Bosco Verticale: Vertical Forest Towers in Milan Near Completion

The urban vertical forest is one of the most intriguing ideas in contemporary architecture. The world’s first forested skyscraper is now nearing completion in the Italian design capital of Milan, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Marco Garofalo & Francesco de Felice.

CALLED the Bosco Verticale, the project is designed by Stefano Boeri architects and was originally created to combat the alarming levels of air pollution in Milan. The two residential towers are located in the centre of the city in the Isola neighbourhood. Milan is now one of the most polluted cities in the world and the Bosco Verticale aims to ease the environmental damage caused by urbanisation. 

Given the lack of green space in the city, Milan’s environment does not promote biodiversity. The new plantings will provide an urban eco-system able to support a wide range of birds and insects. The architects believe the project has the potential to balance out the city’s environmental damage and to create a self-sufficient ecosystem.

On flat land, each tower equals an area of 10,000 square metres of forest. In terms of urban density, it is the equivalent of an area of single family dwellings of nearly 50,000 square metres. The verticality of the scheme means the urban sprawl is contained and the forest goes upwards into the sky.

The screen of leafy green trees and shrubs will filter dust particles, absorb carbon dioxide, protect the apartments from noise pollution, help ease the urban heat experienced in the city during summer and reduce the need for air conditioning to heat and cool the tower’s apartments.

The types of trees being used were chosen based on where they would be positioned on the buildings’ facades. It took more than two years of working with botanists to decide which trees would suit the buildings and the climate. The plants used were grown specifically for the project, pre-cultivated so that they would gradually acclimatize to the conditions on the face of building.

Although the architects have been working on the project since 2007, it is only now that the specially-grown trees and plants are being lifted into the two skyscrapers which are scheduled to be finished later this year. The towers, 110 and 76 meters high, will have more than 900 trees planted on their facades and balconies, each tree up to nine metres tall, plus 11,000 ground-cover plants and 5,000 different flowering shrubs.

“The Bosco Verticale is a system that optimizes, recuperates and produces energy,’’ says architect Stefano Boeri. “It creates a microclimate with a diversity of plants that produce humidity, absorb carbon dioxide and improve the quality of living spaces and save energy. The plants will be irrigated by filtering and reusing the grey waters produced by the building. Additionally Aeolian and photovoltaic energy systems will increase the degree of energetic self sufficiency of the two towers."

The construction of the towers cost 65 million euros, just five per cent more than an average skyscraper, and the project’s vertical design provides space that is equal to a large area of urban sprawl. The structure sets a precedent not only for new developments in Milan, but also for similar cities with the same level of urbanisation. The innovative concept is a viable model for reforestation within the confines of a developed city.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Artist's rendering of the completed Bosco Vericale towers with 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 ground cover plants.

One of the 900 trees being lifted on to a tower balcony. The trees will be three, six and nine metres tall.

Looking up towards the facades of the two towers from the ground ~ one is 110 metres high and the other 76 metres tall. 

Cranes are being used to lift the trees on to the apartments' balconies.

The view across from the new towers to the smooth, glass and treeless facades of the skyscrapers opposite.

The trees arrive on site in Milan and are prepared to be lifted into the sky.

One of  the Bosco Verticale balconies is prepared for planting with tall trees and a range of shrubs and flowering plants.

A tall tree is craned on to an apartment's balcony.

The raw concrete terraces and planter boxes before the earth, trees and shrubs transform this harsh space into a cool green retreat.

The balcony gardens are prepared with soil and irrigation before the shrubs are planted. 

The tower's austere facade with a single tree being lifted into place.

A workman surveys Milan and the two towers before they are covered by a forest of trees and plants.

Photo Essay: Villa D'Este Italy by Christian Evren Gimotea Lozañes

Photo-journalist Christian Evren Gimotea Lozañes shoots the Villa d’Este in Tivoli. The garden's green shady walks, pools of reflective water and splashing fountains have drawn Romans away from the city for centuries, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

ONE of the most famous and influential Renaissance gardens in Europe, the dramatic, axial design has been copied and re-interpreted since it was begun in the mid-sixteenth century. Less than 30 minutes drive from Rome in Tivoli, the Villa d'Este is close to the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s great complex of villa and gardens. Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este built his new country house when he was appointed governor of Tivoli by Pope Julius III in 1550. For more than 20 years, the villa was slowly constructed and the spectacular terraced garden created on the steeply sloping site. 

Painter and architect Pirro Ligorio designed the villa and planned the garden with it’s long axial views down sloping paths lined with statues and fountains. Bringing water to the difficult site was a feat of brilliant engineering - remarkably the same system is still in use today for the garden’s cascades, troughs, pools and water jets. Hadrian’s villa was a source not only of marble to build the new villa but of study and inspiration. Roman techniques of hydraulic engineering were revived to supply the water and create Cardinal d’Este’s garden. Many of the statues were taken from Hadrian's villa to decorate the new fountains and grottoes.

As one of the most skilled hydraulic engineers of the 16th century, Tommasso Chiruchi was employed to help layout the gardens. He worked with Claude Venard, a French manufacturer of organs, to create the enormous musical fountain that is the centrepiece of the garden's design. The next major program of new designs for the garden was carried out in 1605 by Cardinal Alessandro d'Este. He restored and repaired the waterworks and established an innovative new layout of the garden and decoration of the fountains.

Today the Mannerist design of the garden is much as it was in the late16th century. The main axis of the garden falls away in a series of terraces, starting from Pirro Ligorio's Grand Loggia dominating the villa’s garden front with soaring triumphal arches. The central axis of stone paths and box-hedges has more then 500 jets of water shooting up from fountains and pools. Water is supplied by the local Aniene River and from a spring supplying a cistern under the villa’s courtyard.

A balustraded balcony on the villa's uppermost terrace has sweeping views out across the plains to Rome. Double flights of stairs flank the central axis and lead down to the next garden terrace designed with a Grotto of Diana decorated with frescoes and mosaics. The Fountain of the Great Cup - said to be by Bernini - has water flowing from natural-looking rocks into a scrolling, shell-like cup.

The terrace below has an elaborate fountain called the Rometta or Little Rome. From here it's possible to see the Hundred Fountains, made up of dozens of water jets. Ligorio’s nymphaeum, the Fontana dell’Ovato, has cascades of water and marble nymphs created by Giambattista della Porta. Paths lead through the garden to a wooded slope and three quiet, reflective fishponds and to the dramatic water organ and Fountain of Neptune.

By the 18^th century, the gardens were abandoned and left to decay, including the waterworks and statues that began to fall into ruin.  Cardinal Gustav von Hohelohe took over the villa from the Dukes of Modena in 1851 and began restoring the villa and gardens between 1867 and 1882 . He created a cultural epicentre at the villa and invited poets and musicians such as Franz Liszt who composed the Giochi d’Acqua for piano.

By the early 20th century, the Villa d'Este was taken over by the Italian state after World War I and was restored and opened to the public in the 1920s. Another substantial phase of restoration was completed after the villa was bombed during the Second World War. The restoration continues today with the giant Fountain of Neptune and the Organ Fountain recently brought back to their 16th century glory.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

One of the three reflective pools that offer a cooling place to sit in the gardens during the heat of summer

Looking up towards Pirro Ligorio's Great Loggia and the garden front of Villa d'Este

The Fountain of Neptune with it's 16th century French organ that plays music with jets of water following the score.

Looking out across the town Tivoli from Villa d'Este to the surrounding hills

The Grand Loggia overlooking the gardens by Pirro Ligorio designed for Cardinal d'Este

The Neptune and Organ fountains with dramatic plays of water jets and cascades

One of the jets spouting water from the Hundred Fountains

The Rometta or Little Rome Fountain with it's fountain representing the Isola Tiburina and the symbol of the city: the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus

The symbol of Rome: Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf

Looking up to the Grand Loggia where Cardinal d'Este dined with his guests in summer overlooking the Little Rome Fountain ~ created because there were no views to the city.

The Sweating Fountain in the background was based on ruins from a fountain built by the Emperor Domitian

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Spectacular Greek island retreat mixes traditional Cycladic architecture with contemporary design

Clinging to a volcanic hilltop in Oia, the Katikies hotel on the island of Santorini is a maze of white washed cubist buildings like a small, self-contained Grecian town, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento

THE design mixes traditional Cycladic architecture with a modernist aesthetic of clean-lined spaces free of decoration. Hewn from the rock face, some of the rooms are created from original 18^th Century cave houses and others have been recreated with high arched ceilings. The simple, white interiors are a low-key backdrop to the spectacular views across the phosphorescent blue of the Aegean and Caldera.

Open a nondescript doorway on the cliff-top in Oia and you see the hotel unfolding beneath you in a series of terraces down to the toy-like boats sailing on the sea 300 metres below.

Against the buildings’ white walls, bursts of color like the magenta of cascading bougainvillea or the vivid green of a tree are like pieces of natural art standing out in a contemporary gallery.

The terraces of the ship-like decks that overlook the sea lead to airy rooms designed with a mix of contemporary furniture, island antiques and floating muslins. The only contrast in colour and texture are the pale marble bathrooms and wood of the parquet floors.

The architecture of the interconnected caves and small domed buildings provides the theatrical set to present the main actors of the show in their best light: the vast horizon and the luminous Mediteranean sea and sky. 

For more information visit: http://www.katikieshotelsantorini.com/