Episode 698 of Monocle’s podcast The Urbanist, entitled ‘Revisiting, rethinking and restoring the city’, explores how cities can be revisited to improve the quality of urban life, as in the case of the Vertical Forest, a prototype building of a new biodiversity architecture.
The first case to be built, in Milan in the Porta Nuova area, consists of two towers, 80 and 112 m high, housing a total of 800 trees, 15,000 perennial and/or ground cover plants and 5,000 shrubs. A vegetation equivalent to that of 30,000 square metres of forest and undergrowth, concentrated on 3,000 square metres of urban area.
The Vertical Forest concept, i.e. being ‘a house for trees that also houses humans and birds’, defines not only the urban and technological characteristics but also the architectural language and expressive qualities of the project.
The vegetal screen of the Wood does not reflect or amplify the sun’s rays, but filters them, generating a cosy indoor microclimate without harmful effects on the environment. At the same time, the green curtain ‘regulates’ humidity, produces oxygen and absorbs CO2 and particulate matter.
Integrating architecture and living nature for the first time in the world, ten years after its realisation, the Vertical Forest is recognised as a symbol of the UN’s 11th Sustainable Development Goal.
To listen to the episode: https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-urbanist/698/