The Qiyi City Forest Garden residential complex in Chengdu, China, was supposed to be a green paradise for its residents, but two years on, the vertical forest concept has turned into a nightmare.

Back in 2018, the idea of living among dozens of exotic plants proved very exciting for the people of Chengdu, one of China’s most polluted cities, and by April of 2020 all 826 units in the Qiyi City Forest Garden complex had been sold. Each unit had up to 20 types of plants growing on the balcony, and filtering the city’s air and noise pollution. However, instead of an urban paradise, the eight-tower complex looks like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic film, with balconies overrun by sprawling greenery and plagues of mosquitoes.

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Located deep in Hanoi’s Dong Da district is one of the Vietnamese capital’s most unique landmarks – a 5-storey apartment buildings completely covered by a living, creeping, green curtain.

The so-called “living building” of Hanoi is the work of Prof. Dr. Hoang Nhu Tang – former lecturer at Hanoi University of Civil Engineering and resident of this unique edifice. It all started 30 years ago, in 1990, back when this was one of the tallest constructions in the area, which basically meant that it had almost no shelter from the scorching sun during the summer. That made it very uncomfortable to live in in the hot season, so Hoang Nhu Tang decided to plant two creeper plants known for their ability to both filter sunlight and also regulate the temperature in building they grow on. His idea worked, and three decades later, the plants still fulfill their intended purpose, while also attracting curios sightseers from all over the city and beyond.

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Designer Aroussiak Gabrielian has given the phrase “grow your own food” a whole new meaning by creating a wearable vegetable garden that can accommodate dozens of different crops fueled by the wearer’s own urine.

Dubbed Posthuman Habitats, Gabrielian’s project was inspired by the vertical, soilless gardens of French botanist Patrick Blanc, and consists of a vest covered with a layer of moisture retention fabric onto which microgreens seeds are directly placed. Apparently it takes about two weeks for the germinated seeds to grow to a level where they can be harvested. And since plants need sustenance to grow, the wearable gardens use the wearer’s urine as irrigation, after it’s treated using a process called forward osmosis.

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Edificio Santalaia, a plant-covered building in the middle of Bogota, Colombia, is considered one of the most amazing urban gardens ever created. With over 33,000 Sq. feet of plants covering the building’s 11 stories (9 above ground and 2 underground), this is the world’s largest vertical garden.

The result of a collaboration between Spanish green designers Paisajismo Urbano and Colombian company Groncol, this stunning vertical garden was completed in December 2015, after eight months of planning, and another eight months of hard work. Today, it is often referred to as “the green heart of Bogota”, and acts both as an icon of sustainability, as well as a reminder of the important role that plants play in our daily lives.

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French Botanist Patrick Blanc, is known as a master of vertical gardens. During his long career, he has designed hundreds of lush “green walls” that cover both the inside and outside of buildings all around the globe, but none are as impressive as the small urban jungle he calls home, on the outskirts of Paris

61-year-old Blanc makes vertical gardens by attaching metal frames to walls, covering them with PVC and rot-proof felts, and then setting up an irrigation system that dampens the felt and keeps the plants well hydrated. Since 1988, he has created hundreds of these botanical tapestries in public and private spaces around the world – including the Marithé & François Girbaud boutique in Manhattan, the Siam Paragon shopping center in Bangkok and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan.

Expanding on his unique method, Blanc worked on his dream home in the outskirts of Paris, in collaboration with architect Gilles Ebersolt. But while most of his professional projects present nature through a formally elegant design, the plants in his home are a tangle of leaves with a mold-smudged ceiling. From the outside, the house doesn’t look too impressive. But once you step inside, it’s like entering a whole new world.

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A shopping center in the Italian town of Rozanno has recently claimed a rather unusual Guinness record, for the world’s biggest vertical garden. Growing on the walls of the commercial complex, the unique garden covers an area of 1,263 square meters and is made up of about 44,000 plants.

Just o be clear, the thousands of plants covering the sides of Rozanno’s shopping center were not planted in the ground next to the building and simply grew to cover the walls, they actually grow on the building itself. Italian architect Francisco Bollani, who was in charge of the project, says it took his team a whole year just to grow all the 44,000 plants, and another 90 days to place them on the walls of the commercial building. Although it might seem like the walls are covered with soil from which the flora grows, the walls were actually lined with metallic containers that hold the plants. Using these Lego-like metal pieces made the vertical garden a lot easier to build then with classic methods, but it also increased the cost of the project to a total of €1 million ($1.3 million).

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