The world is increasingly becoming a bad place for human kind. Especially, living in urban areas is so hard to sustain. The main reason for it is the lesser amount of nature in the town areas.
In Colombo or the Western Province we witness this harsh reality thoroughly, because more and more multi-storied building complexes were started to build up in these areas during the past decade or so, decreasing the natural environment drastically. Comparing those lands with decade ago-environment on a map, one can notice the difference.
‘Smart Forest City’
Anyway, an Italian architect, Stefano Boeri has discovered a solution to this crisis. He introduces a new city concept: ‘Forest City’ or ‘Smart Forest City’. Through this, he would offer us green spaces among concrete buildings in urban areas. First, he showcased a sample of his concept in Italy building up Bosco Verticale project in Milan. Then, a few years ago, he started a building project in Cancun, Mexico with 7.5 million trees and plants. And another smart forest city is underway in Singapore. But his greatest success is to launch “the first Forest City in the world” in Liuzhou, China.
Liuzhou situated in southwestern Guangxi province, is one of the most smog-affected cities in the world, hence why it has been chosen as a host for Boeri’s work. The Liuzhou Forest City will house 30,000 people, along with 40,000 trees and more than a million plants from over 100 different species.
Described as an “urban organism”, it is designed to absorb 9,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, along with more than 50 tonnes of micro-particles too. The idea is that it can help improve the air quality, as well as combat carbon emissions.
World’s first ‘Vertical Forest City’
Meanwhile, last month, Stefano Boeri completed the world’s first ‘Vertical Forest City’ in Huanggang, Hubei Province, about 70 kilometres east of Wuhan. It is titled the Easyhome Huanggang Vertical Forest City Complex, and includes two residential and three commercial towers over 4.54 hectares. This provides a home to around 500 people - and over 5,000 shrubs and trees, and 2,409 square metres of perennial grass, flowers and climbing plants.
All the foliage in the project has been selected from native, non-invasive species. There are also 404 trees, predominantly Ginkgo biloba - which is a type of Ginkgoales, an ancient order of trees dating back more than 290 million years. As Huanggang is home to more than 1.2 million people, this type of environmental oriented city project is very much needed.
The city complex has opened to its first tenants in Huanggang. The project consists of five towers, two of which are designated as residential and have been crafted to be high-scaling vertical forests. Integrating residences, hospitality and commercial spaces, the development is designed to meet the daily needs of a number of different individuals - residents, guests, inhabitants and tourists.
Brainchild
“The design allows an excellent view of the tree-lined façades, enhancing the sensorial experience of the greenery and integrating the plant landscape with the architectural dimension,” architect Stefano Boeri said about the project. “Thus, the inhabitants of the residential towers have the opportunity to experience the urban space from a different perspective while fully enjoying the comfort of being surrounded by nature.”
The architect Stefano Boeri has been living in China for a decade, and to launch these projects in China, he first formed a company named ‘Stefano Boeri Architetti China’. So all these initiatives were designed and carried out by it. Its Project Director Pietro Chiodi said about the Huanggang Forest City Complex: “the first Vertical Forest built in China has a double meaning: for us, it opens a new architectural typology - with extruded volumes fitting among the trees - while for Huanggang it may trigger an overall process of regeneration and redevelopment of the urban context.”
Life among nature
In creating this towering greenscape, Stefano Boeri Architetti China used plant life samples throughout the region. The tower uses 404 trees (consisting of Ginkgo biloba, Osmanthus fragrans, Acer griseum, Ligustrum lucidum and Chimonanthus praecox); 4620 shrubs (consisting of Hibiscus mutabilis, Elaeagnus pungens, Nandina domestica and Euonymus alatus); and 26,000 square feet of grass, flowers and various climbing plants (consisting of Ophiopogon bodinieri, Sedum lineare and Liriope spicata).
It is expected that over the course of their lifetime, the plants will help absorb 22 tons of carbon dioxide per year and generate 11 tons of oxygen.
“The completion of Huanggang Vertical Forest City Complex is a big step in the practice of Stefano Boeri’s green concept in China,” commented Xu Yibo, Partner of Stefano Boeri Architetti China. “This project represents very comforting news for all of us: we hope that one day everyone will have the chance to live close to nature in their own private area rather than just in public buildings. The Vertical Forest model in residences will fundamentally transform the landscape of future cities and change people’s expectations for future ecological life”
Why China choose this path
But why did China take the lead in forest city projects in the world? One can bring this question. In fact, China’s President Xi Jin Pin pledged to the United Nations last fall that his country will go carbon-neutral by 2060 in order to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goal. So it is not surprising they have come this far in this endeavour.
On the other hand, China is at the forefront among the leading countries which have polluted the environment most - United States, India, Brazil, and Australia are among others, but still unable to sign on to a cutback on carbon emissions. To meet the target of reducing carbon emissions, China will need tons of trees and plants in cities and towns. So, this is an inevitable project for them. But not just China, Mexico and Singapore, but also other countries should reach this path of environmental protection.
In fact, reforestation is not an enough answer for environmental issues. Changing our way of life is essential for avoiding upcoming climatic catastrophes. As journalist and environmentalist Karen S. Zhang mentioned in Virginia Tech web site, “In view of the rapid loss of tropical forests worldwide, from Brazil’s Amazon rainforest to Indonesia, where deforestation dropped 60 percent in 2017, humankind needs to slow down exploitation of forest resources for economic gain and look for alternatives to substitute for such declining natural resources.”
In this way, the forest city concept is, no doubt, the best discovery in the new millennium. We all adopt it in our development projects promptly.