Vertical gardens : zona di decentramento 8, Milano

The Vertical Gardens project is based on the notion of Vertical Farms (coined by Columbia University Professor Dickson Despommier in 1999) and a series of movements based local to the site in Milan. The site is within a kilometer from the 290,000m² Porta Nuova urban improvement project. The philosophy stems from Giuseppe Pagano’s 1938 Milano Verde project as well as other leading contemporary architects, such as Boeri Studio (who had presented Biomilano, a February 2011 exhibition and eponymously named book based around biodiversity). The project is an apartment tower with gardening capacity to allow residents to grow vegetables within the confines of their urban dwelling, above the lively city. Intended as an exemplary step forward in private urban space-use, the Vertical Gardens create a futuristic vision for environmentally conscious urbanites. Their main energy saving feature is the potential reduction of imported food products. The tower’s architecture recognizes and distinguishes between plant space and dwelling space, attempting a symbiotic environment that will offer both rural and urban benefits to the inhabitants.