The Egyptian desert is set to host the African continent’s first vertical forest.
Italian architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri has unveiled designs for three buildings covered with pollution-absorbing trees and plants in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital, which is under construction in the desert east of Cairo.
Boeri’s Milan-based practice, Stefano Boeri Architetti, has designed vertical forests for cities around the world – but the Egyptian project will be the first of its kind for Africa.
He is collaborating with Egyptian designer Shimaa Shalash and Italian landscape architect Laura Gatti on the trio of cube-shaped, seven-storey buildings that will comprise the development in the nascent city.
The buildings will have planted terraces containing 350 trees and 14,000 shrubs of more than 100 different species. One of the three buildings will be a hotel, while the other two will house apartment units.
The planned new capital will eventually host ministries, embassies, residential neighbourhoods and a financial district. It will replace the current capital, Cairo, which suffers from severe overcrowding, traffic congestion and air pollution.
Vertical forests pack thousands of square metres of greenery into just a few hundred square metres of urban space, providing shade and creating habitats for birds and insects, according to Boeri.
The trees, shrubs and plants absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and filter dust from the air.
The concept took off in 2014, with Milan’s Bosco Verticale, a pair of residential 110- and 76 meter tower blocks, designed by Boeri, with around 900 trees and more than 20,000 smaller plants and shrubs.
Fuente: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM