Designers Propose Living Garden Billboards in NYC
by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada on 06.21.08
Image: Todo Design and Das Studio
Yep, the billboard is getter better and better. What was once a flat-faced urban fixture now becomes a tabula rasa for endless possibilities, as one proposal does by re-imagining dreary NYC billboards dressed with living greenery. Titled “Garden Spots,” the proposal has won the designers at TODO Design and Das Studio first place at the iDA Land & Sea Competition, where the backsides of these otherwise lifeless spaces would be seeded with gardens containing local plant varieties.
These air gardens would be designed with self-sustaining technologies in mind; with photovoltaic panels providing electricity for the automatic drip irrigation system, which takes water from the base of the billboard tower. With centralized monitoring of billboard clusters via wireless technology, less management is required. It's a great idea that not only would the living billboards offset the carbon emissions of cars passing by, but that these greener faces would also certainly be easier on the eyes too.
Related Links on Better and Greener Billboards
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Urban Intensification: Inhabiting Billboards
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Shame on you TH for propagating the double Enviro-Wammy: More (completely unnecessary) water consumption - and then - a BILLBOARD??
Sustainable is all I care about - and so should TH!!
You got to be kidding!
Your fan (except in regards to this post)
Shame on you TH for propagating the double Enviro-Wammy: More (completely unnecessary) water consumption - and then - a BILLBOARD??
Sustainable is all I care about - and so should TH!!
You got to be kidding!
Your fan (except in regards to this post)
The drip irrigation system is a very economical way to water gardens. Also the billboards are already existing. We simply want to use the existing infrastructure that the community looks at by planting gardens.
The drip irrigation system is a very economical way to water gardens. Also the billboards are already existing. We simply want to use the existing infrastructure that the community looks at by planting gardens.
How exactly is this unnecessary water consumption? If there's a basin catch at the base of the billboard and the water is brought up using renewable energy, what's the problem with it?
Eventually, you have to stop complaining about plants taking up water consumption. In areas like the northeast where water is NOT a problem, collecting the water from my roof to water my garden is NOT consuming unnecessary water. Yeesh!
The fact that there are more plants per square mile (though even if all billboards did this, it'd be marginal) means that some carbon will be locked out of the atmosphere for as long as the plants continue to grow or are recycled/planted every year. Any carbon-lock solution we can think of (green roofs, billboards, vertical gardens, whatever) the better off we are.
I Love it!
I'd rather see a less-sustainable garden than an even less-sustainable lighting display or moving pieces.
If sustainable is all that you care about Ride The Future, you have a bleak trek ahead of you. Sustainable technologies to support today's society won't spring up without some intermediate steps. The billboards aren't going away, so live with the progress to make them better. Personally, I think aerial gardening, even of 'unsustainable annuals' is great.