How Green was my Balcony
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 12.16.08
It seems to be all the rage these days: Every building proposal has lush green balconies. It is hard to tell how it is done; when you look closely at the renderings of this proposal for Milano Santa Monica, via homedesignfind, one really cannot tell if there are planters in front of the handrails or if it is just sorta stuck there like Christmas decorations. Nor do you know who maintains them, whether each owner is responsible, whether gardeners have rights of entry, or whether they rappel down the exterior of the building.
Certainly it makes for an attractive building, and we like the story of this one, where
The small city is designed to embrace eco-compatibility while paying special attention to energy conservation and the principles of bio-architecture. The project involves Polis Engineering of Milan, Studio Nicoletti of Rome, and the Marzorati Architecture Studio. Solar panels are used to produce warm water for civilians and photovoltaic panels cover sunny facing windows to produce electric power.
MVRDV is doing much the same thing with its termite mounds Gwanggyo City Centre project just south of Seoul. Inhabitat tells us:
Designed as a cluster of structures rising up in concentric rings, each floor in the city is lined with lush box hedges that improve ventilation while reducing energy and water usage. An internal irrigation system stores extra water from the buildings and uses it to sustain these green facades.
which provides a little more detail of how it might work.
Certainly there is lots of technology around to ensure that these types of planters get water; we learned at Greenbuild that even standard looking window boxes can have moisture sensors and automatic watering systems built in, like this system shown by Tournesol Siteworks.
But as Edouard François demonstrated with his Flower Tower, the bigger the pot, the greener the building. (See more at 11 Buildings Wrapped in Gorgeous Green and Living Walls)
Perhaps a better approach is the one demonstrated by Knafo Klimor in their competition entry for the Living Steel 2nd International Sustainable Housing Competition.(TreeHugger here) They put the green stuff in greenhouses, where they were accessible and were designed for real production rather than just a green edge to a balcony.
Although they don't provide a lot of dirt either, relying on
Drip Irrigation - Reducing water consumption by delivering irrigation directly to the plants and by collecting water that realized though evaporation. Stop leaching of nitrogen to under ground water table by using a smaller volume of water. Recycling drainage water and reusing them for production of crops by using advanced structures and soil less media containers.
What is my point in all of this? Only that lovely renderings of buildings that show a consistent green envelope require a lot of technology and attention and do not often come out looking like the rendering. Designs where the green stuff is in common areas (like Daniel Libeskind's proposal for New York) are more likely to get proper care than those where it is on every balcony of every apartment. But it is a lovely trend.
More Green Towers with Green Exteriors in TreeHugger:
Parabienta Green Wall from Shimizu
Shigeru Ban Builds Thirteen Storey High Green Wall :
11 Buildings Wrapped in Gorgeous Green and Living Walls :
A Really Green Building: Quai Branley Office Wing
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Planning a Green Building Project? Beware of Lawyers
- Greensburg's Green Club Gives the Silo Eco-Home a Green Roof (Video)
- How to Convince Your Family Contracting Business to Go Green
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So, you're in favor of luscious looking renderings, no matter how false or impractical they might be? We all like eye candy. But there should be some small adherence to reality in these renderings.
The reality is that most people or building maintenance staffs couldn't or wouldn't go to the trouble and expense to maintain all of these overgrown window boxes. And flower pots do not make a building 'Green'.
Let's not forget that the microclimate on top of a tower is far different from what it is at ground level. Windier, sunnier, and drier. It won't look so pretty when plants are uprooted on the 40th floor by the winds, or a flowerpot slips off the ledge and brains someone.
LA: I am sorry, I was trying to be subtle, the post was meant as a criticism of the phoney green decoration, and in favour of the common area planting or at least the eduard francois versions where he knew how much soil it takes to actually make a plant grow.
Both Lloyd Alter's and jon's points are good ones.
As someone who loves the look of greenery but has yet to have a house plant live longer than two months, I must agree the promise is far easier than the practice.
I am confused? In the Knafo Klimor and Libeskind proposals, is the greenery just in a common green house area? Is this like those community gardens where everybody gets an 8 by 8 lot to grow their own vegetables?
Green Roofs Vs Green Walls: Individual action against greenhouse gas, thermal gain can make a difference even with out these complicated buildings of the future.
According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), buildings are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. According to estimates in the AIA's Architects and Climate Change report, buildings represent 48 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, with transportation and industry representing 27 percent and 25 percent respectively.
Some people argue global change is normal state, that there is no proof of human impact on climate change, it is just a normal process humans have no impact on.
Climate change may have normal cycles but there is nothing historically normal about the human population explosion and the impact that their energy consumption and pollution has on the earth’s bio systems. Many independent thinking people believe that the individual CAN make a difference. However, working in conjunction with Architects we could do a lot more.
Not only do high concentrations of people in mega buildings concentrate green house gas, but building these high-density buildings also increases the surface area on, if not of, the earth that can absorb heat. It is not just office towers; residential condo towers are creating increasingly dense urban and coastal areas that contribute to the formation of “heat islands” and global warming by adding heat-retaining surface area. Any urban city resident knows that it is often 10 degrees warmer in the city than the suburbs or rural areas around them.
The Green Roof movement is great, but the ratio of wall to roof area is much greater on high rise buildings. If Architects designed balconies with drainage and water spigots built into their clients high rise buildings, it would allow residents and offices to help offset their impact to a far greater degree both in terms of cooling and exchanging oxygen for carbon and absorbing other pollutants.
Successful landscaping and gardening on balconies and rooftops, especially of condo towers, has many challenges that residents with terrestrial gardens in homes don’t share, especially if the building Architect is not on the same page. Balcony and rooftop gardening, however, can help offset the green house gas emissions and despite the difficulties in cooling these heat islands, it is a worthy endeavor within the grasp of individuals using low tech, renewable resources.
I have a blog at http://planterblog.com/blog/ that is a discussion of ways to make it easier for people to garden on terraces and rooftops. There are also useful links there and at www.DeepStreamDesigns.com .