World’s first vertical forest under construction in Milan

This design is close to the full realization of an idea that occurred to me around a decade ago, as I pondered how to house 10 billion humans and still have a biosphere. I built a genetic algorithm framework for modeling these kinds of structures, which was used in Gennaro Senatore: Morphogenesis of Spatial Configurations. It’s amazing to see these kinds of structures actually being built; it’s as though the 21st century has finally arrived.

By Diane Pham
16 October 2011

We've reported extensively on green vertical towers that integrate plant life into their facade, but unlike many of those designs, here's one that goes beyond being a mere concept. Designed by Stefano Boeri - architect, academic and former editor of design and architecture magazine Domus - his Bosco Verticale is a towering 27-story structure, currently under construction in Milan, Italy. Once complete, the tower will be home to the world's first vertical forest.

The Bosco Verticale is a system that optimizes, recuperates, and produces energy. Covered in plant life, the building aids in balancing the microclimate and in filtering the dust particles contained in the urban environment (Milan is one of the most polluted cities in Europe). The diversity of the plants and their characteristics produce humidity, absorb CO2 and dust particles, producing oxygen and protect the building from radiation and acoustic pollution. This not only improves the quality of living spaces, but gives way to dramatic energy savings year round.

Each apartment in the building will have a balcony planted with trees that are able to respond to the city’s weather — shade will be provided within the summer, while also filtering city pollution; and in the winter the bare trees will allow sunlight to permeate through the spaces. Plant irrigation will be supported through the filtering and reuse of the greywater produced by the building. Additionally, Aeolian and photovoltaic energy systems will further promote the tower’s self-sufficiency.

The design of the Bosco Verticale is a response to both urban sprawl and the disappearance of nature from our lives and on the landscape. The architect notes that if the units were to be constructed unstacked as stand-alone units across a single surface, the project would require 50,000 square meters of land, and 10,000 square meters of woodland. Bosco Verticale is the first offer in his proposed BioMilano, which envisions a green belt created around the city to incorporate 60 abandoned farms on the outskirts of the city to be revitalized for community use.

+ Stefano Boeri Architetti

Bosco Verticale in Milan Will Be the World’s First Vertical Forest

Technorati Tags: green architecture,carbon sequestration,solar power,wind power,sewage,carbon dioxide,carbon capture,carbon footprint

Waste treatment in greenhouse wetlands

I want these on the Microsoft campus.

An Eco-Machine™, can be a tank based system traditionally housed within a greenhouse or a combination of exterior constructed wetlands with Aquatic Cells inside of a greenhouse . The system often includes an anaerobic pre-treatment component, flow equalization, aerobic tanks as the primary treatment approach followed by a final polishing step, either utilizing Ecological Fluidized Beds or a small constructed wetland.

The size requirements are entirely dependent on the waste flow, usually determined during our preliminary engineering phase and site visit. The Eco-Machine™ is a beautiful water garden that can be designed to provide advanced treatment. The Eco-Machine functions similarly to a facultative pond with both aerobic and anoxic treatment zones, only instead of a body of water, the process occurs within individual tanks, creating independent treatment zones.

A robust ecosystem is created in the Eco-Machine between the plants, microbial species and distinct treatment zones. Within the Eco-Machine, all the major groups of life are represented, including microscopic algae, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and zooplankton, on upward to snails, clams, and fishes. Higher plants, including shrubs and trees, are grown on adjustable industrial strength fiberglass racks suspended within the system. The result is an efficient and refined wastewater treatment system that is capable of achieving high quality water without the need for hazardous chemicals.

The Eco-Machine can be designed to function, and resemble, a baffled “river” through the creation of eddies, countercurrents, and contact zones in which a diversity of life will arise.

The outlet from the last tank may be equipped with an effluent filter, similar to the ones installed in septic tanks. This will prevent the discharge of unwanted solids, most likely plant detritus, to the polishing component. Nitrogen will be removed in anoxic zone of the Eco-Machine through a process called de-nitrification. If the rate of de-nitrification in the Eco-Machine is insufficient, a portion of the effluent may be recycled back to the anaerobic reactor with an ample supply of carbon. Additional removal of nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients may be achieved through plant assimilation and other microorganisms.

About Eco-Machines

Technorati Tags: green construction,green architecture

LEED Platinum Vancouver Convention Center has North America's largest green roof

From Inhabitat:

Even if you had doubts that the “greenest Olympic games” were merely marketing buzz words, you have to be impressed that the implementation of the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Center (VCECE) expansion has surpassed the extremely ambitious sustainable initiatives that we first reported to you two years ago. The world’s first LEED Platinum certified convention center also boasts the largest non-industrial green roof in North America.  During the XXI Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games, the center will serve as the international broadcast and media hub. The expansion tripled the square footage and functional capacity of the old convention center, which was a necessity to house 7000 media guests who will be broadcasting live to millions of viewers across the globe.

GALLERY: LEED Platinum Vancouver Convention Center has North America's Largest Green Roof

Technorati Tags: green architecture,green construction

Floating mega arcology for Boston’s harbor

Get ready Boston, someday you might just have this incredible floating city within a city located in your harbor. The BoA, short for Boston Arcology, is a sustainable mega structure designed by Kevin Schopfer, who also designed the amazing New Orleans Arcology Habitat (NOAH). The BoA will house 15,000 people in hotels, offices, retail spaces, museums, condominiums, and even a new city hall. Built to LEED standards with golden proportions, this amazing building would serve as an expansion of the city without impacting what is already currently built. …

Floating Mega Arcology for Boston’s Harbor

Technorati Tags: green architecture,green construction

Lightweight 'triple-zero' house produces more energy than it uses

NEW YORK--Overlooking the city of Stuttgart in southern Germany, a four-story modern glass house stands like a beacon of environmental sustainability. Built in 2000, it was the first in a series of buildings that are "triple-zero," a concept developed by German architect and engineer Werner Sobek, which signifies that the building is energy self-sufficient (zero energy consumed), produces zero emissions, and is made entirely of recyclable materials (zero waste). …

Lightweight 'triple-zero' house produces more energy than it uses

Technorati Tags: green architecture,green construction

Obama administration will remove barriers to home energy retrofits

WASHINGTON, DC, October 19, 2009 (ENS) - The emergence of a home retrofit market that would increase energy efficiency and cut home energy bills has been hampered by lack of access to reliable information, financing and skilled workers, finds a new report released today by Vice President Joe Biden.

The report, "Recovery Through Retrofit," [pdf] is intended to build on the foundation laid in the Recovery Act to expand green job opportunities and boost energy savings by making homes more energy efficient, the vice president said.

"'Recovery Through Retrofit' is a blueprint that will create good green jobs - jobs that can't be outsourced, and jobs that will be the cornerstones of a 21st-Century economy," said Biden. "And, thanks to the Recovery Act's unprecedented investments in energy efficiency, we are making it easier for American families to retrofit their homes - helping them save money while reducing carbon emissions and creating a healthier environment for our families."

At a Middle Class Task Force meeting earlier this year, the vice president asked the White House Council on Environmental Quality to develop a proposal for federal action to lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining home energy efficiency retrofit industry.

In response, the Council set in motion an interagency process with the Office of the Vice President, six other White House Offices and 11 departments and agencies to develop recommendations for how to use existing authority and funding to accomplish this goal. These recommendations are detailed in the report.  …

Obama Administration Will Remove Barriers to Home Energy Retrofits

Technorati Tags: green construction,green economy

"Memphis takes first step in retrofitting shopping areas"

 

By Tom Bailey, Memphis Commercial Appeal

"Abandoned strip centers, malls can be reborn, says architecture professor Ellen Dunham-Jones"

Architecture professor Ellen Dunham-Jones comes to Memphis this week to speak on a topic she tackled in her new book, "Retrofitting Suburbia."

It includes 80 or so examples of communities nationwide turning dead malls, underperforming strip centers and pedestrian-repellant streets into more vibrant, walkable, livable and sustainable places.

None of the book's examples, however, come from Memphis suburbs.

"But we didn't have the most sophisticated" search of projects, said Dunham-Jones, who speaks at 6:15 p.m. Thursday at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

Her appearance is among the Architecture Month events organized by AIA (American Institute of Architects) Memphis.

With no major database to tap into, the authors searched newspaper articles and contacted architects and developers looking for projects in which old suburban structures and infrastructure had been redeveloped in a new urbanism way.

There may not have been much retrofitting to find among Memphis suburbs, anyway.

Charles "Chooch" Pickard, executive director of the Memphis Regional Design Center, is unaware of any Memphis-area examples.

"I think bringing in Ellen Dunham-Jones is a great first step," he said. …

"Memphis takes first step in retrofitting shopping areas" via Dead Malls

Technorati Tags: green construction,sustainable development

Inhabitat’s top five ‘green’ buildings that defeat the point of being green

 

It’s thrilling to see so many new constructions striving to be as eco-conscious as they possibly can, but beware. What looks green on the surface of things can belie another story entirely when you dig a little deeper. Here we reveal what we believe to be the most ridiculous cases of architectural greenwashing we’ve seen so far. …

Top Five ‘Green’ Buildings That Defeat The Point of Being Green

Technorati Tags: green construction,green architecture

After years of decline, Cleveland aims to go green

By Nick Carey

CLEVELAND (Reuters) – Orchards and vineyards may soon spring from the blight of thousands of abandoned buildings in Cleveland, a city struggling to rise from years of decline and home foreclosures.

Once a proud manufacturing powerhouse, Cleveland has lost nearly 10 percent of its population since 2000, the fastest drop of any U.S. city except for hurricane-hit New Orleans.

The city which was once America's fifth largest now ranks 41st in the U.S. Census with a population of 433,748.

"The first thing we must do is stabilize our housing market," said Jim Rokakis, treasurer of Cuyahoga County which includes greater Cleveland. "Then we'll need to work out what to do with all the vacant land we'll be left with."

The county has 36,000 abandoned homes that are a magnet for crime. As many as 18,000 must be demolished at a cost of several hundred million dollars. Proposals for the empty land include orchards and vineyards to help property prices recover, as few expect the city's population decline to reverse.

"This isn't a market for new housing," said Mark Seifert, executive director of local nonprofit the East Side Organizing Project. "And it certainly won't be in my lifetime." …

After years of decline, Cleveland aims to go green

Technorati Tags: financial collapse,green construction

Amazing designs built with living trees

Here’s an idea for environmentally friendly, carbon-absorbing architecture and design: structures and sculptures built with living trees.

A concept sometimes called arborsculpture, the idea is based on bending and sometimes grafting together young trees to form useful shapes and structures such as stools, tables, benches and even houses. One of the earliest known practitioners of the craft was an American named John Krubsack, who harvested his grown chair in 1914.  In some cultures, the idea goes even further, by centuries, back.

Today, a number of people and companies are promoting arborsculpture as a green way to create functional, carbon-sequestering items and homes. Among the designs created with living trees:

Tree stool

Briton Christopher Cattle calls his designs “grown furniture” and says, “Growing furniture isn’t going to save the planet, but it can show that it’s possible to create genuinely useful things without adding to the pollution that industry inevitably seems to produce.”

Tree hut

“Arbosculptor” Richard Reames not only creates a variety of  items using living trees, but has written two books on the subject, including Arborsculpture: Solutions for a Small Planet. Among the living structures he highlights on his Website, Arborsmith Studios, is a grown gazebo located in a park on Okinawa. …

Amazing designs built with living trees

Technorati Tags: green construction,biotechnology

San Francisco transforming toxic site into UN Global Warming Center

The Hunter’s Point Shipyard in San Francisco is a former naval shipyard filled with radiation and industrial toxins. It’s so dangerous that the U.S. Environmental Agency has designated it as one of the most polluted sites in the nation. But instead of letting the site fester, San Francisco has just announced plans to rid the shipyard of its toxins and build the U.N. Global Compact Center, a world class climate change think tank and green tech incubator. Due for competition in 2012, the new development will comprise over two million square feed of LEED-certified space. …

San Francisco Transforming Toxic Site into UN Global Warming Center

Technorati Tags: climate change,green construction,green architecture,pollution

Could bacteria-filled balloons stop the spread of the Sahara? Architect Magnus Larsson thinks so

Nearly a year ago a "Great Green Wall" of trees was proposed to run across the entire southern border of the Sahara desert in an attempt to stop expanding desertification. At the TED Global conference in Oxford, England, architect Magnus Larsson proposes another, more solid, idea to stop the spread of the Sahara: Using bacteria-filled balloons to turn the dunes into a 6000km-long desert-break.

TED's pretty good at getting video up from their presentations, but at the time of this writing it wasn't yet available, so the BBC summary will have to do:

Bacterium Would Solidify Dunes Into Stone
Larsson proposes literally solidifying dunes, turning them into sandstone. This would be done not by thousands of years of normal geologic processes, but more quickly by flooding it with a bacterium commonly found in wetlands, Bacillus pasteurii. Larsson says that the bacterium, "is a microorganism which chemically produces calcite - a kind of natural cement." …

Could Bacteria-Filled Balloons Stop the Spread of the Sahara? Architect Magnus Larsson Thinks So

Technorati Tags: green construction

Super sheds: coming to your backyard soon

 

moonroom

As we noted last year in an earlier roundup of modern sheds, they are an great way to get more space without more mortgage, and the gateway drug for modern prefab. There has been so much action in the shed world that it is time for an update. …

Super Sheds: Coming to Your Backyard Soon

Technorati Tags: green construction

Plantagon develops vertical farm that can go anywhere

 

Plantagon is more than just another vertical farm. We learn from PSFK that it "will dramatically change the way we produce ecological and functional food. It allows us to produce ecological with clean air and water inside urban environments, even major cities, cutting costs and environmental damage by eliminating transportation and deliver directly to consumers. This is due to the efficiency and productivity of the Plantagon® greenhouse which makes it economically possible to finance each greenhouse from its own sales."...

Plantagon Develops Vertical Farm That Can Go Anywhere

Technorati Tags: green construction,green architecture,green agriculture

A Canadian first for sustainable community design

 

GLOBE-Net (June 18, 2009) - From an industrial beginning to a greener future, one Vancouver inner-city area is being transformed using state-of-the art concepts and technologies that will establish a number of Canadian firsts in sustainable design and urban planning. Millennium Water, tagged as "Vancouver's last waterfront community", is about to become the first LEED® Gold multi-unit residential neighbourhood in Canada.

The development also sets high standards for future Olympic host cities since the community's first residents will be the 2,800 athletes, coaches, and officials of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The Millennium Water 17-acre land parcel is centrally located within the 80-acre Southeast False Creek (SEFC) area in downtown Vancouver. Included in this phase-one development are 1,122 residential units with a mix of market, rental, and affordable housing for seniors, singles, and families. There is also approximately 70,000 square-feet of commercial space available. …

A Canadian First for Sustainable Community Design

Technorati Tags: green construction,Canada,green architecture

UC Berkeley: Shrinking Cities Group

Today, every 6th city in the world can be defined as a “shrinking city.”  This is a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing cities, parts of cities, or metropolitan areas that are experiencing a dramatic decline in their economic and social bases.  The causes of this urban decline are many and complex, though one common denominator is that each “shrinking city” has been significantly impacted by the forces of globalization.  Marked by a loss of employment opportunities and the attendant out-migration of population, many shrinking cities have suffered from the post-industrial shift from manufacturing to service industries (e.g., Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Manchester/UK).  Other factors contributing to this decline are the so-called “second generation” transformations in the high-tech sector (e.g., the collapse of the dot-com industry in California) and economic changes wrought by the dissolution of socialist systems (e.g., in eastern Germany).  These processes, among others, have drained essential investment and resources from many urban areas, leaving the remaining cities with an ever-diminishing fiscal base.

The Shrinking Cities Group's work is carried out under the aegis of the Institute of Urban and Regional Development. The work draws upon the Institute's long-standing research experience in regional development and its vital worldwide networking activities with experts in research and policymaking.

Shrinking Cities Group

Technorati Tags: urban decline,financial collapse,green construction,green architecture

Are vertical farms the answer after all?

High-Tech Greenhouses See 20-Fold Increase in Yields

Adam Stein of Terrapass was famously skeptical about vertical farms, describing them as "pie in the sky". So I was surprised to read one of his latest blog posts, in which he links to an LA Times article about high-tech California greenhouses that are employing vertical farming techniques, and boosting crop yields per acre by a factor of 20. Could it be that Adam was wrong about vertical farming? …

Are Vertical Farms the Answer After All?

Technorati Tags: green construction

Patent for a concentration solar power module that integrates into façades and roofs

 

UdL has obtained the Spanish patent for the creation of a concentration solar power system, and has already started the proceedings for obtaining an international patent. This system produces heat, cold and electricity and can be architecturally integrated into the buildings where it is installed.

A concentration solar power module that produces heat, cold and electricity and that can be integrated to façades or building roofs constitutes the new patent obtained by UdL. This system has been developed by Daniel Chemisana, member of the research group in Agrometeorology and Energy for Environment, leaded by UdL lecturers Manel Ibáñez and Joan Ignasi Rosell.

This thermal-photovoltaic modular system has a solar concentration of 10 suns, that is, it only needs a tenth part of a standard system’s active surface to produce the same energy, be it electricity, heat, or both simultaneously. Besides the reduction in the surface of used solar cells and the cost reduction this implies, this new technology can generate cold by connecting a heat pump to the system.

Rosell highlighted the architectural integration that these modules will allow either in roofs or in façades, which will reduce their visual impact. They can be directly installed in roofs, on the closure of concrete or brick blocks, forming a curtain wall in the façades or as a part of the railings in terraces, "as if they were a building’s second skin". They can also be used in residential buildings, companies or farms.  …

Patent for a concentration solar power module that integrates into façades and roofs

Technorati Tags: solar power,solar thermal,green construction,photovoltaic

Smart solutions for a retail apocalypse

Malls are being mauled. In case you’ve been paying closer attention to Wall Street or the housing market, rest assured that America’s once-bustling shopping meccas are doing just as poorly.

Last month, General Growth Properties, the country’s second largest mall owner, declared bankruptcy. Anchor chains are dropping like flies, from Circuit City to Filene’s Basement. The trend has even reached the level of irony as liquidation resellers are being liquidated. The practical implication of all this is that local malls are going dark all the time across the country, with the carnage being documented at sites like DeadMalls.com.

It’s fair to assume to that these vacant structures are now done forever–at least as old-school malls. But rather than let them become gaping holes in the fabric of our communities, it’s time embrace the national project of finding ways to reimagine them as vital, forward-looking developments. This is exactly what Ellen Dunham Jones and June Williamson have done in their book Retrofitting Suburbia. Recently we spoke with Dunham-Jones, the director of the architecture program at Georgia Tech, about how repairing the legacy of this failed American institution. …

Smart Solutions For A Retail Apocalypse

Technorati Tags: green construction,financial collapse

It’s a solar panel, it’s weather protection … it’s Flexa

 

The Italian firm Enerqos, a photovoltaic (PV) system and solar power plant construction company has teamed with ESP, a specialist in the design of metallic structures for solar installations, to launch Flexa Solar Parking, an innovative, multifunctional solar canopy.

The canopy combines a solar-energy producing array with simple weather protection for parked cars. Enerqos and ESP are showing the product at this week’s SolarExpo 2009 in Verona, Italy.

Flexa Solar Parking can be adapted to any car park design — linear, vertical, angled, etc. — whilst optimising the available surface space for solar power generation. It can even be used for greenhouses, or to protect against hail storms. …

It’s a solar panel, it’s weather protection … it’s Flexa

Technorati Tags: solar power,photovoltaic,green construction