Stefano Boeri Architetti unveils design for "greenest building" in Belgium

Palazzo Verde is envisioned to be the "greenest building" in Belgium, with a semi-public garden on the ground floor and three huge terraces designed to each host a roof gardens. The building aims to absorb 5.5 tonnes of CO2 per year.

"We thought that it was very important to have at the centre of New Zuid district a new green spot that, whether in the courtyard or on roof gardens, hosts a relevant amount of trees and shrubs and gives back oxygen to the city," said Stefano Boeri.

"We are very satisfied with this first project of ours in Belgium that shows how even a small residential building can offer to its inhabitants and to the citizens of the neighbourhood an unexpected quality of green spaces and social activities," Boeri added.

The L-shaped building is located in a central plot of the masterplan designed by Bernardo Secchi and Paola Viganò, where it closes the side of the block that faces River Scheldt and embraces a semi-private green courtyard in its central part designed by Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets.

From the courtyard, through a series of wide steps that also work as an amphitheater, you can access the Circularity Center where tenants and citizens can fix their bicycles and some other domestic objects, finding all the tools and the space they might need.

Public and private space often blend into one another in this new project that perfectly integrates architecture with the urban and environmental context.

Botanist Laura Gatti has selected specifically for native species and has worked with the concept of forest and its undergrowth to give every terrace a protected and inclusive space. Palazzo Verde is going to be home to 86 trees and 2200 shrubs.

Article originally published on World Architecture Community.