This eye-catching tower offers a welcome change from surrounding glass and concrete high-rise buildings with its lush exterior. Designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti, it hosts hundreds of trees and tens of thousands of plants, making life more pleasant for those who live inside.
The Wonderwoods Vertical Forest has been in the planning stages for several years, but now construction in Utrecht, the Netherlands, has been completed. It rises to a maximum height of 104 m (341 ft), making it a significant high-rise for a European city, but not some gigantic behemoth that dominates the skyline.
The building is part of a larger development and is connected to another nearby tower. Like much of Boeri's output over the last decade, it's defined by its planter-filled balconies, with 360 trees and 50,000 plants made up of 30 different native species installed. According to the firm, this is equivalent to the vegetation found in 1 hectare (almost 2.5 acres) of forest.
The greenery was developed in collaboration with Laura Gatti Studio and will be maintained by specialist gardeners. A series of sensors keep an eye on the growth and sound the alert if pruning or other maintenance is required, while a rainwater capture water system is installed for irrigation.
"This is a real urban ecosystem, a haven for the biodiversity of living species and in particular of the birds that populate the Dutch skies and find shelter in the circular holes created specifically in the facades of Wonderwoods Vertical Forest to house their nests," says Stefano Boeri Architetti.
The Wonderwoods Vertical Forest's interior hosts approximately 200 apartments of varying size (unfortunately no photos of those are available), along with leisure facilities, restaurants, some offices and fitness areas for residents. There is also bicycle parking and some public spaces surrounding the building.
Though the idea has been around forever, few firms are as responsible for pushing the modern trend of covering buildings in greenery as much as Stefano Boeri Architetti. Wonderwoods Vertical Forest follows a number of similar projects from the firm, including its first, the award-winning Bosco Verticale and the more recent Trudo Tower.
Source: Stefano Boeri Architetti
