It’s one of the world’s most iconic examples of green design. To start, it’s literally green — encased in hundreds of trees and thousands of shrubs that ascend on ladder-like balconies 26 storeys into the sky.

Milan’s Bosco Verticale — “vertical forest” in Italian — opened in 2014 to wide acclaim from the design world. Its attractive vision of skyscrapers with leafy-green canopies has spawned dozens of imitations from France to Shanghai, including one underway in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.

But critics say these buildings typically share some not-so-green traits: their construction relies on vast quantities of carbon-intensive concrete, and they are very expensive to own. 

“I think it’s completely missing the point of green design,” said Lloyd Alter, who teaches sustainable design at Ryerson University in Toronto and is the author of Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle.

For Alter and other critics, Bosco Verticale represents an exclusive, and expensive, vision of a green future, where the benefits of living closer to nature are accrued to an enriched few, at an enormous carbon cost.

All of which helps explain why Stefano Boeri, the Bosco Verticale’s celebrated architect, turned his attention to a different project: duplicating his iconic design as public housing in the Dutch city of Eindhoven.

“This is really the goal we had from the beginning of the vertical forest,” Boeri told CBC News, “to show … that it’s possible … to realize [a vertical forest] that is affordable for everybody, smart and sustainable.”

That project, dubbed the Trudo Vertical Forest, officially opened last month.

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