Africa’s first vertical forest? This will, certainly, be it!
Stefano Boeri, an experienced Italian architect and urban planner, has officially released designs for three big vertical forest buildings covered with pollution-absorbing plants and trees in Egypt’s new administrative capital which is, currently, under construction in the desert that is east of Cairo.
If built as drawn, the desert will host Africa’s first vertical forest, something which has already excited people from different quarters.
Boeri’s Milan-based architectural firm, Stefano Boeri Architetti, has designed many such vertical forests for various cities across the globe but the Egypt’s designs are set to be the first in Africa.
The Boeri’s firm is working with Shimaa Shalash, an Egyptian designer and Italian landscape architect Laura Gatti on the designs of the three cube-shaped seven storey buildings that will house the development in the nascent city.
According to the designs, the buildings will have terraces in which at least 350 trees and more than 14,000 shrubs of at least 100 species shall be planted. Two of the three buildings will have apartments units while the third one will be a hotel.
It is expected that the new vertical forest city will eventually play home to ministries, financial district, embassies and residential neighborhoods and will replace the current Cairo, a city which is overwhelmed in terms of overcrowding, air pollution and traffic congestion.
According to Boeri, apart from just creating habitat for insects and birds and providing shade, vertical forests also reduces what could have been thousands of square meters of greenery into just a few hundred meters of urban space.
Boeri’s concept of vertical forest cities took off in 2014 when the Milan’s Bosco Verticale, a pair of residential 110 and 76 meter long tower blocks finally came up having an estimated 900 trees and at least 20,000 smaller plants.
The architect designed another big project, the Liuzhou Forest City, which is already under construction in Guangxi, southern Chinese province.
The project will see buildings carrying way more than 40,000 trees and around one million plants come up. The trees in this Chinese city will absorb tonnes of CO2 and other pollutants while, at the same time, producing around 900 tonnes of oxygen.
