Green buildings can provide a breath of fresh air to design, but they can also attract pests.
Architecture, Building design, Design, Environmentally friendly buildings, Green, green building, Green walls, Pests, Plants, Skyscrapers, Tall buildings
Sustainability has become a point of strategy for every business. Collectively undertaken, small efforts can make a big difference to the environmental impact of businesses. However, the race is on towards a green future. This means those businesses without innovative environmental policies are missing a trick when it comes to overall competitiveness.
Every company’s strategy now includes a focus on sustainability. Small initiatives, when combined, can make a significant difference in the environmental effect of enterprises. However, the race to a green future is on. This means that enterprises who do not implement new environmental policies are losing ground in terms of overall competitiveness.
Green buildings were innovative a decade ago. From comprehensive green buildings to sustainable design aspects, they are quickly becoming the norm today. Architects all across the world are creating green buildings, whether through sustainable construction, ecologically responsible operation, or simply by design.
However, we are now seeing that actually greening the planet — by covering building walls and roofs with flora — can have some unanticipated consequences.
The high life of a bug
In the Chinese city of Chengdu, a big green experimental housing complex of 826 units was built where individuals can live in a vertical forest with live plants in every open space and balcony.
The problem is that they have to share the plants with a swarm of mosquitoes and other bugs. The majority of units in the Qiyi City Forest Gardens development were apparently sold by April 2020, but only a handful of families had reportedly moved in six months later.
The towers were constructed in 2018, and plants were provided to decrease noise and pollution. However, the plants thrived despite the fact that sales were poor and no one was pruning the vegetation to keep it under control.
Plants with cascading branches are now taking over space on usually empty balconies, obscuring windows.
It may not help that Chengdu and its 16.3 million inhabitants are located in Sichuan, central China, which is humid and semi-tropical, making it ideal for fast-breeding mossies.
However, a slow uptake, with tenants taking their time moving in, exacerbated the problem as the plants subsumed their buildings.
Some vertical vegetation living success
So far, other green projects around the world have avoided this particular issue. Stefano Boeri and botanist Laura Gatti developed Milan’s Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest).
They reportedly spent long hours selecting suitable vegetation, a variety of 800 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 15,000 plants, which would suit their location and the Milanese climate.
Their goal is to enhance air quality in the city by using green façade, and locals seemed to like the idea, which looks to be where Qiyi City Forest went wrong.
Because plants upkeep and care are essentially non-existent in Chengdu, no truly symbiotic link between accomodation and human occupant has established as part of biophilic living. The non-human occupiers (the bugs) are winning, as is nature’s way.
Gardens must have a gardener
According to Daryl Beyers of the New York Botanical Garden in the United States, the Chengdu setup failed due to poor design.
They [the developers] didn’t think about the maintenance […] You can’t have a garden without a gardener.
They were touting it as a manicured garden outside on your deck. If it’s manicured, someone has to do the manicuring.
Daryl Beyers
In Chengdu’s humid environment and damp monsoons, stagnant water gathers in poorly drained planters, where mosquitoes breed.
The concept of highly manicured greenery on balconies only works if the plants are routinely cared for. Gardeners appear to visit Qiyi City only four times a year to maintain the plants, despite the fact that they require weekly care.
Sydney’s green space on the up
The One Central Park residences in Sydney, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, take on a green mantle, with plants covering the majority of the walls and balconies.
The plants on the building were chosen by French botanist Patrick Blanc for their ability to grow healthy and their appropriateness to the Sydney environment.
The vegetation is adjusted to its site and growing successfully by employing acacias (wattles) and poa (grasses) on upper levels and goodenia (hop bush) and viola (native violet) on lower levels.
More than 1,100 square metres of walls support a diverse range of plant species, the majority of which are indigenous to Sydney. They are familiar with the local weather and seasons. The plants can resist Australia’s hot, dry, and windy summers and had survived since 2014.
How to green your buildings
For the sake of the ecology, green buildings are required. We must compensate for the loss of our natural resources and the benefits they provide, and green buildings can help us do so by incorporating suitable design, energy efficiency, renewable materials, and green technologies.
The success of Central Park might be replicated in Chengdu by tracing back to the original architectural concept and implementing a workable maintenance and management strategy.
The lessons learned from both projects demonstrate that correct planning and vegetation selection, which is subsequently fed and watered by appropriate technology, will result in a proficient green building.
People find comfort in being close to nature, and a vertical garden allows individuals who live in high-rise buildings to share that comfort. However, with the advantages come obligations.
The hint here is that a biophilic building must be suitable for use. That is, appropriate in terms of the location, natural resources, local climate, and people who must manage and inhabit the natural surroundings.
Source: The Conversation || Solar Feeds
