The German website Express publishes an article by Laura Schmidl titled Increasingly Extreme Temperatures: How Cities Could Smartly Prepare for the Heat, citing the Bosco Verticale by Boeri Studio as a virtuous example.
In recent years, temperature records have been broken one after another. In 2019, the highest temperature ever recorded in Germany was registered: 41.2 degrees in Tönisvorst. In the summer of 2022 – the hottest in Europe since records began in 1881 – large parts of the continent were hit by drought, and the Rhine River reached extremely low water levels. With climate change, it is likely that temperature records will be broken more frequently.
In this context, the article proposes several solutions to address the issue of shading and cooling down urban temperatures. The Bosco Verticale in Milan is presented as a successful challenge in integrating living nature into architecture, hosting vegetation equivalent to 30,000 square meters of forest and undergrowth, concentrated on 3,000 square meters of urban surface.
The advantages of this close proximity to plants and trees are numerous, including lowering the temperature on building surfaces by about 30°C in the summer and inside the apartments by 2-3°C, resulting in a reduced need for air conditioning.
Of course, the vertical forest model is just one of many possible solutions to combat urban heat islands, but it certainly represents an important step in urban forestry – the most economical, sustainable, and natural solution to improve the quality of life in cities.
To read the full article: Express article.