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.
In Eindhoven, the first “vertical forest” designed for social housing carries 135 trees and some 5,200 shrubs and plants on its four façades. The decisive move is almost invisible: a palette of six standardised planter types, drawn to cut fabrication and maintenance costs. The feat is not botanical, it is economic — and that is exactly what interests us.
The most frequent objection to living buildings is neither technical nor aesthetic: “it costs more”. Trudo answers by example, translating into an affordable version a principle that first appeared in Milan in a very different market. Standardising a small number of components — rather than heroic bespoke — is an approach we believe travels far beyond towers: to a pergola, a climbing façade, a roof.
The reservations are those of its family of projects: the living world stays in planters, off the ground, with no documented soil continuity at the building’s foot; and delivery is recent — we will wait for the five-year feedback before calling it proof of durability. An affordable version does not solve the question of soil; it solves the question of cost, which is already a lot.
What we take away
- The most direct answer we know to “it costs more”: the same principle, by the same architect, delivered as social housing.
- Six standardised planter types as the cost lever — a product-range logic that transfers to far more modest devices.
- Maintenance designed from day one for a social budget, where the Milanese original relies on high service charges.
What leaves us wondering
- No open ground, no ecological continuity at street level: the affordable version does not lift the core limit of the vertical-forest family.
- Delivered in 2021: hindsight is still missing — worth revisiting around year five before citing it as proof of durability.
This project is the work of Stefano Boeri Architetti. The analytical sketch is by LIBER.ARCHI; original photographs and documents belong to their authors and are best discovered at the source.
View the project — Stefano Boeri Architetti — page du projetLIBER.ARCHI analytical sketch — our reading of the project, not a reproduction.
Guillaume Ciletti
Licensed Architect (HMONP) — Founder of LIBER.ARCHI