[HN Gopher] The Greening of Milan: Porta Nuova and Vertical Forest
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The Greening of Milan: Porta Nuova and Vertical Forest
Author : dnetesn
Score : 62 points
Date : 2023-10-02 10:16 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (worldsensorium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (worldsensorium.com)
| hammon wrote:
| [dead]
| lend000 wrote:
| Practical considerations aside, it intuitively seems like making
| green covered skyscrapers like this can actually increase the
| primary productivity of a given ground area.
|
| In a typical dense forest, plants at the top of the canopy are
| probably not efficiently using all of the light they absorb, and
| much is lost to branches. Given how many plants can thrive
| without any direct sunlight, just having sunlight for half the
| day from an angle (a plant on one of the balconies) is probably
| forcing more efficiency and growth out of the plant relative to
| the amount of light energy it receives.
|
| I suppose if the ground was covered in skyscrapers of comparable
| height, the effect would be more or less neutralized by the shade
| from neighboring buildings.
| erulabs wrote:
| It's funny because (anecdotally based on visiting Milan once)
| I've come to use Milan as an example of a city made almost
| entirely of rock and stone, with virtually zero green anywhere to
| be seen.
|
| Granted, I was there for one week, but it was markedly different
| from any other large European city I've been to. I hope they
| install a few trees at street level and along the canal as well!
| toyg wrote:
| _Ma Milano e verde!_ ( "But Milan is full of green!") is a bit
| of a meme over there. Because it's both true and false at the
| same time: yes, the city centre has precious few green spaces,
| lacking an equivalent to Central Park or Hyde Park; but more
| and more people now live on the outskirts, the _hinterland_ ,
| and actually those surrounding areas are pretty green still.
| kome wrote:
| "One of the cities leading the way in embracing sustainability
| and environmentally friendly urban design is Milan"
|
| Milan is one of the most polluted cities of the western world
| (looking at the data[1]) and a literal death trap for cyclists
| and pedestrians. The numbers of car is out of control.
|
| So... there is a long way to go to make it sustainable and
| environmentally friendly. Some token building for multi-
| millionaires doesn't really help, sorry.
|
| [1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/urban-air-
| quality/europ...
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Sound urban planning is extremely important. From the
| perspective of human history, urban planning is permanent. It
| is an extremely rigid medium. Nothing short of catastrophic
| destruction can hope to alter city plans once implemented.
|
| The urban planning we have today, if we have anything we can
| even call urban planning, is often abysmal. Developers can
| basically build with no thought or care given to the long-term
| consequences of their actions (which, frankly, is what city
| planners should be concerned with, but alas).
|
| One example: strip farmland, near or in cities, rezoned for
| development. Strip farmland is divided into narrow strips with
| unpaved country roads offering farm equipment access to the
| farmer's crop. This makes sense as narrow strips reduce the
| distance a farmer must travel down the country road to get to
| his plot. It also takes fewer turns of the farm equipment to
| harvest said crop.
|
| The problem, however, is that developers then build for that
| narrow plot in isolation. That means a dead end street is paved
| off the (probably by now paved) country road. The process
| repeats as more farmers sell off their individual plots. The
| result is a comb configuration.
|
| Why is this a problem? Well, because now you have all these
| little dead end streets that feed into one, long, skinny
| country road. Because of the lack of proper urban planning,
| residents are forced to drive to stores, work, schools, etc.
| because none of these were included by developers in these
| developments, leading to traffic congestion. And if they were
| included, it still sucks to navigate the terrain because the
| country road is the only traffic artery, and it risks turning
| into a so-called city "stroad" that is hostile to pedestrians.
|
| You could mitigate this to some degree with some very modest
| regulation of land use. For example, the selective use of
| eminent domain to prevent building N meters from the narrow
| ends of the plot to allow for future street construction (to
| complete the comb into a grid) or non-residential buildings
| like stores, schools, and businesses.
|
| Of course, developers can screw up large plots of land just as
| well, so at least the strip farm limits his reach. The point is
| that, whatever, the case, the city or town must not allow
| developers to _dictate_ urban planning.
| riffraff wrote:
| Milan is plagued by choices unrelated to past urban planning,
| e.g. it is in an aeea where geography traditionally led to
| stagnating air (fog was a defining characteristic of Milan)
| and this has impacts on pollution.
|
| But it's also really polluted because there are a bunch of
| really old heating systems. That would require almost zero
| planning, but it requires political will.
| gnrlst wrote:
| Milan is not very different from any other EU city. It's just
| that the majority of the pollution stagnates due to the
| mountains surrounding the city preventing airflow. There was a
| famous individual who proposed to wipe out a mountain to solve
| this...as you can imagine that is a little too drastic.
| pmontra wrote:
| That was to let wind blow in the Po valley from the West.
|
| You can auto translate this from Italian for the details
| https://www.vice.com/it/article/bj7dn8/il-folle-progetto-
| di-...
| idiocratic wrote:
| It is nice, but nobody except celebrities and super rich people
| can afford any of these apartments. It's easy to create nice
| things for extremely rich people, the real challenge in Milan is
| to provide aesthetically pleasing and environmentally sustainable
| buildings and neighbourhoods for the 99%.
| casta wrote:
| Ironically, the "case di ringhiera"
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_di_ringhiera that were
| supposed to be cheap housing, are now aesthetically pleasing.
| smohnot wrote:
| I've been there a few times & spoken to people who live there.
| It's beautiful but requires a LOT of maintenance. There are
| 20,000 bushes and 800 trees. Just maintaining the gardens costs
| $200,000 per month! There are 113 units, so maintenance itself
| comes to $1,800 per month per unit.
|
| It's a luxury building in a luxury area.
| yohannparis wrote:
| That make sense, it is a giant private garden.
| casta wrote:
| Ah, Isola. When I was living in Milan 30 years ago that is
| where you'd look for your bike/moped if they stole it. They did
| a good job there if you now consider it a luxury area.
| toyg wrote:
| _Citta della Moda_ was the turning point.
|
| I lived in Isola for a year around 2001 (piazza Minniti), and
| the direction of travel was already well-understood. Even the
| _centro sociale_ squatters knew they were fighting a lost
| cause. I was back a couple of years ago and it 's largely
| unrecognisable, with art galleries and real-estate agencies
| in place of cheap bakeries and northafrican takeaways. I got
| lost, and felt so depressed that I've never been back since.
| geodel wrote:
| Wow, $1800 per month sounds unbelievable. How much an apartment
| cost in these buildings?
| occamrazor wrote:
| About 10k EUR/sq.m.
| cbolton wrote:
| I'm not questioning the numbers but still find them absurd. How
| can it be a full time (or maybe 70%) job to take care of the
| plants of a single unit?
| akiselev wrote:
| I'm no expert and I don't know the specifics of this vertical
| garden but trees and shrubs of that size usually have deep
| and wide root systems that give them incredible resilience.
| Without that root system and huge volumes of dirt to support
| it, the plants probably require a ton more monitoring by
| actual botanists instead of just landscapers.
|
| I don't think the problem is just the amount or cost of
| maintenance but how slow it is: the maintenance staff work on
| the outside of the building hanging from the top. Safety
| procedures alone would eat a lot into that work time.
| avereveard wrote:
| Those neighbourhood are pedestrian nightmares, with no
| establishment at ground level, nothing to stop by, they are
| absolutely alienating to walk through.
| kneel wrote:
| You clearly have never been there
| avereveard wrote:
| wrong.
| _ZeD_ wrote:
| dude, I can hear you screaming that "the grapes are too sour",
| but come on... bosco verticale is gorgeous and I envy a lot who
| can afford to live there
| avereveard wrote:
| look I just wanted to go for a walk and see the new milano, I
| got out sometimes in the morning at gioia and walked along
| the greenery, then turned toward piazza repubblica, and there
| was basically nothing open but the occasional bank and
| insurance office along the way. it's a terrible neighborhood
| for pedestrian.
| GaggiX wrote:
| What does "no establishment at ground level" mean? It is in the
| middle of Milan, it's full of establishments, there is also
| Piazza Gae Aulenti three steps away. (I have been there several
| times)
| avereveard wrote:
| That is outside the Bosco verticale.
| GaggiX wrote:
| Bosco Verticale consists of two residential buildings.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| There's nothing else in the area around these buildings.
| It is a glass desert.
| GaggiX wrote:
| Well not really, except for the park I guess, still Bosco
| Verticale is not in the middle of the park.
|
| If by "glass desert" you mean that it's full of buildings
| covered in glass, then I suggest you actually visit
| Milan, because here it's really the opposite.
|
| Just really to show my point: https://ibb.co/xhnnjtM, no
| glass desert of course, the other side has the park
| pmontra wrote:
| People, normal one, not affluent one, live in the
| buildings on the West and North sides of that block.
| There are parks on the other two sides.
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| Doesn't the article say it also includes a very large
| park full of native plants in the same area?
| avereveard wrote:
| which is exactly the point I was trying to make, this
| place is terrifying to walk alone i.e. at office hours.
| nobody around, nothing at ground level, nowhere to stop
| by, just few cars and you.
| bevan wrote:
| This is awesome. Living around nature is not just pretty, but
| healthy for us and good for our focus / productivity / mood /
| fitness / recovery / general well-being.
|
| For a look into the benefits of living near green space (ie
| nature contact):
|
| https://www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ij...
|
| Indoor plants also have salutary and performance effects.
| GaggiX wrote:
| I went recently to "Tre Torri" and I was amazed by how much
| vegetation there was among the residences, I think they did a
| nice job
| ics wrote:
| I've walked past these buildings and they look _nice_ , but I
| was/am not so optimistic about the maintenance required when the
| buildings are 20, 30+ years old. From the article:
|
| > Periodically, a group of mountaineering arborists lowers
| themselves from the roofs of the two towers to tend to the
| plants, checking their health, and pruning or replacing them as
| needed.
|
| Are these _mountaineering arborists_ volunteering for the fun of
| it? Paid by the building management? Residents? If volunteers, it
| sounds like a fun activity but quite unsustainable for more than
| a handful of buildings. If paid (now or in the future), I 'm
| quite curious what the average cost is and what the contingencies
| are for a lapse in maintenance due to change of ownership, rising
| cost leading to longer maintenance interval, etc. Maintaining the
| greenery is one aspect, but so is maintaining the concrete
| holding it up.
|
| Despite my lack of optimism I do find it interesting to explore.
| Sometimes a few... mildly bourgeois... early demonstrations do
| provide the inspiration and requisite practical experience to get
| things rolling.
| thinkindie wrote:
| Bosco Verticale is among the most expensive building in Milan,
| in a very expensive area. Only affluent people live there, and
| beside the very expensive piece of real state, the building
| incurs in high costs of maintenance.
| weego wrote:
| This is the interesting surface of design/architectural meeting
| reality.
|
| The landscaping project is sensational, but having vertical
| foliage as part of each level of housing I think is a short-
| term design ideal with medium-long term failure due to the
| reality of human interaction with their proximity. The extra
| work gives an initial hit of human pleasure, but it doesn't
| seem to play out as being worth it in terms of sustainability
| or emissions neutrality.
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