Trudotoren

2023 © The Big Picture

designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti

Affordable housing in a "vertical forest" for Eindhoven

Stefano Boeri Architetti is regarded as one of the most influential architecture firms in the world, well-known for being at the forefront of biodiverse architecture. They are the designers of the famous Bosco Verticale in Milan, which is considered one of the most distinctive landmarks of the city, and has been exported and imitated all over the world.

In 2017, the “vertical forest” model made its way to The Netherlands, specifically, to the Strijp-S cluster of Eindhoven where the Trudotoren (Trudo Tower) was part of a wider urban regeneration operation.

For this project, our friends at Stefano Boeri Architetti wanted a beautiful and effective press kit featuring several images. We already knew the kit was going to be used for marketing, on wide-reaching national and international media outlets, architecture magazines, and blogs.

The stakes were high. Our work really had to make a stellar first impression on the audience.

On top of that, the positive reception of the project from the public was particularly important to the design team. Whilst the Milanese Bosco Verticale became a property for the wealthy, Trudotoren was going to be introduced as the first vertical forest building destined for social housing.

Key project info

Deliverables

Production and art direction of 7 renderings as part of a media kit.

Project location

Eindhoven, Strijp-S

Year

2017

Program

Residential
Retail

Client

Stam + De Koning
Sint Trudo

Design team

Stefano Boeri Architetti
Studio Laura Gatti
INBO

Not your average greenwashed images

Through their international work, Stefano Boeri Architetti attracted a lot of attention both from the architecture community and the general public.

However, they had no resources to prepare in-house press-quality images for their projects, and little knowledge of the Dutch aesthetics when it comes to presenting unbuilt architecture.

Greenery is almost like a second skin to the facade in Stefano Boeri Architetti’s forest buildings, so the press kit images had to also carefully represent the vegetation as it was the final result – no space for mindless greenwashing or interpretation.

The design team approached us knowing our proven experience with Dutch projects and in the wake of our collaboration on Wonderwoods – another Dutch vertical forest project from the firm, where we delivered a very accurate and vivid representation of the greenery.

All of these factors combined, pushed the design team at Stefano Boeri Architetti to happily give us the green light on Trudotoren.

State of art greenery and four seasons

As the images for Trudotoren required such a precise rendition of the greenery, we asked Stefano Boeri Architetti to share as much information as possible on the species that were going to populate the façade.

In consultation with Laura Gatti Studio, we came up with a selection of bespoke 3D vegetation models based on a very detailed list of the green species selected. Then, the placement of each medium and large-sized green element had to carefully follow a matrix prepared by the designers by cross-checking the orientation of the building and the sunlight needs of each plant.

But that’s not all! The brief requested the delivery of four images depicting the building in winter, spring, summer and autumn, so we created seasonal variations of each 3D vegetation model. After all this preliminary work, we could finally unleash all our creativity and take the art direction of the project.

This is particularly pronounced in the ‘four season’ images, where we played with bold color palettes in order to make the change of seasons very clear.

A worldwide reach

The press kit we prepared was proudly shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti for over three years all over the world on all major media outlets, and even crossed the boundary of the Internet by being shown on public television in Italy and abroad.

Trudotoren was finally completed and opened to the public in October 2021

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