Forests in buildings can enhance Urban life

(MENAFN) In 2007, Italian architect Stefano Boeri visited a rapidly developing desert metropolis where gleaming high-rises—clad in glass, ceramic, and metal—were springing up. As Boeri explained to reports, these materials bounced sunlight back into the atmosphere, raising the surrounding temperatures and making life on the streets uncomfortably hot.

At the same time, in a neglected corner of northern Milan, Boeri had just started drafting plans for a pair of residential towers. He recalls how inspiration struck: "Suddenly, it occurred to me to create two biological towers… covered not with glass, but with leaves," he said. His vision sought to transform the neglected industrial zone by welcoming greenery and wildlife, cooling the structures inside and out, and presenting a groundbreaking approach to architecture that, he noted, "integrates living nature as a constitutive part of it."

The result was the world’s inaugural “vertical forest.”

Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, this celebrated design boasts a variety of plants, tended by “flying gardeners” who rappel down the buildings to maintain the foliage. Residents benefit from temperatures up to three degrees cooler thanks to the plants’ evaporative cooling and light-filtering capabilities.

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