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Forest Cities: Tree-Covered Urban Architecture to Combat Smog in China

03 Mar

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

forest city

A new series of treescrapers designed for Nanjing, China, aim to combat air pollution with plant-covered towers, but this bold vision may represent hubris more than hope.

Architect Stefano Boeri’s Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) project in Milan was an impressive but small-scale version of this vision to turn Chinese cities into greenery-covered cityscapes. “Two towers in a huge urban environment [such as Nanjing] is so, so small a contribution – but it is an example. We hope that this model of green architecture can be repeated and copied and replicated.”

forest city project

And the figures put out to the press are impressive: these new buildings could, according to estimates, remove 25 tons of carbon from the air annually and produces a lot of oxygen in the process. Still, embedded carbon in plants has to go somewhere eventually — leaves and branches that break off of these vertical treescapes will eventually fall to the ground, adding to street-level pollution.

Projects like this face downsides and challenges, too. A lot of embedded energy (and thus: carbon) comes with retrofitting buildings to support plants. There are intensive structural requirements (for soil and trees) but also active system demands, too, that add to inputs and costs. As plants grow, they also have to be maintained — a lot more challenging than just sending window washers up and down the sides of a skyscraper.

forest city village

Ultimately, it makes sense to think about how cities can go green, but adding thick and lush greenery to the sides of buildings risks being an act of greenwashing more than one of sustainable design. The ground is a much easier place to plant greenery, plus an easier space for everyone to access and enjoy. Even the above rendering of one of these planned communities makes this point indirectly: there are a lot more trees on the ground than there are on the buildings in the image.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Posted in Creativity

Fantasy is Now Reality: Twisting Tree-Covered Callebaut Tower Taking Shape

29 Nov

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

callebaut-taipei

We’ve seen lots of dazzling concepts by Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut, most of which seem far too fanciful to ever actually materialize, but his twisting high-rise tower in Taipei is finally taking shape in three dimensions. ‘Tao Zhu Yin Yuan’ is about halfway complete, pivoting on a central axis for a layout that enables outdoor space brimming with greenery on every floor. Scheduled for completion in September 2017, the residential tower will support 23,000 trees absorbing up to 130 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

callebaut-concept

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The tower is conceived as a ‘inhabited tree,’ set upon a circular footprint with towers extending from the core in a double helix shape. From the north or south, it looks like a pyramid, while east and west views give onlookers a fuller idea of the building’s scale. It will contain 40 luxury apartments and additional facilities, and is set to meet LEED gold status as well as diamond-level Low Carbon Building Alliance certification.

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Callebaut is known for proposals that emphasize sustainability, self-sufficiency, the inclusion of vegetation and eye-popping shapes. Examples include his dragonfly-wing-shaped urban farm, the Lilypad floating city concept, the ‘Asian Cairns’ residential towers and a series of futuristic ‘smart towers’ aiming to reduce pollution and create renewable energy while integrating into existing built environments.

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Most of these concepts either appear too wild and expensive to developers and investors to inspire confidence for real-world success, or rely on theoretical technology that hasn’t been fully developed or proven. But nobody can accuse Callebaut of limiting his own creativity in the way he envisions the future of architecture, in a world where the choices we make for our cities directly impact our ability to withstand the consequences of climate change.

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“In 2050, we will be 9 billion of human beings on our blue planet and 80% of the world population will live in megacities,” says Callebaut. “It’s time to invent new eco-responsible lifestyles and to repatriate the nature in our city in order to increase the quality of our life with respect of our environment.”

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Twin Tree-Covered Towers: The World’s First Vertical Forests

26 Mar

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

vertical towers construction progress

Concept designs from far-fetched futurists have toyed with the idea for years, but one firm has finally made the vision a reality: towers extensively populated with intensive (meaning: large and heavy) plant life. In short: trees!

vertical forest sky trees

Situated in Milan, Italy, many skeptics were sure these two towers were just another pie-in-the-sky plan for an impossible building. After all, the load-bearing requirements alone for over 10,000 trees and 5,000 shrubs are extreme. Stefano Boeri Architetti (photos by Marco Garofalo) is showing them otherwise.

vertical green skyscraper lighting

The added weight is not wasted, nor ornamental – the vegetation layers will reduce the need for temperature regulation within the building. They will also filter the congested air of the city and serve to help reduce the temperature (always higher in urban areas).

vertical forest tree diagrams

vertical forest buildings

The pre-grown plant life was carefully selected for the structure based on the regional climate, light and wind exposure, and is even now being hoisted into final positions. When complete, this will be, on some metrics, quite literally the greenest pair of buildings in the world.