Branding The Urban Forest. Recent experiences in the City of Milan

With the expansion of uncontrolled urbanization – sprawling – from any part of the world's population, the peculiar qualities provided by biophilic design – such as stress reduction, reduced healing time, increasing creativity and the general improvement of human comfort and wellbeing – have assumed primary importance. Paradigmatic in this respect is the importance attached to the dimension of "agency" of natural elements, and trees in particular i.e. their transformative abilities, considered essential in determining the quality of life of individuals and communities. Through the functions of growth, reproduction, dissemination, and association, trees play an important role in characterizing both urban and rural places, as well as in the stimulation of sensory and emotional responses from people interacting with them. Like with other consumer goods, but relying on scientific results that demonstrate the many benefits provided by the natural capital to the urban ecosystem – research findings and studies that investigate specific phenomena and resources, well-defined and never generic – designers, developers and public administrators have put the Urban Forest at the heart of their marketing strategies, sometimes with real operations of luxury branding, as in the case of the Vertical Forest in Milan.