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International






                                                                                                            Chesa Futura - St. Moritz • Photo: Evelina Rioukhina








                                                                                                                                      The Hanging Gardens of Babylon by LarsRune

                                                                                                                                                       Vertical Forest-Bosco Verticale.
                                                                                                                                                         Render courtesy Boeri Studio.












              Future Cities:

              Let’s all remember Babylon


                                                                                                                                                                                        Marina Bay Sands with the top deck park.
              By Ash Charlton and Evelina Rioukhina                                                                                                                                     Photo courtesy Erwin Soo



                               The  buildings  in  cities  of  future  –  how  will  World Heritage Site, and are a monument to       decadence and conspicuous display – to this  hanging gardens are the highest in the world,
                               they develop? Will they continue to grow in  the Bahá`í faith. They are very much a ‘built’            day,  Rastafarians  use  the  term  ‘Babylon’  to  sitting  atop  the  56   floor  of  the  glamorous
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                               height in megacities, will they grow in width  space, with 19 terraces, representing the Báb           refer to ungodly society. These green building  Singapore  Marina  Bay  Sands  buildings,  a
                               to include rural areas, or will the future of  and  his  first  disciples,  all  planted  with  trees   projects  conspicuously  display  their  green  12,400m   oasis  of  gardens  and  trees  with
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                               our cities be “The Line”? Here are some ideas  and flowers and connected by over 1,500 steps.          credentials  in  an  opulently  Babylonian  style  jogging  and  walking  areas.  The  park  is  not
                               and possibilities to inform our choices.  The whole structure takes up a kilometer of the              –  none  more  than  Stefano  Boeri’s  Vertical  just an astonishing showpiece, it was awarded
                                                                     hillside’s height, making it the tallest hanging                 Forest in Milan.                       the  prestigious  Green  Mark  Gold  award  for
                               Readers of a certain age and background may  garden in the world.                                                                             sustainability. Sadfie says, “Marina Bay Sands
                               remember the Seven Wonders of the Ancient                                                              The  Vertical  Forest’s  hanging  parks  are  not  is  really  more  than  a  building  project;  it’s  a
                               World,  one  of  the  many  deeply  Eurocentric  The  fascination  with  hanging  gardens  also        added to the building, as in the Namba parks,  microcosm  of  a  city  rooted  in  Singapore’s
                               lists of achievements we had to memorize as  helps  us  appreciate  Namba  Parks  in  Osaka,           but are integral to it. Planted on transparent  culture, climate, and contemporary life. Our
                               children. Most mysterious of these were the  Japan.  These  are  128  terraced  gardens  from          terraces, trees appear to ‘hang’, and even climb  challenge  was  to  create  a  vital  public  place
                               Hanging Gardens, said to have been built in  ground  level  to  10  metres,  but  built  in  and       up,  the  apartment  tower  blocks.  In  total,  at  the  district-urban  scale,  in  other  words,
                               the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day  around  a  huge  skyscraper.  This  is  a  very         about 2.5 hectares of forest wrap around the  to address the issue of megascale and invent
                               Hillah,  Babil  province,  in  Iraq.  These  may  modern  interpretation  of  a  hanging  garden,      building  like  a  huge  fur  coat.  In  such  close  an  urban  landscape  that  would  work  at  the
                               never  have  existed  as  anything  more  than  a  providing  much-needed  green  space  in  the       proximity  to  residents,  the  foliage  not  only  human scale.”
                               poetic fancy, but even though they are the only  heart  of  the  city.  All  modern  city  planners    performs the usual green functions, but also
                               Wonder whose existence is disputed they may  know the importance of a city’s green ‘lungs’,            creates  a  micro-climate  with  its  own  shade,  However, recent experiences of pandemic and
                Ash Charlton is   have  inspired  more  extreme  green  projects  providing oxygen, spaces for well-being and,        humidity,  CO   absorption,  noise-reduction,  lockdown have given us new perspectives. It
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                a writer, editor,   than any real garden could ever have done.  given how cities are major net generators of          and filtration of urban dust particles.  is  hard  to  see  these  floating  spaces  without
                consultant and   If it were not for the mythical Hanging Gardens  heat, vital cooling for their citizens.                                                    thinking of people packed together on planes
               freelance trainer   of  Babylon  the  magnificently  constructed                                                       Perhaps the most Babylonian conception yet,  to go and see them, journeying there crammed
               who has worked   terraced  gardens  in  Haifa  might  not  be  It is telling that the site of the fabled ancient       however, is that of Moshe Sadfie, a Canadian  into  public  transport,  then  crowding  into
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                with the UN for   called  “Hanging  Gardens  of  Baha’I”.  These  Hanging Gardens should be Babylon. In the           architect, who actually hung a garden atop the  energy-expensive elevators to get to the 56
                 over 15 years.  Hanging  Gardens  are  listed  as  a  UNESCO  Bible,  Babylon  is  associated  with  opulence,       three  tallest  skyscrapers  in  Singapore.  These  floor. It has become suddenly possible to do



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