An Inhabitable Tower Of Trees Going Up In Milan, Italy

Urban environments are noisy and polluted. Trees can help mitigate those problems, but there's a limited amount of space available in the core of cities to plant them. The solution may be found by looking up. 27 stories up, to be precise.

In Milan, Italy, Stefano Boeri Architettidesigned an apartment building called Bosco Verticale, which means vertical forest. The building is under construction now, and when it is complete, the exterior will hold hundreds of trees; enough to cover 10,000 square meters of level ground. These aren't a few small trees in pots on a balcony, but an entire building cloaked in greenery. The balconies are staggered to allow trees to grow to the height of 2 stories. Shrubs and other plants will fill in the smaller spaces and grey water collected from the building will be used for watering.

The trees on the building will help filter pollution, produce oxygen and help regulate internal building temperatures and energy needs. They will also help block noise pollution for the apartment residents and create a unique visual landmark. When it's finished it will be as close to living in a tree house as is possible in an urban environment, but more importantly, vertical growth may be the wave of the future as population pressures increase urban sprawl and decrease the amount of space we have to feed and house all the people on the planet. Vertical farms are seriously being considered, but the Bosco Verticale is the first vertical forest in the world that is actually being built. May it not be the last.