BEIJING – China is constructing the world’s first forest city where all buildings are covered in plants and trees to tackle global warming and air pollution.
The Liuzhou Forest City, designed by an Italian architect, will be home to 30,000 people once completed in a few years’ time and will absorb almost 10,000 tons of CO2 and 57 tons of pollutants per year and produce around 900 tons of oxygen annually.
Offices, houses, hotels, hospitals and schools will be entirely covered by a total of 40,000 trees and one million plants of 100 species. Houses will have air-conditioning powered by geothermal energy and solar-panelled roofs.
The city is currently under construction in the north of Liuzhou in the mountainous area of Guangxi province, south China, in an area that covers 175 hectares along the Liujiang river.
The project commissioned by Liuzhou Municipality Urban Planning has been designed by architects Stefano Boeri Architetti, and is expected to be completed by 2020.
It will connect to Liuzhou with a fast rail line and roads for electric cars.
The Italian architect’s website reads: “The diffusion of plants, not only in the parks and gardens or along the streets, but also over building facades, will allow the energy self-sufficient city to contribute to improve the air quality (absorbing both CO2 and fine dust of 57 tonnes per year), to decrease the average air temperature, to create noise barriers and to improve the biodiversity of living species, generating the habitat for birds, insects and small animals that inhabit the Liuzhou territory.”
