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STORY: This structure was designed to help cool down hot cities.

It's a vertical greening system called "Vert."

The idea is to create more shade using fast-growing climbing plants on these huge structures.

All in hopes of tackling what are known as “urban heat islands”…

Or, areas in the city that feel hotter than rural ones because of traffic and buildings.

"Vert is basically a planting structure. It's a static structure which is keeping plants for a season.”

Stefan Diez helped design Vert.

"This structure is, in a way, constructed like a street furniture. It's like a shelf that you put onto a place or on the street so the cars can still pass underneath, the bicycle can go underneath and the people can still walk, but they can also sit and rest.”

:: American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC)/Diez Office/OMC°C/London Design Festival

His design studio worked with the Frankfurt-based Office for Micro Climate Cultivation and the American Hardwood Export Council to generate multiple designs for the structure.

Vert is made from American red oak, which is abundant and fast growing.

That's according to Carlotta Stoll, the office’s co-founder.

"Our main goal is to offer a solution with which we can bring back nature into cities really quickly and easily."

According to the EU's environment agency, nearly half of the schools and hospitals in European cities are in urban heat islands.

It says that means vulnerable populations are being exposed to health-threatening temperatures as the impacts of climate change get worse.

The newly-designed piece is on display for this year’s London Design Festival.

The team says Vert has other benefits, too.

Its 25 different species of plants can boost biodiversity.

They also reduce surface temperatures by releasing water to the surrounding air.

They can also help sequester carbon dioxide, reducing the overall carbon footprint in urban areas.

And Stoll said the structure's utility does not end with the summer season.

"What we do in autumn is that we harvest the whole biomass and then depending on the local infrastructure, we can, for example, turn them into compost energy or even biochar, and by that return the whole harvest of biomass into the economic cycle.”