Milan "forest" gains two metres in height every week

December 19, 2011 - Bosco Verticale, Milan, Italy

The irregular-positioned cantilevered, massive reinforced concrete balconies of the Milan office and residential building "Il Bosco Verticale" are planted with numerous trees and shrubs. With the help of the PERI formwork and scaffolding solution, the floors can be realised with extremely fast concreting cycle sequences in spite of the uniqueness of the architecture.

Environmental and climate protection are now firmly entrenched in the building industry – through the construction of passive houses and energy-efficient building renovation, energy consumption and CO2 emissions can be effectively reduced. Italian architect, Stefano Boeri, has gone his own way with his concept of an ecological high-rise building which serves as a model for contemporary European cities linking a building with nature within city limits.

The "Il Bosco Verticale" complex consists of an eleven-story office building and two residential towers with 18 and 26 floors respectively. The distinctive feature of the two 87 m and 119 m high residential structures is the massive balconies which are subsequently planted with trees – a vertical forest in the middle of Milan. A total of 120 large and 544 medium-sized trees along with over 4,000 shrubs and bushes take on the important functions of a forest: reducing carbon dioxide levels whilst simultaneously producing oxygen. In addition, the planted areas provides future residents with protection against noise and dust; in the summer, the treetops shade the flats against the direct sunlight, in winter they allow the rays from the low-lying sun through – thus they regulate the climate during all seasons. Furthermore, a reduction in humidity and effective wind protection is to be expected.
Only ten days per floor
In order to be able to realise the ensemble of buildings whilst maintaining a very tight construction schedule in spite of the uniqueness of the architecture, PERI´s Italian engineers developed a customized formwork and scaffolding concept - in particular regarding the cantilevered balconies on all four sides and the floor slabs with a standard storey height of 4 m. The project solution, which is based on RCS rail climbing technology and PERI UP scaffold system as well as the integration of customer´s own SKYDECK panel slab formwork, results in extremely fast concreting cycles: only ten days is required for each floor.
Combined construction kit systems
The massive, 28 cm thick reinforced concrete balconies with 1.30 m high parapets, cantilever outwards to a length of 3.35 m on all four sides of each building and will become the planting boxes for the various shrubs, plants and trees. A major challenge is the irregular arrangement of the balconies which have been designed to achieve a natural look while also creating sufficient space for the planting to take place.

VARIOKIT framework units from rentable PERI system components carry the fresh concrete loads from the balconies; in addition, PERI engineers combine the framework with the RCS protection panel construction. This serves as a secure enclosure and protection against falling for each of the top two floors under construction in each case, which increases the level of safety for site personnel and ultimately the work performance. Using the project-specific moving procedure – by means of a crane and electric cable winch – complete units can be pulled from the building and then positioned exactly at the next place of use. As a result, an entire floor comprising 18 units can be moved within only half a day. Afterwards the shaft platforms and shoring towers for the next vertical section are installed.

Due to the irregular arrangement of the balconies, the loads often have to be transferred over the height of several floors, especially on the corners of the structures. For this purpose, shoring towers on the basis of the PERI UP Rosett modular scaffolding system are used. This can be flexibly adapted to the different supporting heights, ranging between 3.72 m and 23.72 m.

On the intermediate floors, landing platforms are used - also based on the RCS modular construction kit system – for moving building materials with help of the crane. These cantilever 6.35 m beyond the building's edge and have been designed so that the platform edges can handle loads of up to 20 kN.
Ambitious urban development project
The ecological "Il Bosco Verticale" high-rise complex is part of the ambitious "Porta Nuova" urban development project in Milan. Where previously old industrial facilities had created a longstanding eyesore on the city landscape, this is being transformed into over 330,000 m² of modern residential and office buildings, hotels and meeting and cultural centres – largely car-free and featuring generously-sized green open areas.

Contractor: ZH General Construction Company SPA, Campo Tures
Field Service: PERI Basiano, Italy

PERI Systems In Use:
- PERI UP Rosett Shoring Tower
- VARIOKIT Truss Construction
- RCS P Climbing Protection Panel
- SKYDECK Aluminium Panel Slab Formwork

PERI was founded in 1969 and is today the leading provider of formwork and scaffolding systems. Along with the headquarters in Weissenhorn, Germany, the company has 50 international subsidiaries and 100 stock yards around the world. The company has over 5500 employees. 2010 revenues was 825 million Euros.

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This release was published on openPR.