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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.


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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 08 2017, @11:47AM (7 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday July 08 2017, @11:47AM (#536497) Journal

    The town is designed to reduce pollutants and consume less resources. The need for this is lessened if there are less people.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:09PM (5 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:09PM (#536514) Journal

    The town is designed to reduce pollutants and consume less resources.

    How about looking to the side effect of making the life more enjoyable by bringing nature close to urban environ?
    If you do make from this your primary target (with less pollution and lower resources being side effect) buildings like this make sense even at a lower level of population (e.g. technological advances are improbable in sparse population, lets bring them together in a city but let them have nature nearby)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:33PM (4 children)

      by kaszz (4211) on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:33PM (#536522) Journal

      Bringing nature to the urban environment is not a counter point. It's just that at the core we simple have to make less kids. And make sure that those that are born have high chances to live a good life. That entails both obligations and rights.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:08PM (3 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:08PM (#536533) Journal

        Bringing nature to the urban environment is not a counter point...

        More than that, I argue you can make it the main point.

        It's just that at the core we simple have to make less kids.

        Isn't it amazing that, as societies develops, they usually experience a slump in population growth (and an increase in life expectancy)? To the point in which they need immigration to keep their population stable (e.g. Germany encouraged Turkish immigrating during '60-'70 [wikipedia.org]).
        Here, pick your own countries [worldbank.org]

        If you want less kids, the solution is simple: help them develop their society.

        And make sure that those that are born have high chances to live a good life.

        Unfortunately, as they develop, it is the environment foot-print that explodes.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:45PM (2 children)

          by kaszz (4211) on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:45PM (#536570) Journal

          Some regions have ingrained belief systems that makes progress a very slow process if it moves at all.

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:10PM (1 child)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 08 2017, @05:10PM (#536576) Journal

            You better leave those regions alone instead of stirring up wars in there.
            War/famine/etc is a condition which favours a higher birth rate, as a mean to group survival

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @07:26PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @07:26PM (#542515)

              Poverty leads to a higher birth rate. Famine does not [nih.gov]—quite the opposite, famine brings a drop in fertility. Famine can be the result of a high birth rate.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 09 2017, @04:54AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 09 2017, @04:54AM (#536749) Journal

    The town is designed to reduce pollutants and consume less resources. The need for this is lessened if there are less people.

    I guess my take on this is that this design would work now for that purpose, while lowering population by having less kids is likely to take a few centuries to really kick in, assuming we don't get huge longevity gains before then.