Albania’s capital city, Tirana, is slated to receive the country’s first Vertical Forest in a scheme designed by Milanese architecture firm, Stefano Boeri Architetti. Originating as part of the city’s new development master plan completed by the firm 3 years ago, the building will greatly increase the amount of greenery within and around the metropolitan area. Tirana’s Vertical Forest will contain 21 floors above ground with 4 more below and will be populated by 105 apartment units above a primarily commercial ground floor.

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MIPM and The Architectural Review have recognized “Wonderwoods” by MVSA Architects and Stefano Boeri Architetti as the overall winner for their Future Projects Award 2019. Developed for client G&S Vastgoed, the twin 90-meter towers in Utrecht, The Netherlands, provide a balance between nature and the city.

The defining feature of the scheme is a living green façade absorbing 5.4 tonnes of CO2 per year, behind which sits a mix of homes, offices, and public facilities. The scheme is one of several projects to win at the 2019 awards, with 16 award categories celebrating the flourishing of nature in the city, seeking to “restore our ability to connect with the natural world as our planet undergoes the largest wave of urban growth in history.”

+ 16

Stefano Boeri Architetti has created a new sustainable housing project for Antwerp, Belgium. Called Palazzo Verde, the design is formed with a semi-public garden at the ground floor and three large terraces of roof gardens. The project will include 86 trees, 2200 shrubs and perennials and 428,88 square meters of green surface. As the firm's first project in the country, the housing will be part of the Nieuw Zuid district to become a new landmark for the city.

Work has started on Stefano Boeri Architetti's multifunctional building Blloku Cube, the first element of a larger masterplan in Tirana. Located at the intersection of Pjeter Bogdani and Vaso Pasha streets, the project is sited in a up-and-coming center of city life in Blloku district. Taking cues from the Albanese capital, the design combines a multifunctional program of commercial, office and rooftop garden space. The project features an anodized aluminum double-skin cladding, a pattern facade that becomes a signature piece of architecture within the surrounding post-communist developments.

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+ 31

• Architects

  Stefano Boeri Architetti China

• Location

  Jing’an District, Shanghai, China

• Category

  Office buildings

• Lead Architects

  Stefano Boeri, Yibo Xu

• Project Architect

  Pietro Chiodi

• Design Coordinator

  Yifan Xu

• Design Team

  Yitao Huang, Zhiyang Huang, Wenhai Zhu

• Client

  Green Capital Group

• Area

  4062.0 m2

• Project Year

  2017

• Photographs

  Paolo Roselli

For the 2018 Venice Biennale, Stefano Boeri Architetti presents Slow Food Freespace, the first Slow Village to be constructed in Sichuan, China. Made in collaboration with Slow Food Movement, speakers Stefano Boeri and Carlo Petrini discussed the project at the event “Across Chinese Cities - The Community.”

For the Slow Food China project, Stefano Boeri Architetti has designed a school, a library and a small museum for the villages involved, free of charge. The program attempts to encourage millions of Chinese farmers to stay in their rural districts, combatting the unprecedented emigration to cities which has grown in the last few years. By offering educational facilities and cultural landmarks to these rural communities, it inspires the preservation of local culture and acknowledges the importance of the agricultural economy.

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Stefano Boeri Architetti has released images of their proposed renovation of Matera Central Station in Southern Italy. Matera Central FAL railway station will be structurally altered through an “aesthetic and functional redevelopment together with technological upgrading of the railway itself.”

The proposal seeks to alter the existing hierarchy of space in the city by making the transport hub a genuine and significant urban landmark, rather than simply an infrastructural node. The scheme is therefore designed to incorporate a recognizable, pedestrianized public square, forming connections with the nearby historic city center.

+ 9

March 22 is World Water Day, an annual international celebration launched and organized by the United Nations. The goal of the day is to raise awareness about a wide range of water-based issues from around the world. This year’s theme is “Nature From Water”, which invites everyone to think about how nature can provide solutions to the water challenges we face today.

To celebrate World Water Day this year, we’ve rounded up 20 of our favorite projects that utilize water as a central design feature. Whether it be Zumthor's Thermal Vals or Chritso and Jeanne-Claude's Floating Piers, water has been playing an important role in architectural design and in demarcating the boundaries of nature against our built environment.

+ 21

Stefano Boeri Architetti has revealed the design of three new innovative schools to be built in Tirana, Albania, that will be open 24 hours a day, everyday of the year, transforming them into essential social centers for residents of all ages.

The three new structures will be integrated into Stefano Boeri Architetti’s competition-winning masterplan for Tirana, positioned within key social nodes of the Albanian capital’s northwest quarter: the neighborhoods of Don Bosco, Kodër-Kamëz and Shqiponja Square. Multiple schools will be housed within each of the three structures, which will also contain meeting and social spaces open and available to the entire community.

+ 6

The new social housing project by Stefano Boeri Architetti is the first to integrate a vertical forest into an affordable residential skyscraper, improving the living conditions often incurred within such developments. 5,200 shrubs and 125 trees will be planted up the 75m tall structure in Eindhoven.

Trudo Vertical Forest will contain 125 social housing units over 19 floors to house lower income social groups, particularly young people. Each apartment will include a balcony filled with an array of trees, plants and shrubs for a forest soaring into the city's sky.

In preparation for the first World Forum on Urban Forests promoted by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), which will be held from November 28 to December 1, 2018 in Mantova, Italy, Stefano Boeri Architetti has launched a global call for action regarding projects, strategies and ideas in relation to urban forestry.

We, designers of the first Vertical Forest in Milan, invite architects, urban planners, botanists, agronomists, forestry corps, tree growers, geographers, ethologists, landscape scientists, technicians, researchers and experts in green care and urban forestry, real estate developers, administrators and representatives of local institutions and civil society, members and representatives of international organizations, funding agencies, universities and research institutes, and NGOs,

In August 2016, a powerful 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck central Italy, resulting in the loss of nearly 300 lives and the destruction of centuries-worth of historic architecture. At the center of the destruction was Amatrice, a beautiful hill town set in the Latium Apennines, which was reduced to mere rubble, leaving hundreds dead or injured and the survivors homeless.

But the community could not be held down. Shortly after the disaster, rebuilding efforts began, with the assistance of some of Italy’s top architects, including Renzo Piano and Stefano Boeri Architetti, who were able to construct a brand new canteen in just a few weeks time.

+ 15

Can architecture and design reverse climate change? Architect and founding partner of Stefano Boeri Architetti (SBA), Stefano Boeri believes it can. Boeri’s Vertical Forest, a project which marries the natural and urban spheres through biodiversity and reforestation, has already come to fruition in Milan, is currently under construction in Beijing, and soon to be constructed in Shanghai. (Watch the video to learn more about Boeri’s Vertical Forest projects.)

The next Vertical Forest tower will be located in France, as Stefano Boeri Architetti have revealed renderings of their designs for Forêt Blanche, a 54-meter-tall mixed-use tower located within the Paris metropolitan region in Villiers-sur-Marne.

The latest in the family of Vertical Forest concepts, which have included built and planned projects for China, Europe, South America and the United States, Forêt Blanche will be covered by 2000 trees and plants – a green surface equivalent to a hectare of forest and more than 10 times the building footprint.

+ 4

Stefano Boeri Architetti’s next vertical forest project will be found in Utrecht, after the firm was selected as winners in an international competition for the construction of a new urban district in Jaarbeursboulevard. Dubbed the “Hawthrone Tower,” the first Dutch Vertical Forest will be one of two new high-rise towers to rise on the site in the Utrecht city center, located near the Utrecht Central Train Station, alongside a tower designed by Amsterdam-based MVSA studio.

The 90-meter-tall tower will be covered by 10,000 plants of different species (360 trees, 9,640 of shrubs and flowers), aimed at creating “an innovative experience of cohabitation between city and nature.” The green facade will allow Hawthorne Tower to absorb more than 5.4 tons of CO2, scrubbing the air for healthier living conditions for both residents of the tower and the wider city.

+ 26

• Architects

  Stefano Boeri Architetti

• Location

  Amatrice, Province of Rieti, Italy

• Category

  Student Hall

• Lead Architects

  Stefano Boeri, Corrado Longa, Marco Giorgio, Julia Gocalek, Daniele Barillari

• Area

  490.0 m2

• Project Year

  2016

• Photographs

  Francesco Mattuzzi, Stefano Boeri Architetti

I really hope that this experiment will become a reference for many other architects, for many other urban planners, for many other public administrators and politicians, in order to implement, improve and multiplicate the realization of forest cities in China and all over the world.

In this video, Stefano Boeri explains the design of the just-announced Lizhou Forest City, which, when completed in 2020, will become the world’s first ground-up city constructed employing the firm’s signature Vertical Forest research.

Boeri explains the evolution of the concept from their first Vertical Forest project in Milan to the Lizhou development, which will accommodate up to 30,000 people in a master plan of environmentally efficient structures covered top-to-bottom in plants and trees, as well as the planning processes required to bring the project to fruition.