Hong Kong could well take a leaf out of Milan's book when it comes to creating a "green" environment.Forget pouring concrete and plant some trees.
The Italian city's new Bosco Verticale will open at the end of this year and it should be a sight to behold.
The new skyscraper promises to bring a hectare of forest into the city's central business district, as well as hundreds of new homes. Rather than cold steel and glass, the surface of this high-rise will ripple with organic life.
Made of two towers - one 80 meters high, the other 112m - Bosco Verticale is currently being planted with 730 specially cultivated trees, 11,000 groundcover plants and 5,000 shrubs.
Architect Stefano Boeri said that the Bosco Verticale "hands over to vegetation itself the task of absorbing the dust in the air and of creating an adequate micro-climate in order to filter out the sunlight."
"Living plants clean the air and produce oxygen, they help humidify indoor air, they reduce storm water runoff and the urban heat island effect, and they help insulate a building," Inhabit editor Jill Fehrenbacher said.
