Houses, offices, public buildings, hotels: all covered by trees and plants. It is the project "Liuzhou Forest City", designed by Stefano Boeri Architects, who will create a completely green city in China to combat atmospheric pollution. The masterplan was commissioned by Liuzhou Municipal Urban Planning and should be completed by 2020.
Capable of hosting 30,000 people (on an area of 175 hectares along the Liujiang River), the new Chinese city thanks to the massive presence of plants will be able to absorb about 10,000 tons of CO2 every year
The green city will be connected to Liuzhou by a fast rail line and will be energy-intensive, although the major novelty is without doubt its "green" skin, with trees and plants on every building of any size and destination.
Overall Liuzhou Forest City will host 40,000 trees and about 1 million plants of more than 100 species.
"Spreading plants not only along the avenues, parks and gardens, but also on the façades of buildings, will allow a city that is already energy-intensive to help improve air quality - reads the presentation of the Project on the site of the architecture studio - to reduce the average temperature, to create a barrier to noise and to increase the biodiversity of living species, creating a system of living spaces for birds, insects and small animals inhabiting the territory of Liuzhou. For the first time in China and the world, a next-generation urban settlement will join the challenge of energy self-sufficiency and the use of renewable energies the challenge of increasing biodiversity and that - crucial to contemporary China - to substantially reduce the 'Air pollution in large cities, thanks to the multiplication of urban and vegetal surfaces'.
Cover photo from www.stefanoboeriarchitetti.net.