Stefano Boeri Architetti has created a new project in Belgium, Palazzo Verde, a new landmark for Antwerp’s Nieuw Zuid district. The masterplan for this district includes 60 per cent of its surface – 12 hectares – will remain green.
The building will feature a semi-public garden on the ground floor and three huge terraces designed to host three roof gardens. In this way Palazzo Verde aims to contribute to fighting air pollution, absorbing 5.5 tons of CO2 per year.
“We thought that it was very important to have at the center 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. 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,” Stefano Boeri comments.
The L-shaped building is centrally located, in an area designed by Bernardo Secchi and Paola Viganò, where it closes the side of the block that faces the 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, it is possible to access the “Circularity Center” where tenants and citizens can access tools and space they might need.
The cascading structure of the building provides the opportunity to host a small forest that encroaches onto three terraces at the fourth, sixth and seventh floors. Botanist Laura Gatti has selected specifically native species and has worked with the concept of forest and its undergrowth to give every terrace a protected and inclusive space.
Palazzo Verde will feature 86 trees, 2200 shrubs and perennials to create 428,88 square meters of green surface.
“The whole building has 67 apartments and it is designed according a grid of 5 x 5 meters that determines the volume of the building, with the possibility of having 6 apartments at the building’s heads with a double or triple exposition and private terraces, and the façades’ design that have both balconies and loggias and explore the concept of threshold and the limit between interior and exterior,” Hana Narvaez, Project Leader at Stefano Boeri Architetti explains.
Project Credits:
Project: Stefano Boeri Architetti – Stefano Boeri (Founding partner), Francesca Cesa Bianchi (Project director); Hana Narvaez (Project leader), Alessandra Magnetti, Daniele Barillari, con Elisa Versari e Mario Shilong Tan (Team), Sara Gangemi (Senior Landscape Architect).
Client: Triple Living
Consultants:
Local Architects: OM / AR Marc Van Hove, Glenn Somers, Eef Van Meer
Plantation consultant: Laura Gatti, Dott. Eng.
Installations: Sweco
Sustainability: Dirk DeGroof, Eng.
Acoustics: D2S International
Structures: GroupD
Contractor: Interbuilt
For more information visit stefanoboeriarchitetti.net/
