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: what we ask of a green wall
In Sydney, twenty-three green walls by Patrick Blanc clothe Jean Nouvel’s towers, watered with the building’s own recycled water. They are credited with cooling and cleaner air, yet we have not found a single published measurement of either.
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Boeri StudioMilan, Italie2014
Bosco Verticale: the tree you have to be able to reach
In Milan, 800 trees have lived on the balconies of two residential towers since 2014. They owe it as much to the arborists’ ropes and the building’s rules as to its structural design.
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Stefano Boeri ArchitettiEindhoven, Pays-Bas2021
Trudo Vertical Forest: trees at social rent
In Eindhoven, a social housing tower gives every flat a tree on its terrace. The money for the trees was found in the rest of the building, which was kept deliberately ordinary.
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Grand HuitParis 19ᵉ, France2019
La Ferme du Rail, a building that serves its soil
Along the Petite Ceinture, Paris’s old rail belt, La Ferme du Rail houses and trains people rebuilding their working lives around a vegetable garden in open ground. Its building works for that soil: it brings it water, matter and gardeners.
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