Archinect - News

Stefano Boeri reveals master plan for vast sacred Buddhist site in Nepal

2023-12-15T18:15:00-05:00

Stefano Boeri Architetti has unveiled a master plan to enhance the Ramagrama Stupa, one of the most significant places in the Buddhist world.

The site is located in Ramagrama, a municipality within the Parasi district in western Nepal. The archaeological destination dates back to the earliest period of the Buddhist tradition. It is covered by a hill and by the centuries-old Bodhi Tree, a sacred tree in Buddhism characterized by a high level of biodiversity. Under this lies a still intact Stupa of Buddha, which is a dirt burial mound faced with stone that contains portions of the relics of Buddha. Today, the site presents itself as a green mound.

Image: Stefano Boeri Architetti

Various organizations and Buddhist communities have committed themselves to the preservation and sustainable enhancement of the Ramagrama Stupa. The aim has been to conserve this site in accordance with the standards set by UNESCO for World Heritage Sites. Stefano Boeri Architetti has, thus, been entrusted wit...

Architect Stefano Boeri faces bid-rigging allegations in Milan’s BEIC design competition

2023-10-12T19:53:00-04:00

Architect Stefano Boeri has responded to charges of alleged bid-rigging in relation to his role as the jury chair for a 2022 competition to design the new European Library of Information and Culture (BEIC) in Milan.

The 66-year-old Boeri told the Italian news agency ANSA this week, “I am calm and confirm my complete willingness to cooperate with the competent authorities to provide all the information in my possession in order to clarify a situation that I find unbelievable,” before saying he would not provide any further comments at this time.

The allegations were made public as news of an investigation on the part of local tax police broke earlier in the week. Boeri’s role in the investigation remains unclear, however, the “conflict of interest” at the center of the case reportedly includes “false declarations regarding the identity or personal qualities of oneself or others.” The connection architects Angelo Raffaele Lunati and Giancarlo Floridi, whose firm Onsitestudio was awar...

Stefano Boeri's first Vertical Forest in China completes in Hubei province

2022-01-25T14:16:00-05:00

A new landmark in the long history of Chinese housing experiments is about to be inaugurated as Stefano Boeri Architetti's “social forest” has been completed in Huanggang.

Located in Hubei Province’s second-largest city, Easyhome Huanggang Vertical Forest City Complex is a near-identical twin to the firm’s previous “social forest” development in the Netherlands. The new development consists of two residential towers in a five-building mixed-use complex taking up approximately 4.54 hectares (11.2 acres) in total area.

Image courtesy RAW VISION

According to the architect: “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. 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.”

Image courtesy RAW VISION

Image courtesy RA...

Stefano Boeri releases documentary about 'world’s first social housing vertical forest'

2021-12-22T14:59:00-05:00

Stefano Boeri Architetti has released a short documentary on the Trudo Vertical Forest, which the firm bills as “the first social housing vertical forest in the world.” Built in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, the project draws its inspiration from the firm’s Bosco Verticale in Milan.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The 19-story tower rises 230 feet (70 meters) and contains 125 apartments designed to accommodate long-income users, particularly young couples. In addition, thirty homes in the building have been reserved for asylum seekers, political refugees, and people with disabilities.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The facades are adorned with 135 trees of various species as well as 10,000 shrubs and plants. To service the extensive greenery, the scheme contains four collection tanks housing 20,000 liters of rainwater eac...

Domus Aurea reopens with an improved ramp and entryway from an Italian maestro

2021-06-30T18:03:00-04:00

The Domus Aurea in Rome is open once again with a new feature following a 14-month hiatus after the coronavirus pandemic forced the 2,000-year-old palace’s shutdown.

Stefano Boeri Architetti helped welcome back the public with an improved ramp and new entryway featuring an exhibition titled “Raphael and the Domus Aurea: The Invention of the Grotesques.” The event will coincide with a show at the Scuderie del Quirinale observing the 500th anniversary of the death of the painter and architect.

Photo: Lorenzo Masotto

Originally the replacement home of 1st-century ruler, Emperor Nero, the Domus came back into prominence during the High Renaissance in large part due to its display of ancient grottos filled with grotesques. The Roman paintings were noteworthy enough to attract visits from influential figures throughout Europe including luminaries like Michelangelo and the Marquis de Sade.

Now, with help from Boeri, the curious can once again be transported through the maze of frescoed gall...

Stefano Boeri envisions cuboid vertical forests for Egypt's new capital

2019-08-09T15:30:00-04:00

A trio of mid-rise residential towers proposed by Italian firm Stefano Boeri Architetti could help clean the air in Egypt's new administrative capital city, while also providing affordable housing for that city's residents.

Of the verdant towers, dubbed "Africa's first vertical forest" by the architects, two would contain affordable housing units while the third will contain a hotel. The trio of forested buildings is slated for a new 6.5-million resident city currently under construction roughly 30 miles east of Cairo.

The experimental buildings are proposed as part of a new town plan developed by Boeri and architect Francesca Cesa Bianchi, and could contain up to 350 trees and 14,000 shrubs when completed. The sustainably-minded town plan also envisions bringing green roofs to the district's existing buildings, in addition to erecting new, vertically-oriented plant-filled surfaces. So-called "green corridors" will link the new city together, as well, solidifying the beneficial imp...

Social housing goes green with another urban forest designed by Stefano Boeri

2018-01-11T14:15:00-05:00

A social housing project in the Netherlands plans to adopt a Vertical Forest designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti. Now Eindhoven will join the list of Vertical Forest cities Milan, Nanjing, Utrecht, Tirana, Lausanne, and Paris.

The client, Sint-Trudo, has instigated the first Vertical Forest project to be used by low-income social groups—tackling climate change and housing shortages in one project. The building will have 125 social housing units within 19 floors of apartments, which will be rented out at affordable rates and include balconies with hundreds of trees and plants.

Promoting sustainable architecture worldwide, the firm is committed to improving city environments for both the climate and its inhabitants.

Stefano Boeri envisions Vertical Forest Seeds on Mars in Shanghai Urban Space Art Season 2017

2017-10-19T14:58:00-04:00

Stefano Boeri's Vertical Forest towers are slowly popping up around the world. In Shanghai, the concept is transported to the Red Planet in “Vertical Forest Seeds on Mars”. The project is part of the Shanghai Urban Space and Art Season 2017 exhibition (SUSAS), which Stefano Boeri co-curated with Li Xiangning (Dean of the Tongji University School of Architecture and Urban Planning) and Fang Zhenning (independent artist and international critic).

Currently open at Shanghai's Minsheng Port, the three-month SUSAS exhibition showcases art, architecture, urban planning, and design projects that envision the future of today's cities.

Image credit: Stefano Boeri Architetti.

Developed by Stefano Boeri Architetti's China studio and Tongji University's Future City Lab as a response to Earth's rising sea levels, the project envisions a “colony of Shanghai on the Red Planet” in 2117. Habitable “eco-systemic seeds” would travel via an interplanetary space st...

Stefano Boeri joins curatorial team for Shanghai Urban Space Art Season 2017

2017-05-09T14:48:00-04:00

Stefano Boeri — known for designing the Vertical Forest typology — was recently appointed as a curator for the 2017 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, deemed as Shanghai's most relevant architecture, city planning, and public art event. Boeri will work alongside Dr. Li Xiangning, professor and dean’s assistant of Tongji University of Architecture and Urbanism, and international artist, art critic, and curator Fang Zhenning.

Image via stefanoboeriarchitetti.net

Opening this September at the Huangpu River waterfront, SUSAS' 2017 “Metropolitan Game” theme will focus on “practices of connection and disconnection” in response to the prominence of digital communication and the resulting “metropolitan loneliness” caused by lack of human contact in real life. Stefano Boeri Architetti will design a thematic central installation that will feature a “sequence” of public spaces for visitors to interact.

SUSAS will host various workshops, performances, and exhibitions showcasing design and research p...

Stefano Boeri to Build Asia's First "Vertical Forest"

2017-02-03T12:25:00-05:00

The Nanjing Green Towers designed by Stefano Boeri will become the first “Vertical Forest” built in Asia, according to a press release. Following the prototype of towers built in Milan, the two towers designed for Nanjing Pukou District comprise the “interchange of green tanks and balconies”.

600 tall trees, 500 medium-sized trees, and 2,500 plants and shrubs will cover the façade. It is, according to the architects, a “real vertical forest” capable of regenerating local biodiversity. The building will capture 25 tons of CO2 per year and produce about 60kg of oxygen per day.

The first tower—the taller of the two—will include a museum, a “green architecture” school and a private club. The second tower, which is 108 meters tall, will contain a Hyatt Hotel with a rooftop pool.

As an essay by Mark Minkjan for Failed Architecture once noted, these sort of green towers “never come to look as lavish as they are projected”. Plants have trouble surviving the smog and high winds present at such...

Boeri Studio wins over OMA, Jean Nouvel, and Steven Holl for International Highrise Award 2014

2014-11-25T18:05:00-05:00

Now in its sixth year, the International Highrise Award 2014 went to Bosco Verticale in Milan, Italy by Boeri Studio (Stefano Boeri Architetti and Barreca & La Varra) with developer Hines Italia SGR. The biennial award recognizes high-rise towers around the world that are considered to best combine exterior + interior, sustainable, and social aspects. Buildings had to be at least 100 meters tall and commissioned within the last two years.

WINNER OF INTERNATIONAL HIGHRISE AWARD 2014: "Bosco Verticale"
by Boeri Studio (Stefano Boeri Architetti and Barreca & La Varra)

SHORTLISTED FINALISTS:

“De Rotterdam” by Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)

“One Central Park” by Ateliers Jean Nouvel

“Renaissance Barcelona Fira Hotel” by Ateliers Jean Nouvel

Sliced Porosity Block by Steven Holl Architects

More photos and other details on Bustler.

Editor's Picks #368

2014-05-21T13:08:00-04:00

For the latest edition of The Deans List, Archinect spoke with Chris Knapp, Discipline Leader of Bond University's Abedian School of Architecture in Queensland, Australia.

Therein he argues "Investigating things materially is something very, very important for us, and engendered in the philosophy of the school. It’s trying to look more broadly and ask where the profession will be in ten, twenty years from now. Digital design tools, digital fabrication and computer aided assembly or robotic assembly are all going to be much more pervasive, especially on construction sites".

The interview/school reminded Robert Payton of "THE EARLY DAYS OF SCI-ARC" while Ryan Wainwright noted he "had the benefit of being a student of Chris Knapp's while he was teaching at the University of Michigan. He truly is an inspirational professor".

Plus, Amelia and Paul spoke with Patrick Creadon Director of If You Build It, which documents a year in the classroom of Project H.

News

Serious Science featured Mark ...

Boeri Studio's Bosco Verticale in Milan makes the forest tower fantasy a reality

2014-05-16T14:14:00-04:00

Boeri Studio will soon realize the dream of the forest tower with Bosco Verticale, or Vertical Forest -- and they're building two. The thought of a tower "built" out of living greenery has been rendered by architects numerous times, it has reached the point where it's considered a trope of green architecture. But from an idealistic view, seeing the tree-tower design get past the planning stage and move toward completion is quite refreshing, if not intriguing, to say the least.

Located in Milan's redeveloping complex of Porta Nuova Isola, Vertical Forest was designed to help alleviate the city's increasing air pollution problem and provide a biological urban habitat in a total area of 40,000 m2.

The towers -- at 110 meters and 76 meters tall -- allegedly have 900 trees (measuring between 3m-6m) already planted in the residential balconies, along with 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 floral plants on terraces up to the 27th floor. As described by the studio, the vast number of plants will not on...

An open letter to Milan's Mayor about his dismissal of Stefano Boeri

2013-03-27T12:06:00-04:00

Open letter to Giuliano Pisapia, Mayor of Milan, from the international community of arts & culture...

Dear Mayor Pisapia,

It is with regret and disappointment that we learn that Stefano Boeri was dismissed from his position as Councillor for Design, Fashion and Culture for the city of Milan.

Thanks to the energy and commitment of Boeri, and despite the deepening of the gravest crisis to have faced Italy since the postwar years, since 2011 Milan has succeded in projecting an image of renewed cultural vibrancy and dynamism onto the international stage. Thanks to Boeri's many initiatives—citywide events such as Book City and Piano City, or international exhibitions of internationally renowned artists such as the Marina Abramovic, Picasso, Bramantino, Alberto Garutti and Jeff Wall—Milan had finally succeeded in reaffirming itself forcefully on the international stage as an epicentre of art, design, fashion and culture.

Mayor Giuliano Pisapia

This unmotivated dismissal de...

Editor's Picks #233

2011-10-16T14:10:47-04:00

Anthony J. Lumsden, a prolific Southern California architect who helped develop new ways of wrapping buildings in smooth glass skins, died Sept. 22 in Los Angeles. eric chavkin shared a personal memory “I remember Tony Lumsden. He taught 5th year studio at SCI-Arc , the time between Cesar Pelli and Alberto Bertolli...Lumsden's after work crits started from later afternoon and lasted to evening , always over-sketching on flimsy. A roll a night. One student after another.”

Sherin Wing, takes A Macro Look at Unemployment and the Economy. In the piece she examines what the architecture profession can do in the face of high unemploymentand the current macro economic conditions. Most importantly, she believes “First, they must stop simply immersing themselves in a narrow vision of the profession as merely one of buildings, spaces, and aesthetics. They must understand the larger context of both their national and the global economy and how the architecture industry is shaped by those forces. And they must be involved politically. In the famous words of Frederick Douglass, “Agitate, agitate.” A collective voice of both the unemployed and employed in architecture would prove powerful indeed.” Gregory Walker, argued in his response that “We need a WPA style program because our infrastructure, which makes Rick Perry’s report card look good, is aging to the degree that we will see many countries surpass us (qualitatively) in the near future, making them incr...