In pictures: From garden city to green city

When completed the 27-storey Bosco Verticale in Milan will be the world’s first vertical "forest". Each apartment will have a balcony planted with trees, which will shade the windows and filter out dust from the city. It is the grand vision of architect and academic Stefano Boeri. The tower is the first scheme in his BioMiolano project, which will create a green belt around the city and bring 60 abandoned farms back into community use.
© Stefano Boeri

This structure above Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, designed by LTL architects, will create a 400 foot long vegetated green "sponge" spanning the entrance to the underground toll road in New York. The structure, described as "part sculpture, part infrastructure, part park", will clean noise and air pollution from the tunnel. It will support an array of plant and bird species, water-collecting devices and wind turbines.
© LTL

Tour Vegetal in Nantes is the latest vision of French architect Edouard François, well known for his green living architecture. He works with botanists to produce buildings that have plants at their heart.
© Edouard François

The Eden Bio project in Paris is an "urban hamlet" of 100 flats and 12 artist studios. Two greenhouses were also built, to remember the fruit gardens that historically sat on the site, and they have become a meeting point where residents can collect their post.
© Nicolas Castet

In the late nineteenth century, Ebenezer Howard's influential concept of the garden city proposed a solution to the harshness of London life. Letchworth Garden City followed Howard’s model city plans and proposed that only 25 people were housed per acre of land. Many of the homes and buildings in Letchworth were designed by architects Parker and Unwin.
© First Garden City Heritage Museum

The architect Neave Brown designed Camden's Alexandra Road Estate so that every one of more than 500 homes would have its own private roof garden or terrace. Landscape architect Janet Jack was commissioned in 1976 to design the gardens and common ground, including a four acre park. Photograph: Elizabeth Knowles

Photographer Elizabeth Knowles has been a resident of Alexandra Road Estate since it was developed in the 1970s. Her work has documented the changes to the landscape surrounding her home. Her photographs chart changes to the planting in the meadow, grass bowl, woodland walk, playgrounds and other areas that make up the park. Photograph: Elizabeth Knowles

In collaboration with Camden council, Knowles and other residents are in the process of applying for a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore the whole estate to its original architecture and landscape. Photograph: Elizabeth Knowles

One Brighton is one of the greenest new residential buildings in the UK. Designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley architects, it incorporates "growing spaces" into city living. Planters are provided on apartment balconies, and rooftop allotments are also available for residents to grow their own vegetables. Photograph: Tim Crocker/PR