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posted by martyb on Saturday July 08 2017, @03:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the growing-interest dept.

Straight from the horse's mouth:

The first Chinese Forest City by Stefano Boeri Architetti is turning into reality. A city where offices, houses, hotels, hospitals and schools are entirely covered by plants and trees.

Once completed, the new city will host 30,000 people, absorb almost 10,000 tons of CO2 and 57 tons of pollutants per year and produce approximately 900 tons of oxygen.

Liuzhou Forest City will be built in the north of Liuzhou, in the mountain area of Guangxi, in the southern part of China; in an area that covers 175 hectares along the Liujiang river.
...
Liuzhou Forest City will have all the characteristics of an energy self-sufficient urban establishment: geothermal energy for interior air-conditioning and solar panels over the roofs for collecting renewable energy.

The great innovation of Stefano Boeri Architetti’s project is the presence of plants and trees over every building, of all sizes and functions.

Liuzhou Forest City will host in total 40,000 trees and almost 1 million plants of over 100 species.

Unlike the characters from a previous story, Stefano Boeri is an architect known to deliver (green urbanism): one of his recent projects (completed) is Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) - a pair of residential towers in the Porta Nuova district of Milan, Italy, between Via Gaetano de Castillia and Via Federico Confalonieri near Milano Porta Garibaldi railway station - inaugurated in October 2014.

Under construction, another "Vertical Forest" pair of towers, in Nanjing, with the inauguration date expected in 2018.

From the Wikipedia entry of Stefano Boeri:

Stefano Boeri is an Italian architect and urban planner,[1] born in Milan in 1956, founding partner of Stefano Boeri Architetti. He earned a master's degree in Architecture from Polytechnic University of Milan and a PhD in architecture in 1989 from Iuav University of Venice. Among the most known projects are the Vertical Forest in Milan, the Villa Méditerranée in Marseille, and the House of the Sea of La Maddalena.

Stefano Boeri was the editor-in-chief of the international magazine Domus from 2004 to 2007 and Abitare from 2007 to 2011.

He is the professor of urban planning at Polytechnic University of Milan. He has been visiting professor in many international Universities as GSD Harvard Graduate School of Design, Berlage Institute, Columbia University. From 2013 he is the artistic director of MI/ARCH, an international festival of architecture promoted by the Politecnico Di Milano
...
He is currently the director of the web platform theTomorrow (www.thetomorrow.net), which promotes an exchange of ideas on European culture, and part of the scientific board of the Galleria Degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy, a palace and Italian classical art museum,...

On other sites:
China is building a smog-eating 'forest city' filled with tree-covered skyscrapers - On June 26, Liuzhou broke ground on what Boeri calls a "forest city."

‘Forest City’ starts construction in China - Residential areas, commercial and recreational spaces, two schools and a hospital are expected to be built by 2020.

It is worth visiting TFA(s), even if just for the views of sky-scrapers draped in green vegetation.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:46AM (12 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:46AM (#536422) Journal

    Trees... they need water, how did they insulate the wall against creeping moisture?
    Trees grow... extra load on the structure; it'll be unevenly distributed, everything being equal, the ones receiving more light will grow faster.
    Mini-ecosystem... how about fire ants nests at upper levels?

    Someone will need to tend those plants. Will we see a new job being created, like "vertical forest ranger" or "vertical gardener"?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:58AM (4 children)

    by SanityCheck (5190) on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:58AM (#536428)

    Like all visionary "super cities of the future", this will just waste a ton of government subsidies and go nowhere. I am 100% sure none of the things you describe have ever been pondered by "visionary" politicians that come up with BS and have no idea what it takes to make it work, nor what makes their ideas stupidly impossible.

    Suburbs in the US are already fairly green, and people band together to keep development to minimal. But of course there is a limit to how many trees you want near a dwelling for a lot of reasons. Just see the area after a big storm, tons of branches everywhere, downed powerlines, and casualties. Creeping roots destroying infrastructure, and an infestation of wood eating insects, just part and parcel with living as close to nature as our technological level will allow.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:37AM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:37AM (#536436) Journal

      Suburbs in the US are already fairly green,

      Sorry, if you say suburban life style has less environ impact, I'll have to disagree with you.
      For the simple reason that the transport and utility distribution has a higher environ cost than living in skyscrapers, using public transport and freeing the land for other uses.
      Granted, living in cities have other impacts on the life style - one of which is the disconnect from the nature (another being the "ability" to just know when your neighbours have sex, but I digress).

      Like all visionary "super cities of the future", this will just waste a ton of government subsidies and go nowhere.

      Unfortunately not. Not all regions in this world can afford to live the suburbian dream - simply not enough land to do it. I'll let aside China, you'll be able to see this in many places in old Europe.

      I am 100% sure none of the things you describe have ever been pondered by "visionary" politicians that come up with BS and have no idea what it takes to make it work, nor what makes their ideas stupidly impossible.

      Look, those are (mainly) engineering problems and I’m quite they aren't impossible to solve. I was just curious how did they solve it.
      For instance:
      - wall insulation - there are houses built so that the roof space is covered with turf, does wonders for the thermal insulation. And they did solve the problem of waterproofing the roof.
      - trees - just pick species of trees that are slow growing and small in size - after all, it's not impossible to grow dwarf lemon/lime trees in pots/planters on the balcony even today.
      - insect control - I don't even know if this will turn to be a problem.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday July 08 2017, @09:17PM (1 child)

        by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Saturday July 08 2017, @09:17PM (#536643)

        - insect control - I don't even know if this will turn to be a problem.

        If they allow for habitats for the predators of insects, it should not be, Of course, this means visitors to these green spaces will have to endure seeing spiders, wasps, lizards, birds, bats, etc.

        • (Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @09:29PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @09:29PM (#536648) Journal

          Of course, this means visitors to these green spaces will have to endure seeing spiders, wasps, lizards, birds, bats, etc.

          As the city is built in China, somehow I don't think it'll be a problem.
          These Chinese cooks do wonders with everything that moves on land, water and air (except cars, submarines and airplanes).

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 09 2017, @12:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 09 2017, @12:04AM (#536696)

      I've already seen this style of green urban architecture at the EPCOT center in 1980!
      If Disney thought of it almost 40 yrs ago, why hasn't somebody done it already? It's the CITY
      OF THE FUTURE!

      /s

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:09AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:09AM (#536432)

    Yeah. That was my first thought as well.
    ...though I took a completely different tack.
    I was wonder if this spot had been drought-free for 100 years.

    the wall [...] creeping moisture

    Aren't there houses that get completely covered by snow?
    Do those have water infiltration problems?
    (All my winters have been spent in The Sun Belt.)

    extra load [...] unevenly distributed

    If you thought of it, I'm betting that someone involved with the project has too.
    TFS mentions 100 species.
    Probably includes grasses and flowers and low bushes and such.

    fire ants

    Aardvarks!

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:38AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:38AM (#536437) Journal

      I didn't say these problems are unsolvable, I'm just curious how they solved them.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:28PM (4 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:28PM (#536520)

    There will n doubt be demand for "Vertical gardeners", but probably not nearly as much as you imagine. Forests have been thriving for hundreds of millions of years without human intervention, gardening is about imposing your own ideas on what would otherwise happen naturally.

    Furthermore, Asian gardens are often far less confrontational about the process - where Western gardens are all about imposing (pseudo-)geometric shapes and unnatural plant distributions, Eastern gardens are often far more about augmenting and refining what nature wishes to do anyway.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:14PM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:14PM (#536534) Journal

      Forests have been thriving for hundreds of millions of years without human intervention, gardening is about imposing your own ideas on what would otherwise happen naturally.

      I can bet they'll use slow growing trees and dwarf varieties. Because their purpose is to have a manageable "vertical forest".
      I don't think they'll use eucalyptus or sequoia.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:55PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:55PM (#536589)

        A good bet I'd say.

        Select the right species, well suited to each other and the environment, and they should require very little maintenance once established.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:29PM (#536581)

      No clue what you mean by "Asian gardeners" but I live in "Asia." The gardeners here are frigging horrific. There's minimal to no notion of naturalism OR aesthetic. Trim a tree? That apparently translates to stripping it damn near bare. Not a communication issue either as it's like this everywhere.

      If by Asia you mean Japan then... perhaps. I have not lived there, but from what I know their culture (largely thanks to Shinto) places a high value on nature and 'natural nature.' But that's a major exception compared to Asia as a whole where nature is generally seen as something to be butchered in the most efficient means possible. In any case Asia stereotypes are very much not Asia in nearly all cases.

      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 10 2017, @12:52PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday July 10 2017, @12:52PM (#537097)

        I think you're right - I was probably thinking specifically of Japanese gardens.