Watch & critical readings
Inspirations
Projects, elsewhere, that truly make room for the living world. We put them through a demanding filter, keep the best — and say what leaves us unconvinced. Neither a catalogue nor a pantheon: a rigorous reference notebook.
Ateliers Jean Nouvel × Patrick BlancSydney, Australie2014
One Central Park: the green wall works — but for whom?
35,000 plants on cables, fed by recycled water, and shading said to cut air-conditioning by a third. A living wall that serves the residents — while what it gives back to wildlife remains an open question.
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Boeri StudioMilan, Italie2014
Bosco Verticale, ten years on: what a tree on a façade proves
480 large trees thirty metres above ground, and ten years of photographs to vouch for them. Milan’s icon proves one rare thing — that it lasts — and leaves another wide open: the ground.
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Stefano Boeri ArchitettiEindhoven, Pays-Bas2021
Trudo Vertical Forest: the vertical forest at social rent
135 trees and 5,200 shrubs on a social housing tower. The point is not primarily ecological: it is proof that a principle reputed luxurious can be delivered on a controlled budget.
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Grand HuitParis 19ᵉ, France2019
La Ferme du Rail, or the living world paying its own gardener
Along Paris’s old rail belt, an orchard, a permaculture mound and a greenhouse-restaurant run a social housing project. Here the living world is not an extra: it is the programme — and it funds its own upkeep.
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