Katia Del Savio and Giovanni Setti, in an interview with Stefano Boeri published in MiTomorrow, celebrate ten years of the Vertical Forest and anticipate Stefano Boeri’s awarding of the “Milano Che Verrà” prize on October 9, 2024.
The article traces the process-from conception, to plant selection, to construction-of the Vertical Forest, the first prototype of a new biodiversity architecture built in Milan’s Porta Nuova area in 2014, which places not just humans but the relationship between humans and other living species at the center.
The two towers together are home to 800 trees (480 trees of first and second size, 300 of smaller size, 15,000 perennials and/or ground cover plants and 5,000 shrubs). A vegetation that is equivalent to 30,000 square meters of forest and underwood, concentrated on 3,000 square meters of urban area. The project is thus also a device to limit city sprawl induced by the pursuit of greenery.
The concept, as Stefano Boeri mentions in the interview, is being applied in other parts of the world, with “about 15 [Vertical Forests] under construction and 50-60 planned.”
In the context of the vision for a new biodiversity architecture, there is Trudo Vertical Forest, which applies the model to social housing for the first time, thus making the Vertical Forest typology accessible to everyone, even low-income tenants. The project demonstrates how living in contact with trees and greenery is not an exclusive prerogative, but can in fact become a viable choice for citizens from very different economic backgrounds.
To read the full article: https://www.mitomorrow.it/decennale/bosco-verticale-boeri/