Talk about your neighbourhood LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE 1.3
V describing places
G used to
Adaptive Practice
READING A SPEAK Work in pairs. Discuss the questions. 1 Do you love where you live? Why/Why not? 2 Look at the pictures at the bottom of the page. What can you see? 3 Look at the glossary. How can a building be environmentally friendly? B 1.5 SCAN Read The forest in the sky quickly and complete the sentences with the correct word or number from the text. 1 Bosco Verticale is an Italian name that means ‘vertical ’. 2 The apartment buildings are in the city of in Italy. 3 There are around trees on the balconies of the buildings. 4 The apartment buildings are close to the city’s services, and transport. 5 The writer mentions other countries where there are planned or completed forest buildings.
C
1.5 READ FOR DETAIL Choose the best options to complete the sentences. 1 The Bosco Verticale was the building of its kind. a tallest b first
c most attractive 2 Four problems of life in central Milan are that it is noisy, crowded, and hot. a polluted b expensive c boring 3 The trees on the Bosco Verticale buildings keep out the heat, and pollution. a sunlight b wind c noise 4 The main problem with buildings like Bosco Verticale is that they are to build. a complicated b time-consuming c expensive 5 The writer thinks forest buildings are . a bad b important c attractive D SPEAK Work in pairs. Answer the questions. 1 Do you want to see forest buildings and cities in your country? Why/Why not? 2 Should we pay more to live in clean cities? Why/ Why not?
THE FOREST in the SKY
Where in the world can you live on the top floor of a 111-metre high-rise building, near the centre of a lively city, but still have breakfast under a tree on your balcony? Sounds almost impossible! Well, not if you live in the Bosco Verticale (vertical forest) buildings in Milan, Italy, where architect Stefano Boeri created a completely new approach to designing buildings. Like many big cities, Milan is noisy and polluted. It’s hot in the summer and in the city centre the green spaces are often quite crowded. The Bosco Verticale is situated in an old area of Milan. What problems did this area use to have? Well, the neighbourhood was particularly noisy and polluted and didn’t use to have much greenery. But Boeri’s team found a very creative answer to these problems. 800 trees and other plants grow high above Milan on the balconies of two modern buildings. The trees keep the apartments cool in summer and warm in winter. They also produce oxygen, which keeps the air clean. Noise from traffic also used to be a big problem, but these buildings are very quiet because the trees and plants stop the noise from the people and traffic in the streets below. Bosco Verticale is really convenient for the city’s shops, services and transport, it’s attractive, and it’s environmentally friendly. And there are now similar buildings either completed or planned in other Italian cities and in a number of other countries, including the Netherlands, Egypt, Malaysia and Mexico. But there is one major problem to solve. Buildings like this are extremely expensive. They cost more to build than a normal high-rise building. But if we want to live in cool, quiet cities with clean air, it is surely worth the cost.
GLOSSARY
architect (n) someone whose job is to design buildings environmentally friendly (adj) something designed not to harm the natural environment greenery (n) trees and plants vertical (adj) standing, pointing or moving straight up
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