China has pollution problems and one Italian architect could have some answers.
The Chinese city of Nanjing is getting a Vertical Forest, a set of two buildings stylised with around 1,100 trees and a combination of over 2,500 shrubs and plants.
The Nanjing Towers will be the first “vertical forest” built in Asia, the Italian architecture firm Stefano Boeria said.
But it’s not all about how it looks: The Nanjing Towers will absorb enough carbon dioxide to make around 132 pounds (60 kilograms) of oxygen every day, an official press release claimed. China’s Vertical Forest is scheduled to be completed sometime next year.
At the time of writing, Nanjing has an air-quality index of 167 , which categorizes it as “unhealthy.” For reference, Sydney and New York both have “moderate” indexes of around 60, while London its at about 100, teetering between “moderate” and “unhealthy.”
It’ll be the third city to get a Vertical Forest, following ones built in Milan, Italy and Losanna, Switzerland.
The towers will stand at 354- and 656-feet tall, respectively, reports Italian publication Living. The shorter tower will house a Hyatt hotel, while the taller one will be home to a museum, offices and an architecture school.
It won’t stop here though, as the architecture firm Stefano Boeri has plans to build similar structures in Chongqing, Shijiazhuang, Liuzhou, Guizhou and Shanghai, according to Living.
As Beijing issued its first pollution “red alert” the extreme health and environmental impact is evident in these before and after images of the …
