Stefano Boeri

Lunch with an Architect is intended as a forum for reflection and discussion to improve the quality of architecture in Brussels.

Through 3 meetings a year, Lunch with an Architect, in cooperation with Flagey, provides the real estate world with a window on the major contemporary events in the world of architecture, the more specifically Belgian issues, and the emblematic projects under way. 

The Stefano Boeri Architetti studio (previously Boeri studio)was founded in Milan in 1993 and now has 70 collaborators spread across offices in Milan, Shanghai and Tirana.

Over the years, the studio has become a benchmark for biodiversity and sustainable architecture, as well as social housing and urban development on different scales, both in Italy and internationally.

Stefano Boeri Architetti has received numerous international prizes, confirming the relevance of its approach, which is recognised by the architectural community worldwide. Completed in 2014, Bosco Verticale has become the new symbol of Milan and the global icon of biodiversity. The recognition was total when, in the same year, 2015, the tower was named the Best Tall Building Worldwide by CTBUH (Chicago) and received the Best Tall Building award from DAM (Frankfurt).

For the design process, Stefano Boeri Architetti relies on a vast network of professionals. Engineers, landscape architects, agronomists and sociologists collaborate in a continuous multidisciplinary dialogue that has allowed the firm to develop specific and innovative solutions for a wide range of territorial and socio-economic environments.

Since 2014, Stefano Boeri Architetti has also had an office in Shanghai. The projects underway in China include the Nanjing Vertical Forest, two towers that integrate into the architecture of their facades 800 trees of 27 local varieties and 2 500 cascading plants and shrubs. This vegetation will absorb 18 tonnes of CO2 annually and produce 16.5 tonnes of oxygen. An urban, technological and conceptual extension of Vertical Forest, the Forest City project, which was presented for the first time at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21), is a model of a sustainable city, capable of consuming tonnes of CO2 and producing oxygen in one of the most polluted areas in the world, namely the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

In 2015, Stefano Boeri Architetti opened another office in Tirana, where collaborators are working on the Tirana 2030 master plan. The plan aims to redefine the Albanian capital as a new metropolitan city and is considered to be the most ambitious urban reform programme in Albania for 25 years.

Some of the studio’s other projects and achievements in various parts of the world include the development of the “Maspero Triangle”, a complex of towers and public facilities along the Nile waterfront in the heart of downtown Cairo, the new head office of RCS - Corriere della Sera in Rome, and the Palazzo Verde at Nieuw Zuid in Antwerp, the architect’s first project in Belgium.

Stefano Boeri Architetti combines its design activity with research into architecture and the city. For this the firm can draw on Stefano Boeri’s experience as the director of magazines like Domus and Abitare. His research work has been presented at various international exhibitions (the Venice Biennale, the Chengdu Biennale, Beijing Design Week, …) and he has published in numerous national and international magazines. Acknowledged as a leader in his field, Stefano Boeri has recently been appointed as President of the Fondazione La Triennale in Milan, the most important institution for the transmission of architectural culture in Italy.

Flagey, F()rum