A meeting with Stefano Boeri to talk about homes, the quality of sustainable living, the close relationship between outside and inside, and the home he dreams of.
Architect, urban planner, former editor of Domus and Abitare, Stefano Boeri was a member of the Board of Architects for Expo 2015. He is the author of the Bosco Verticale in Milan, named the best skyscraper in the world and in Europe in 2015 by the Ctbuh (Council on tall buildings and urban habitat). A leading figure in contemporary architecture, his projects develop visions of new ways of living, new cities, materials, spaces and the urgency of new sustainable choices. As a member of the New Narrative for Europe, he put forward the central idea that Europe should be regarded as a megacity interconnected by transport and communication networks.
Innovation and sustainability are recurring themes in your architectural projects. The Bosco Verticale, besides being named the most beautiful skyscraper in the world, has opened up an innovative strand in the field of residential buildings. Do you think it is a residential model that can be scaled up for widespread sustainable architecture at affordable costs, or does it remain confined to the realm of avant-garde architecture at very high costs?
It is certainly partly a manifesto of the potential that sustainable architecture holds, but I can tell you that in China and other parts of the world we are designing buildings that have shrubs and trees on their façades, serving very different functions and targeting very different users from Milan — social housing, office buildings, hotels, museums, schools. I believe it is absolutely possible to imagine, as we are doing in China, a true "forest city" made entirely of tall and low buildings where trees do not play an ornamental role but a structural, constituent one, with greenery consisting above all of trees on the façades.
Sustainability and respect for the environment are values that are gradually spreading in Italy in general, and in the fields of architecture and design they are becoming prerequisites for every project. Is this a trend that is truly widespread among designers as a prerequisite for every project, or are we only at the beginning of a process of raising awareness?
Sustainability is also a very generic term that has been applied to very different things. What is certain is that in the world of furnishings, sustainability understood as material traceability, the non-use of potentially polluting chemical adhesives, and work processes based on certain ethical principles — none of this has yet become standard practice or a truly shared principle. The truth is that sustainability alone, as we have understood it in the past, may no longer be enough. It is no longer enough to fill a building with photovoltaics and geothermal energy if we then fail to concern ourselves with reviewing air quality, CO2 levels — which means the question of adding a significant number of trees — or if we fail to address another aspect that strikes me as very important: that in cities we must find living spaces for other species too. To put it briefly: sustainability without reflection on the question of demineralisation — that is, having cities with fewer minerals and more greenery — and on the aspect of biodiversity, is no longer sufficient on its own to lend legitimacy to a project that concerns itself with social utility.
Analyses of people's desires and needs regarding their home show that bringing greenery and nature indoors, and strengthening the relationship with nature, are primary concerns. In your view, what are the qualities of an interior design project that can make a home welcoming, comfortable and also sustainable?
I have almost no interest in greenery as a purely ornamental element. For me, as I have demonstrated in my architecture, greenery is a fundamental element capable of improving the quality and conditions of life. On interiors, we are working with Stefano Mancuso, who heads the department of Plant Neurobiology at the University of Florence and has spent years researching plant intelligence, on the idea of certain furnishing elements that clean the air by harnessing plants' ability to absorb CO2 and produce oxygen, so as to clean indoor pollution. Eliminating indoor pollution is one of the great challenges of the coming years. In Europe we are not yet sufficiently aware of this issue, but if you look carefully at studies on indoor air quality you realise that indoor conditions are almost always worse than outdoor conditions, even in the most polluted cities. In China this is a deeply felt concern, and one we are actively working on.
This is one piece of the indoor question. In recent years the conditions of liveability, life and the sharing of domestic spaces have changed enormously: at the Salone del Mobile we presented the 'Mettitutto', a kind of furnishing element that we propose placing at the entrance to apartments — a sort of 'threshold' between the outside and the inside of the home. On one hand we are reviving an Italian tradition, that of the kitchen dresser, because the 'Mettitutto' is a kind of enlarged sideboard; on the other, placing it outside, at the entrance to the home, is a way of also expressing the fact that the life trajectories of those who share a home are very different and often diverse. This is a space where, when you come home, you deposit your phone, cables, keys, glasses, business cards, magazines, your helmet, your gloves, the multitude of objects that accompany us on our outward, public journeys — and when you leave, you retrieve that multitude of objects. This piece tells the stories of those who share a home very well, because today the real issue is precisely that of cohabitation between sometimes very different individuals living in the same home. The technical sophistication in the combination of materials that the company producing it is capable of achieving was, for me, a very rewarding and enjoyable experience.
Projects for exhibitions during Milan Design Week are often opportunities to demonstrate ideas about the city and about living. What did you create this year for the exhibition "White in the city"?
The intervention at White in the City grew out of the 'Radura' project realised last year for the exhibition of the magazine Interni and now installed in the square of the school canteen in Amatrice. The theme is much the same: finding public spaces, places, moments, enclosures in which it is possible to be alone without cutting oneself off from the frenzy of noises, sounds, passers-by, flows and communications. We imagined an enclosure made of small-diameter wooden cylinders from the forests of Friuli, where the inspiration — and indeed the suggestion — is to think of a public space where people embrace one another. A place where you go in and have a moment of absolute intimacy. We called it 'Urban hugs'.
What is your position on the topic of technological devices for the home, and subjects such as home automation, automation in the home, the internet of things? Do you think they will improve the way we live at home in the near future?
They interest me very little! Let me explain: I am a kind of obsessive lover of all things technological, and indeed I am surrounded by devices of every kind and type. In and of themselves, however, they seem to me a subject of very little interest for those who do our job: it's good that objects are interconnected, let's use them! But the real problem is creating the spaces for objects — which is why the 'Metti tutto' interests me! Then of course if those objects have interconnections with the kitchen, with the television and so on, that's perfectly fine. I like using them: for example, I find the television connected to the mobile phone, the mobile phone connected to the speakers to listen to music streamed over the internet, all very enjoyable — but I truly believe there is a sort of ridiculous obsession with the idea of spatiality tied to technology. It simply makes daily life more convenient, speeds up certain processes, but it doesn't interest me as a design theme.
What is your home like?
My home is a fairly irretrievable chaos by now! It is connected to the studio and is somewhat affected by this flow of private life coming in and out of the studio and public life coming into the home, so I wouldn't even know how to define it. But I would say that, all things considered, this lack of a stable order is a positive thing.
Is it still a place where you live well?
Yes, very well — I'm happy.
Does an ideal home exist in your dreams as an architect, or is it the one you have?
I think the ideal home lies in the relationship between outside and inside. The interior can be built or somehow represented with a certain ease. What is harder is finding a space that is situated, located in a context where the relationship with the outside works. Yet, at the end of the day, everyone carries their own domestic dream around with them wherever they go. I would very much like to have a house by the sea where I could always live and work. That is a dream I will realise sooner or later, but one I don't have yet. The house built by my mother, Cini Boeri, on the island of La Maddalena is my ideal home: that is the place I go often and where I feel best of all.