!!!!!!

reply to post by Grimpachi

Also I don't think the tenent's will be pruning the trees it looks like the buildings are sealed off so that would be done by the same crews that would normally be washing windows. The only thing you mentioned that may be a problem would be falling debris.

Yes I read that. As I said, all will be well at the beginning. Let me put it another way. All buildings have maintenance persons and all that good stuff where nothing ever goes wrong and things are fixed pronto. Now, come into the real world for a moment, a world of greed and who gives a damn. Building owners cutting corners. Contractors cutting corners. Let alone the plumber, gardener or whatever in the future who has no idea why this or that are in place and simply pulls it out.

The future will show what happens.

P

They should have designed the sky scraper in the shape of a tree.

A tree built out of trees. Something Dubai would do or vegas. A green skyscraper still looks like a box. Wheres the creativity?

Hummm plants filter dust??

Line Dux

reply to post by Grimpachi


This is fantastic, it's things like this that could turn things around for us, I don't believe there is anything in our life's that we can use that nature doesn't do a better job of, It will be interesting to see how this pans out, the only thing I'm worried of is high winds and falling debris but we shall see, great thread if I figure how to flag i will

Frank Dinkle
They should have designed the sky scraper in the shape of a tree.
A tree built out of trees. Something Dubai would do or vegas. A green skyscraper still looks like a box. Wheres the creativity?

It's a boxwood. :-)

I'd like to see any and all ideas like this pursued -- what works and doesn't will shake out and we might, globally, end up with some good plans.

Oooh I like... thanks for sharing !

This makes me think of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Greek geographer Strabo, who described the gardens in
first century BC, wrote, "It consists of vaulted terraces
raised one above another, and resting upon cube-shaped
pillars. These are hollow and filled with earth to allow
trees of the largest size to be planted. The pillars,
the vaults, and terraces are constructed of baked brick
and asphalt."

It's a move in the right direction. I've always been
fascinated with eco-friendly cities. Looking at the
artist renderings of them is fun but to actually
see one of the concepts come to life is nice. It's no
longer a dream... we actually get to see some of these
in our lifetime. It's nice ! Of course it can
never replace the natural landscape of trees and our
forests but in large cities where that is disappearing
its nice to see this type of thing.

Here are some more sites with other eco-concepts...in sticking
with your theme.

heshaninamaluwa.blogspot.com...

www.ecofriend.com...

www.doyourpart.com...

People in my area are always cutting down trees in public parks or verges because it blocks their view of the city or the river or the ocean. I can imagine every person living inside this tower would want to cut down the trees outside their window that blocks their view!

Funnily enough, it's got so bad with people cutting down public trees that now the local council installs a billboard in the place of every tree that gets cut down, saying something along the lines of "Do you know who cut down these trees???"

Very funny approach by the council. It's probably the only good thing they do...

Regards,
Rewey

I love the idea, but, the root depth doesn't appear to be deep enough.

Falling branches? How about an entire tree uprooted from strong gusts of an incoming weather front?
Is there anything other than the dirt for the roots to entangle with and grip?

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


They probably have something worked out for that. Once the roots take hold they will intertwine with the other shrubs and if they deigned some type of lattice into the potting area those plants aren’t going anywhere. It does say they will be watered by the grey water so there would at least be some pipe.

reply to post by Grimpachi


I can see them building this in the U.S. only to turn around and prevent regular people from having gardens and chickens.