The Plant Room

Perhaps the silliest matter-of-fact comments via Grist: "If the Earth's population is going to keep skyrocketing as fast as cities are popping up skyscrapers, I suppose we'll be needing mini-parks that attach to the sides of apartment buildings."

Uh, yeah... it's obviously the next logical iteration of thinking. Population growth, skyscrapers, parasitic parklands... of course. A cool project though from some New Zealand design students.


:: image via The Plant Room

And a video for your viewing pleasure.

Elements of Nature

Based on the post related to prismatic green roofs, a reader (thanks Julia!) alerted me to this cool student project entry in the Australian Design Awards entitled 'Elements of Nature' by Hamit Kuralkan from Monash University that incorporates fractal geometry to provide filtration using plants.


:: image via Australian Design Awards

From the description:

"Elements of Nature is an air purification system designed to work with an indoor plant (ivy). It`s mesh surface allows ivy to grow over itself naturally make every product unique for its user. It is a customizable system that can provide for the needs of specific users. Elements of Nature combines the power of nature with manmade technologies to achieve the best results possible. it is a functional solution that is also environmentally aware. Its water based filtering mechanism avoids use of disposable metal and carbon based filters. Elements of nature is a better way to clean your air"


:: image via Australian Design Awards

Milano Stadt Krone 2030

Studio Shift’s Stadt Krone proposal is one of twelve that offers a conceptual solution for the densification of Milano. The result is striking on the surface, but also comes with some inspiring methodology in terms of blending people with productive agricultural space.


:: image via Arch Daily

Aside from being aesthetically dynamic, the proposal aims to augment food production lands displaced due to urbanization (via Arch Daily):

"As the population increases, the Italian regions responsible for the country’s food production will be met with increasing demands, yet, the amount of arable land will decrease. Studio Shift has created a raised and angled agricultural surface that will provide the necessary farm land, while also allowing the new residential components to slip under this plane."

:: image via Arch Daily

The practicality of proposals of this sort leave more questions than answers, particularly the overall productivity, along with maintenance to be able to 'farm' the surface.


:: image via Arch Daily

A lot of attention has been paid in the proposal, which relies on innovative mechanization for service (via Arch Daily):

"Agricultural wise, this “arable façade” will promote growth for different plant species. Crops that flourish in drier soil conditions are located higher on the façade while those that require more moist conditions are found in the lower region. An integrated mechanical movement system allows workers to traverse the agriculturally laden facade/farm in carts that travel along a network of rails and facilitate the harvesting of crops."

:: image via Arch Daily

Again, time will tell if this is practical, but it's heartening to see more attention paid to some, if not all, of the specific life-cycle elements beyond the visuals.

Prismatic Green Faces

An idea that has aesthetic merit is the integration of faces along a facade, creating a prismatic representation on the surface through edging or fractal geometry on the building cladding. Building on the inherent difficulties of maintenance for steep and vertical applications, these become more interesting the more integrated in the structure they become.

In it's simplest form, a monolithic . Via Clean Air through Green Roofs this 19,000 m2 roof from Malmo, Sweden is 'broken' by these faces - hopefully to add some interest from the massive size and flat nature of the roof.


:: image via Clean Air through Green Roofs

More dramatic examples (in representation at least) offer a much more building-integrated approach. Inhabitat brings us Magic Mountains: "...meant to resemble the natural skyline of Chongqing, except that they are composed of glass and steel. The peaks will hold the high density centers, while the lower areas will look more like traditional Chinese neighborhoods. The valleys will be open green spaces where the “living machine” – a wastewater treatment and renewable energy generation system – will be housed."






:: images via Inhabitat

A final version via Designboom (and further 'out there') is the proposal for the taipei pop music center by Italian firm mario bellini architects: "...a single body wrapped in a plastic 'mantle plant' . the hill like structure is connected through glass passage ways, allowing guests numerous views of the landscape and standing out as an iconic landmark for the city."




:: images via Designboom

'Central Park' Green Wall

One of my favorite firms Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis - has come up with one of the most inventive living walls delineating Central Park, for a project for a space houses the offices of the open planning project (topp) – a nonprofit founded by mark gorton, which develops tech tools for mapping and geospacial applications.


:: images via Design*Sponge

Via Design*Sponge: " LTL Architects developed the brilliant idea of a wall that is the street grid of Manhattan with a green wall for Central Park. Parker Interior Plantscapes chose plantings that reflect the landscape of Central Park, with low dense plantings for the meadows and taller tree-like plantings for the wooded areas."


:: images via Design*Sponge

8 Tallet

Via Inhabitat: " 8 Tallet (or 8 House), a progressive apartment complex that is a small neighborhood in itself. The idea is that localizing services for residences — something large, dense cities take for granted — can be incorporated in new developments from the start. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the complex features a gorgeous green roof, is oriented to make the most of available daylight..."




:: images via Inhabitat

I'm struck by the steepness of these vegetated roofs, yet wonder why the other flat roofs don't have green roofs as well. It seems mostly an aesthetic gesture towards to surrounding community, as there isn't really much visual connection between the complex and the green roof.


:: images via Inhabitat

A closer look reveals some sub-surface baffles to hold the soil and plants on the slope, in essence dividing the large spaces into smaller modules. It's definitely extensive sedum coverage as well, which is also bursting red (due to heat/low-water) and patchy in places. Will be interesting to see how this one holds up long-term.

:: images via Inhabitat

Future of Landscape/Architecture?

Tom Turner at Gardenvisit posits the question in relation to this very vegetal competition entry from Forrest Fulton Architecture.




:: images via Forrest Fulton Architecture

Via Gardenvisit:

"Should one call this architecture or landscape architecture or neither or both? It is a competition entry for 2010 Competition Entry for International Business Center with an Intercontinental Hotel in Yerevan. The designer explains: ‘Instead of a towering Iconic image, disconnected from historic, horizontal Yerevan, Lace Hill stitches the adjacent city and landscape together to support a holistic, ultra-green lifestyle, somewhere between rural hillside living and dense cultured urbanity’. The images are good but, if I were one of the judges, I would want to see some cross-sections and floor plans before awarding a prize."

:: images via Forrest Fulton Architecture

I'd call it vegitecture...

We're Back!

Ok, by we, ... I mean me... although I'm hoping some fledgling bloggers with a strong interested in vegitecture wants to join me as a contributor or two. And, by back, I mean actively blogging using the Vegitecture banner. After a bit of time off, I realized that I still had a need to post about the latest in vegetated architecture, if only for my own desire to capture what's out there and sort out the wheat from the chaff... or at least the viable from the photoshopped.


:: 'caohejing hi tech park' by massimo roj of progetto CMR - images via Designboom

So there isn't a discreet agenda or ideology - just more of a digital note-taking for collection of imagery related to the vegitectural.




:: 'caohejing hi tech park' by massimo roj of progetto CMR - images via Designboom