
As far as North America is concerned, vertical forests are not quite the future or the current fad. It seems none have arrived here yet.
In Europe, it’s another story. They’ve arrived and are certainly becoming something of a fad, though they may or may not be a sustainable future for highrise buildings.
As for public housing vertical forests serving low income tenants? They’ve arrived, too.
The concept of a vertical forest is quite neatly explained simply by looking at the picture above. Could they be a next generation of public housing in North America? Looking at all the greenery climbing a high rise exterior, it’s hard to reconcile such a striking and presumably “green” housing energy future on one hand, with the common spectre of tired, old, drab North American high rises on the other. Could we green and bear it? How can vertical forests possibly be affordable for governments and their supposed free-enterprise construction partners?
An article on a new Danish social housing vertical forest explains how such a striking departure from conventional architecture can be affordably achieved. Towards the end of the article, it also hints at why such architecture may be a passing fad, or reserved for condos or market rate rental buildings.
A permanent weakness may lie within the cloak of greenery itself. Its support system is currently a specialist challenge, not the domain of a puttering resident armed with a watering can and pruning shears. That’s one more maintenance nightmare to be triggered by neoliberal-leaning government obsessed with trimming social housing budgets.
Read more in Domus: In the Netherlands, the first Vertical Forest applied to social housing