Street furniture with extra purpose

Stefano Boeri Interiors have designed a style of modular street furniture, composed of trees, plants and benches, which will improve air quality and increase the presence of foliage in cities.

Superverde will inject green space and biodiversity into metropolitan areas by adding a biological surface to urban soil, welcoming nature back to built-up areas. Its designers describe it as an, “adaptable vegetal architecture designed to preserve the urban ecosystem.”

Superverde is a modular street furniture range which aims to improve air quality in cities.

The modular arrangement, created for Italian street furniture maker Metalco, features a metal frame available in various finishes that borders planters. Inside these, an appropriate mix of soil and greenery is added for the climate in which it is installed.

A system between technology and ecology, Superverde increases the plant and faunal biodiversity of a space, offering a habitat for insects and small birds. It also acts as a multi-sensory way to improve the microclimate of a given area.

Stefano Boeri Interiors’ Superverde range is made with trees, plants and benches.

The planters contain all the technological equipment necessary for the structure’s maintenance- an energy efficient and autonomous system that manages the use of water using sensors in the soil, and a dense irrigation system.

A metal seating arrangement can also be attached, making the permeable, flexible surface a space for sitting and gathering, as well as decoration.

It is both scalable and adaptable, designed to be used for a range of different types of open spaces and functions. The small version is 9-20 square metres and can house up to three tall trees, 20 medium shrubs and numerous grasses and perennials, while the extra-large, at 60-100 square metres, can fit 12 trees and 1600 units of shrubs and minor vegetation.

These portions of living soil are designed to be purchased by the square metre, and continuously change in colour, shape, brightness and transparency. Their main feature is their versatility and adaptability, able to cover even large areas.

Superverde aims to increase biodiversity in cities.

Superverde provides an ecosystem composed of various species in order to increase biodiversity, demineralise urban soils, decrease the urban heat island effect and restore the relationship between nature and city. Plants will be selected with care and attention for the climate zone in which they are intended.

“Superverde is a device designed to be installed in every square, courtyard and public or private urban space, allowing new forms of contact between citizens and the vegetal ecosystem,” says Stefano Boeri Interiors. “A new biological soil that overlaps the urban mineral surfaces.”