TD3 | Going Vertical | 10.29.10

1. Green Over Grey

A number of walls, via Living Wall Art, for Vancouver BC company Green Over Grey, which focuses on living walls.  A few of their projects:

:: images via Living Wall Art

2. Vertical garden at Natural Mind

A newly planted storefront vertical garden in Silver Lake, spotted via Urban Greenery.

:: image via Urban Greenery

3. Intelligentsia Coffee + Tea

A different approach at this alley courtyard in Venice, California.

:: image via Urban Greenery

TD3 | Skyfarming | 10.28.10

I've shorted the 'Daily Three' into an abbreviated version in order to add to the titling a bit more.  In that spirit, the focus today is vertical farming (no shortage of projects out there on that front).  Enjoy.

1. FEEDER: Elevated Highway Farm
Studio Gang

 :: image via Inhabitat

Some text from Inhabitat:  "Transforming the Ohio highway feeder ramp and transforming it into a ramp that feeds. Called FEEDER, the project would populate the underutilized open highway space with urban greenhouses and gardens where the public can grow their own produce and green space for even those with browner thumbs to enjoy."

:: images via Inhabitat

2. "Urban Farm, Urban Epicenter"
Jung Min Nam

An interesting one (along with lots of juicy new content) on the Vertical Farming site.  This one courtesy of a link (along with good dialogue on the viability of Vertical Farming in general) from Animal Architecture.  Here's the visuals of the Urban Farm, Urban Epicenter project from Jung Min Nam (check out more on the site).  

:: images via Vertical Farm Project

3.  Farm CityChris Hardewick

Text via Doors of Perception:  "Farm City is a proposal for a new kind of architecture that would enable cities to feed themselves. It is a skyscraper for living and farming. We are running out of land outside our cities to feed ourselves. Urban sprawl is consuming valuable agricultural land and agricultural lands are encroaching on sensitive wilderness ecosystems. Farm City is a project that creates agricultural area inside new housing towers."   (thanks to mr. holmes for the link)

:: images via Doors of Perception

TD3 | Horticultural Building Systems | 10.27.10

An email from University of Oregon Landscape Architecture professor Richard Hindle alerted me to an innovative design-build project happening on campus in the vegitectural realm.  The studio course 'Horticultural Building Systems' is based on  investigations into the potential to 'hybridize landscape, architecture, and product design".  For today's Daily Three - a trio of projects from the site, with some supplementary information on the course.  One project is a 'Soil Filled Gabion'.

:: image via Horticultural Building Systems

Some additional information from the site: "Horticultural Building Systems find their origin in early European sodden roofs, glasshouses, orangeries, ivy clad facades, espaliers, trellises, and have evolved through time to include modern greenhouses, engineered green roofs, living walls, bio-domes, sculpture, bioreactors, and cryogenic preservation chambers. For the purpose of this studio a horticultural building systems is understood as the instance where vegetation and an architectural system exist in a mutually defined, and intentionally designed relationship, that supports plant growth and an architectonic concept."


Another project involves the implementation of a concrete substrate for a living wall.  Developed by Matt Brooke and Walter Cicack, the 'Earth Bank' is an innovative use of the porous nature of the material for creating viable habitat for plantings.  The concept of testing new strategies is the genius of the studio - as it allows for a range of possible solutions to be investigated that can move the entire industry forward.

:: images via Horticultural Building Systems

Additional information gives some background on the concept - which asks many of the questions that this site posits: "The rise of horticultural building systems in speculative and built architecture leaves many questions unanswered as each new site becomes a new experiment, with diverse variables from species selection to microclimate, substrates, architectural nuances, project scheduling, and design of horticultural system. A disparity exists between the ubiquity of “green” or vegetative building systems in architectural proposal, and what is actually known about the design, construction, and longevity of these systems. Currently, innovation for horticultural building systems like green roofs and living walls is almost entirely dependent on research and development made by private companies and individuals protected by patent. "


A final project is concept for a simple interior installation 'Growing Curtain' by Eva Peterson, showing a modular installation for growing vegetables in gravity fed assembly.  The curtain consists of a " chain that directs water from the upper plant to the lower. Plants grow to meet each other as the curtain evolves. The modular, flexible vessels can be used individually or connected in a rhythmic series."

:: image via Horticultural Building Systems

The Daily Three | 10.26.10

1. Buenos Aires Vertical Zoo Proposal - Eco-Cliff
Hila Davidpur, Tal Gazit, Eli Gotman, Hofi Harari

Via Arch Daily, a proposal for the birds... (I question the absence of guano) "The “ECO-CLIFF” is a revolutionary tower that will serve as a nesting ground for thousands of migrating birds as well as an ecological habitat for the different animals and species of the “Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve Zoo”.

:: image via Arch Daily

More from Arch Daily:  "Eco-Cliff will accommodate a variety of migrating birds which pass the Costanera Sur Reserve each year. The migrating birds nesting areas would accompany the human visitors along their ascending path throughout the varied elements of the tower, including the different animal spaces and the observation decks."

:: images via Arch Daily

2. Spiral Garden
Benet and Saida Dalmau, Anna Julibert and Carmen Vilar

Via Inhabitat:  "Called Spiral Garden, the winding green space... [a] lacy mesh structure is a place for neighbors to socialize, garden and harvest, and even serves as a spot to store bikes between errands."  More text and images at Designboom.

Images via Inhabitat:

3. Greenside Out
Joubert Architecture

Via Inhabitat: "a condominium project in Tirana, Albania would help break the cycle of monotony and bland architecture in the expanding city. What was countryside beyond the city center only ten years ago has now become a series of box factories, warehouses, stores and apartment complexes stretching along a highway. The Netherlands-based firm proposes to revitalize the strip of land with a new condominium complex featuring terraced gardens on innovative interior cutouts."

:: images via Inhabitat

The Daily Three | 10.25.10

1. Lord of the Rings Hobbit Houses
Peter Jackson

This post from Inhabitat shows the village of Hobbiton, home of the Baggins clan in the Lord of the Rings series of movies (or if you prefer, the JRR Tolkien books).  Built as a stage set with minimal depth, the houses have now been given over to the local sheep population for shelter.

:: images via Inhabitat

2. Underground Skyscraper
Matthew Fromboluti

A different type of earth-sheltered design (again from Inhabitat), this proposal for reclamation of open pit mine sites takes us deep underground.  I gotta say, it looks pretty bleak on the surface and underground - although the light wells are an interesting touch.

:: image via Inhabitat


More info: "As we deplete our natural resources, we are left with huge gaping holes in the ground - scars from our open-pit mining exploits. Matthew Fromboluti of Washington University in St. Louis has a plan to heal those scars with an underground skyscraper that fills the hole and creates a self-sustaining community in its place. His proposal, Above Below, is proposed to infill the 900-foot deep and nearly 300-acre wide crater left by the former Lavender Pit Mine outside of Bisbee, Arizona."

:: images via Inhabitat

3. Stone Creek Camp  
Andersson - Wise

A bit more traditional as a residential project, the idea of blending in to the landscape can take many forms.  This project offers a great use of materials, including a mass planting of grasses that fits nicely into the overall composition.  Check out the log-siding as well - delicious.

:: images via Arch Daily

The Daily Three | 10.22.10

A sinuous new development, via ArchDaily, in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, by STL is for a Maritime Culture & Popular Music Center Competition.

:: image via ArchDaily

It features folded planes of park space atop accessory structures surrounding the waterfront - punctuated by a pair of dynamic buildings at each end.  The doubling up of space allows for a vibrant promenade for access to the water: "The promenade along the park will become a new vibrant part of the city, energized by recreational and commercial activities around the bay. Whether drawn to the immaculate views offered by the observatory in the landmark tower; or the cultural attractions within the museum; or just for a leisurely stroll along the waterfront, the park area provides a multitude of activities to accommodate visitors during any time of the day and year."

:: images via ArchDaily

In a similar vein, from Treehugger, the "Paik Nam June Media Bridge in Korea is proposed to be "sculptural, futuristic, and eco-friendly."  offering some vegetectual flourishes in the form - pockets of vegetation sloping up terraces of structure.

:: images via Treehugger

A cutaway section shows the profile - essentially a green slab inserted strategically at places along the structure to complement the pedestrian flows.  The question with inhabited bridges is always, are the a means from point A to B, or are they places to linger?

:: images via Treehugger

Final of the three is a departure from the organic forms of the previous two examples, via Inhabitat: "A winning design for a new art and culture center in SeongDong-gu, Korea features an urban forest located within the building that creates a lush and inspiring environment for cultural programs. Seoul-based Unsangdong Architects created the winning proposal, "Culture Forest", which boasts sustainable architecture, lots of trees and vegetation, and is powered by the sun. A circulating set of walkways within the building form an undulating landscape that creates an inviting atmosphere and a rich cultural program."

:: images via Inhabitat

It's interesting to see the softening of a relatively rigid form through the combination of greenery and textured panels - slicing the cube into 'frames' for particular uses, and providing a positive influence on the outward aesthetic of the facade.  

 :: images via Inhabitat

The Daily Three | 10.21.10

I'm excited about a new way to get exposure to the massive amounts of projects out there in the realm of vegitecture.  I thought a reasonable way to deal with the backlog was to give a daily trifecta of projects.  Here's the first edition.

A great new project just presented was the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum, by Belzberg Architects - featuring multiple vegetated planes.

:: image via Arch Daily

Interesting to see the visuals of this in concept, which show a much more uniform vegetated coverage of the renderings, in sharp constrast,belying the sparseness (and much more interesting) reality.

:: image via lamoth

Another project worth checking out is the SAP America Headquarters by FXFOWLE - featuring green roof as part of the overall building microclimate strategy (via Inhabitat).  "A large green roof covers the entire building, providing insulation and reducing heat gain, while rainwater collectors trap rainwater for storage in a 50,000-gallon cistern that supplies water for landscape irrigation and the flushing of toilets in some of the building’s bathrooms. Native and regional vegetation are used in the landscaping."

:: images via Inhabitat

Finally, the simple green roof from the Lighthouse Stadium in Belfort, France - featuring a green roof to complement a glowing facade.

:: image via Inhabitat

International Skyrise Greenery Conference

A roundabout pathway to the IFLA site led me to the annoucement of the International Skyrise Greenery Conference happening in Singapore from November 1-3, 2010. The focus will be on rooftop gardens, green roofs, and vertical green walls... sounds lovely.

The keynotes are a veritable who's who of Vegitecture: "ISGC will feature multiple award-winning experts such as Emilio Ambasz from the US, hailed as “The Messiah” of green architecture; Patrick Blanc from France, the inventor of the vertical greenery concept; and Dr. Ken Yeang from the UK, one of the foremost designers and a recognised authority on ecologically-responsive architecture and planning"

Lots of other great presentations and research. Wish I would have heard about his earlier - because Singapore sounds lovely this time of year.