Vertical Forest

The pair of skyscrapers, on the southern edge of the Island, is called a Vertical Forest in international architectural circles as they are literally covered with vegetation. Designed and built by architect Stefano Boeri - born in 1956, former president of the Triennale, one of the largest urban-architectural exhibition production centres in Milan and throughout Europe since the 1920s - skyscrapers as a form have nothing innovative in themselves. As urban ecology, however, they are a real revolution. The idea behind the project is to build buildings that form environmentally self-sufficient islands in the heart of urban areas, recreating the natural microclimate of a forest, with its creatures and living beings. The chlorophyll synthesis that plants process can be considered a valuable resource for humankind to contain the global warming generated in cities.

This idea earned the designer the International Highrise Award 2014 for the world's most beautiful and innovative skyscraper, out of eight hundred skyscrapers on all continents, "an excellent example of revitalisation of an urban centre".

Constantly photographed, even if it is too high for a smartphone lens, it always seems different to the eyes of those who look at it, and also of those who live there. It is a riot of colors, assumed through the changing of the seasons by over 14,000 perennial plants, hundreds and hundreds of trees and shrubs well distributed on the various floors of the two skyscrapers.