Stefano Boeri
Stefano Boeri, architect and urban planner, is Full Professor of Urban Planning at the Politecnico di Milano and heads the Future City Lab at Tongji University in Shanghai, a postdoctoral research program that anticipates the transformation of the world’s metropolises from the perspective of biodiversity and urban forestry. He has served as a visiting professor at several international universities, including the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, and the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio. He is Coordinator of the Steering Committee of the Forestami Foundation, the urban forestry project for the Milan metropolitan area. From 2023 to 2025, he directed the Roma050 Laboratory, aimed at proposing a new urban and territorial vision for Rome. As President of Triennale Milano (2018–2026), he served as Commissioner of the 24th International Exhibition “Inequalities” in 2025.
As the architect of the Bosco Verticale, completed in Milan in 2014, Stefano Boeri is among the leading voices in the international architectural debate on climate change. In 2017 he took part in the Commonwealth Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change program; he is co-chair of the Scientific Committee of the World Forum on Urban Forests (Mantua, 2018 – Washington, 2023) and, on the occasion of the UN Climate Action Summit 2019, he presented in New York the Great Green Wall of Cities / Green Urban Oases project, developed together with FAO, C40 and other international research institutes. In 2023, within the framework of the European Respiratory Society International Congress, Stefano Boeri received the ELF Award, an honor from the European Lung Foundation “for the work carried out to improve air quality in urban environments”.
The firm’s design approach, Green Obsession—presented in the book “Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests” (Actar, 2021)—takes shape in the integration of living nature into architecture through a variety of strategies, methods and scales. Thanks to this “Green Obsession”, Stefano Boeri Architetti received the UN SDGs Action Award in the “Inspire” category from the United Nations in 2023, as it “envisions sustainable cities and communities that place health and well-being at their core, while intensifying climate action through its creative approach to urban planning, ecological connectivity and urban forestry—contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals”.
Stefano Boeri is known for his research and visions on the future of urban conditions worldwide, which have led him to design regeneration and development plans for metropolises and major cities including São Paulo, Geneva, Tirana, Cancún, Riyadh and Cairo, and in Italy Milan, Genoa, Cagliari, Naples, Padua, Taranto and many others. His research has been published in international books and journals; among his books: Il territorio che cambia (Abitare Segesta, 1992); AAVV, Mutations (Actar, 2001); Multiplicity, Use Uncertain States of Europe (Skira, 2003); Biomilano: glossario di idee per una metropoli della biodiversità (Corraini, 2011); L’anticittá (Editori Laterza, 2011); A Vertical Forest (Corraini, 2015); La città scritta (Quodlibet, 2016); Urbania (Editori Laterza, 2021); Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests (Actar, 2021).
