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China’s First Vertical Forest Is Rising In Nanjing

China’s First Vertical Forest Is Rising In Nanjing

02/04/2017

By Lacy Cooke

Read More: http://inhabitat.com/chinas-first-ve...ng-in-nanjing/

Quote:

Stefano Boeri Architetti is bringing the vertical forest concept popularized in Milan to Nanjing, China with the Nanjing Towers. The two green towers could provide the city with a breath of fresh air, producing around 132 pounds of oxygen every day as they absorb carbon dioxide. They’ll accomplish this air-cleaning feat with 1,100 flourishing trees from 23 local species and 2,500 cascading shrubs and plants.

The two towers at 656 feet and 354 feet tall will rise above the Nanjing Pukou District, which Stefano Boeri Architetti’s press release describes as an area that will likely lead modernization efforts in the south of China’s Jiangsu province and help develop a Yangtze River economic zone. Nanjing Yang Zi State-owned Investment Group Company Limited is promoting the towers and is listed by Stefano Boeri Architetti as an investor in the project. --- The taller tower will hold offices, a museum, a green architecture school, and a rooftop club. The second tower will host a 247-room Hyatt hotel and rooftop swimming pool. A podium 65 feet high will include shops, restaurants, and a conference hall. Balconies on the buildings will allow inhabitants to get up close to the nature thriving on the building facades.

600 tall trees and 500 medium-sized trees will grow on the towers, and Stefano Boeri Architetti says the trees and cascading plants will help regenerate biodiversity in the area. Not only will the green towers be the first in China, but in all of Asia. And they probably won’t be the last – the ambitious architecture firm aims to design vertical forests in Shanghai, Guizhou, Shijiazhuang, Liuzhou, and Chongqing. Stefano Boeri Architetti aims to continue to popularize the concept with a book edited by their China office and published by Tongji University Press, A Forest City. The book is scheduled to come out in April. The Nanjing Towers are slated for completion in 2018.

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http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-conte...l-1020x541.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MipkJJn.jpg?1

http://i.imgur.com/z50Ffqs.jpg?1

i dk if i would call it a true vertical forest, thats quite the hype. its just a couple bldgs with somewhat more than typical plantings. it could be a good thing, at least until some storm blows something off of it and injures somebody.

I can't even imagine what maintenance on those buildings would be like 50 years from now ...

I know a fair bit about forests from restoration work. What forests do to store carbon is to produce a lot of soil. Twigs, branches, leaves, they build up and compress and compost.
Where is that supposed to happen in this vertical arangement? The litter will be cleaned up and put where?
There's a factor callled green waste, where lawn maintainence waste creates a bunch of methane as it rots. And doesn't form soil. So there are important details.

Ideally it would be transported to an off-site facility, as is generally the case with similar rooftop gardens (at least from my experience). I have no idea whether Nanjing has such facilities, but I'm sure there would be demand for fresh, uncontaminated compost in such a large city.

I heard that the plants and shrubs will cover 65,000 square feet of the buildings area. That's amazing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lecom (Post 7735399)

Demand for it IN a large city or on farms surrounding a large city. We be doin' that.

Quote:

April 18, 2012,

(San Francisco) knew that if it wanted to have a large-scale, city-wide composting program to make an actual dent in the overall waste stream, it would have to be mandatory. Its pilot program had shown that not only food scraps but yard trimmings, coffee cups, greasy pizza boxes and even milk and juice cartons could be broken down at Jepson Prairie Organics, a compost facility about 55 miles east of San Francisco in Vacaville. From there, the nutrient-rich organic fertilizer -- perfect for reconditioning soil due to its diverse feedstock -- could be distributed to surrounding farms, which in turn sell their produce to SF residents and restaurants, thus closing the loop locally.

After the board of supervisors passed the Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance in 2009, people quickly adapted to the new green carts. According to the San Francisco Department of the Environment, hundreds of thousands of residents and over 5,000 restaurants and other businesses now send over 600 tons of food scraps and other compostable material each day to Jepson Prairie.

http://www.alternet.org/story/155039...e_town_by_2020

Here, whatever drops from those buildings would just join the stream.

But I agree--there's a lot of manhours and cost there in maintenance, both of the greenery and of the underlying structure.

Locally sourced, organic grapes anyone?

Idk seems more hype and a marketing gimmick, especially in China. Travel there enough to be concerned about how it's going to built and maintained and put a bet of when it all deteriorates.