Europe Journal - Green Wall Art

Sep. 17:  On a rainy day next to Trafalgar Square we discovered a somewhat odd installation of a living wall adjacent to the National Gallery which I of course had to sprint over to check out. 

Closer inspection shows it to be a living representation of Van Gogh's 'A Wheatfield with Cypresses' painted in 1889 and rendered here in a variety of plantings.  As sponsor GE mentions, the idea is to bring art to life... and they also have developed a companion website that includes a montage of photos from viewers that tweet photos of the installation.

Is the translation from art to living wall a success... I guess that is in the eye of the beholder.  Decide for yourself.

The Red Brick Chronicles - 'Advancement verus Apocalypse' by Rem Koolhaas

As I mentioned in the recent reckoning of the L+U blog, I wanted to focus on a number of recent texts that I've had the chance to delve into (by disconnecting myself from the nefarious teat of the RSS feeder)  Of significance is finally getting around to expanding on the initial readings of the book Ecological Urbanism (check out Intro by Mohsen Mostafavi, 'Why Ecological Urbanism?  Why Now?, in two parts here and here) which although gigantic, dense and brick-like, is also yielding some engaging content.


Thus in lieu of another option for a book with over 100+ essays and snippets from various authors, I'm going to chronologically post on each one on a mostly, time permitting, daily basis - in some cases just a fragment or two worthy of discussion - sometimes in more length.  Hope you enjoy.  Here's the first installment - follow by regular installments with the moniker RBC.

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Advancement versus Apocalypse |  Rem Koolhaas

In this essay, which I gather is a short-form version of a presentation, Koolhaas provides a hybrid chronology of modern progress, focusing on  “…the coexistence of modernity and endlessly improvised, spontaneous conditions that don’t consume much energy or material. For me, a hybrid condition is the condition of the day.” (56)   Through searching history in the framework of ecological urbanism, he finds some precedents in the early indigenous knowledge of people, noting that over 2000 years ago, the basic tents of ecology were known, expressed in the vernacular, utilitarian architecture where people would “…build to be economical, logical, and beautiful.” (57)  This concept and focus on the site and siting of cities was echoed in the Ten Books of Vitruvius, through the Renaissance, and to the Enlightenment, which."...had a phenomenal effect on reason, in terms of triggering the apparatus of modernity in a surprisingly short time.” (58)

Thus along with the science and technology of modernity can the apocalyptic baggage best expressed by Malthus in the late 18th Century, and continued in more modern times through authors like Paul Ehrlich in the 1970s (Population Bomb) and even into today's discussions of peak oil and environmental degredation, referenced by James Lovelock (The Revenge of Gaia).

 :: Amazon Burning - image via expertsure

Koolhaas mentions an earlier formative experience with the ecological in the late 1960s, mentioning instructors working with tropical architecture that instilled a “respect for the landscape” and the ability to “look at other cities to see how they work , and to look at seemingly nonarchitectural environments.” (60) and expressed in attempts at the time to combine design and science such as Ian McHarg's 'Design with Nature' referred to as “...one of the most subtle manifestos on how culture and nature could coexist.” (62)

Koolhaas expands this with a quote from Frederick Steiner in‘The Ghost of Ian McHarg: 

“Almost 40 years ago, Ian McHarg proposed a bold theory and a set of ecologically related planning methods in Design with Nature (1969). While the proatical measures he proposed have been incorporated into subsequent design and planning practices, the theoretical implications have not yet been fully realized. Present-date forms of the model include the amalgam ‘landscape urbanism,’ with its focus on infrastructure an\d urban ecology, a hybrid discipline arguably indebted to McHarg while distinct in its avoidance of the more strenuous effects of his project.” (62)

In addition to McHarg the text mentions contemporary Buckminster Fuller's focus on the "...combination of nature and network...” expressed in this network diagram of global high voltage transmission networks (62) and also the work of the Club of Rome – Limits to Growth in 1972 (strangely enough a notable reason in Jonathan Franzen's recent book 'Freedom').

:: High Voltage Transmission Network diagram - image via GENI

The environmental intelligence of the 1970s was soon quashed by the market economy, as Koolhaas mentions, “...had a devastating effect on the knowledge that had accumulated at this point.” (65)  The current situation of economics gain over ecological approaches has continued since the 1970s.

Shifting gears a bit, the current focus on ecological urbanism is the role of technology, specifically indicative of the engineering/technology will save us paradigm epitomized by Freeman Dyson – quoted in the NY Times: “...proposed that whatever inflammations that climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds to grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred ‘carbon-eating trees’…” (66)


In addition to noting these radical technological fixes, Koolhaas also bemoans the current trend of boutique green-was expressed in the application of greenery to buildings, mentioning that, "Embarrassingly, we have been equating responsibility with literal greening." (69), mentioning specifically the Ann Demeulemeester store in Seoul, the work of Ken Yeang and the recent Renzo Piano design for the California Academy of Sciences building as examples of this travesty of architecture.

 :: Ann Demeulemeester Store in Seoul - image via Style Frizz

 This confuses me, as while I am not as excited about the green application of vegetation, the inclusion of the specifically bioclimatic architecture of Yeang seems misplaced, as it seems an expression of ecological urbanism.  Instead, Koolhaas finds merit in building new eco-cities in the desert, mentioning Norman Foster’s Masdar zero-carbon city as "serious", and a step forward from the boutique natural interventions of Yeang and Piano, mentioning:  “...we need to step out of this amalgamation of good intentions and branding in a political direction and a direction of engineering.” (70)

:: Masdar City - image via Menainfra

While a somewhat interesting exploration, it is somewhat circuitous and peppered with Koolhaas' self-professed doubt in the overall project, mentioning in the intro "I did not assume that anyone in the academic world would ask a practicing architect in the twenty-first century, given the architecture that we collectively produce, to participate in a volume on ecological urbanism..." (56)  This perhaps colors the text somewhat away from individual buildings and more towards the massive, techno-centric solutions from Koolhaas/OMA - such as the large-scale wind energy project in the North Sea mentioned in the end of the essay.

It's obvious therein lies a distancing from the individual ecological building in the context of these bigger, more significant infrastructural interventions - which marks a distinction, notably with the architecture of Koolhaas being rigorously programmatic, urban-engaged, but typically non-ecological.  Maybe the realization that one building here or there isn't going to be the solution is valid and worthy of discussion?  Is ecological urbanism about large-scale ecocities or infrastructure, or the aggregation of interventions at a variety of scales - maybe even including buildings?

(from Ecological Urbanism, Mostafavi & Doherty, eds. 2010, p.56-71)

Vertical Agriculture (Back to Earth)

Digging through the archives based on the last couple of posts, I was definitely struck by the myriad shapes and sizes that these vertical farming proposals take and the overall excitement that has grown in a short amount of time. This caused me to want to dissect them a bit further in terms of form and function for growing food in efficient ways. First a bit of background from the 'invention' of vertical farming on this video featuring Dr. Dickson Despommier.



Discounting for a second those proposals that incorporate indoor hydroponics using artificial light - the idea of growing in buildings using sunlight is the focus (some info about the indoor varieties) of many other projects out there. A few additional proposals worth noting - just to include them in the overall catalogue (as previously mentioned, the best assortment of ideas in this genre is found at the Vertical Farms site - under the auspices of Despommier - which has been interviewed multiple times (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here to name but a few) - call him the mother of this particular invention.

These proposals include this one from last year which got a lot of attention, Harvest Green by Romses Architects, featuring vertically integrated food production.


:: image via Treehugger

Via Treehugger: "The concept of 'harvest' is explored in the project through the vertical farming of vegetables, herbs, fruits, fish, egg laying chickens, and a boutique goat and sheep dairy facility. In addition, renewable energy will be harvested via green building design elements harnessing geothermal, wind and solar power. The buildings have photovoltaic glazing and incorporate small and large-scale wind turbines to turn the structure into solar and wind-farm infrastructure. In addition, vertical farming potentially adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals. Furthermore, a large rainwater cistern terminates the top of the 'harvest tower' providing on-site irrigation for the numerous indoor and outdoor crops and roof gardens."



:: images via Treehugger

Another smaller scale example from Romses Architecture features the idea integrated into a eco-community. From Arch Daily: "“Harvest Green Project-02′ as a part of Vancouver ‘The 2030 Challenge’. Harvest Green Project is rooted in a concept that challenges the status quo of how energy and food is produced, delivered and sustained in our city, neighbourhoods, and individual single-family homes. Taking cues from the citys eco-density charter, and in particular, it’s new laneway housing initiatives, the Harvest Green Project proposes to overlay a new ‘green energy and food web’ across the numerous residential neighborhoods and laneways within the city as these communities address future increased densification. The city’s laneways will be transformed into green energy and food conduits, or ‘green streets’, where energy and food is ‘harvested’ via proposed micro laneway live-work homes."




:: images via Arch Daily

Some others you've probably seen over the years:

Vertical Farm by Mithun
"Architects at Mithun, a Seattle architectural firm, proposed a small-scale vertical farm design for a Center for Urban Agriculture in downtown Seattle. The design won an award in the Living Building Challenge of the Cascadia Region's chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council in 2007."


:: image via NY Times

Food Pyramid (Eric Ellingsen & Dickson Despommier)


:: image via NY Times

Atelier SOA Vertical Farm
Via NY Times: "A vertical farm has to be adapted for a specific place," said Augustin Rosenstiehl of Atelier SOA Architects in Paris, whose firm has created renderings of the crop-filled skyscrapers."


:: image via NY Times

Another version from Atelier SOA - with a woven ribbon of gardens throughout the slick black facade.


:: image via NY Times

Gordon Graff's Skyfarm for Toronto
Via Inhabitat: "Instead of soil, Skyfarm’s plants float on trays of nutrient-rich water, growing hydroponically over 59 stories stacked half a dozen storeys deep. Farmed within a controlled environment, crops will no longer be subject to the vagaries of climate, infestation, or disease and the dense hydroponic agriculture can guarantee considerable yields. With the potential to operate year round, one indoor acre has been estimated to be able to yield the equivalent of between four and six outdoor acres, or enough food for 50,000 people a year. With the installation of several Skyfarms in the neighborhoods of especially large cities, the prospect to dramatically transform local food production is there."




:: images via Inhabitat

“The Living Skyscraper: Farming the Urban Skyline” by Blake Kurasek




:: images via Urban Greenery

Urban Agriculture: Hybridized Farm Bridge as City Garden - Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui & Lorene Faure


:: image via Bustler

A more technical proposal, I covered this previously, but the breakdown of the elements of a vertical farm as imagined in NY Magazine - which shows the interrelated elements of a possible project - complete with robots to maintain them on a 24-hours a day basis.


:: image via NY Mag

I think the much more exciting news is the implementation of large-scale rooftop farms (more on this soon) - which seem to be analoguous to terrestrial farming. As other bloggers may have noticed, any post related to urban agriculture and vertical farming will inevitably lead to a comment by Charlie - there's been a few, who undoubtedly is paid to plug Valcent whenever the opportunity arises. The message is simple and sweet: "“I can’t think of any technology that addresses more urgent issues than Valcent’s vertical farming system”, says Robert F Kennedy Jr. http://bit.ly/cPb00g; Reuters Video features Valcent’s VertiCrop vertical farming system: http://bit.ly/a9p47W" Not that I'm wholesale against this form of promotion, but 1) is shameless promotion, and 2) it's not applicable to the content that was posted. Regardless - there will be more of this as companies fight for market share and prominence in this fledgling territory.


:: image via Inside Urban Green

Finally, as I mentioned there's some interesting (and necessary) debate happening, which is worth a read as the pendulum of vertical farming swings back to reality. There's the debate on Treehugger"Vertical Farms, a Tower of B.S." about high-rise farming. Also of note is this recent article in Fast Company entitled which references a story on EcoGeek with some cautionary lessons entitled: "Let's Make This Clear: Vertical Farms Don't Make Sense ".

The vertical farming movement isn't useless by any stretch - but it's important to realize that these proposals - although provocative, aren't the only answer to our issues of feeding people in ever growing urban areas. The discussion is good, although interesting that - not as a mode of discounting the concept - but of placing it in it's proper context around the viability of growing food in cities - and by most importantly making it a catalytic movement in inspiring actual small-scale solutions that will actually work.

Vertical Agriculture (Modest Proposals)

While the flights of fancy that drive many of the concepts of vertical farming are quite breathtaking, there's a subset of these projects that, while not quite ready for the pages of design magazines, have much more applicability for building-integrated agriculture in new construction and retrofits. A simple and much discussed example that has been around for years is the rooftop greenhouses on Eli Zabar's Vinegar Factory in Manhattan (dare I say one place where vertical solutions may be appropriate due to density).




:: images via The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Picking up on this trend is are a range of greenhouses for growing veggies in soil as well as expanded concepts including hydroponics aquaculture. A post in City Farmer mentions the work of Cityscape Farms, which offers solutions for urban farming using integrated food as waste from these combined systems.


:: image via City Farmer

Another project that is tying the ground-based agriculture with rooftop solutions comes from the Badger School for Urban Agriculture and Community in Madison, Wisconsin, with the Center for Resilient Cities and Milwaukee-based Will Allen's Growing Power as leaders of the effort.


:: image via City Farmer

While I'm always a bit dubious of 'first of' claims - this South Bronx affordable housing complex aimed a combating food insecurity with rooftop farms and greenhouses (from Brightfarm Systems): "...will be able to supply enough produce to meet the annual fresh vegetable needs of up to 450 people. Like many inner city, low income communities, the South Bronx suffers from food deserts, where residents lack access to fresh vegetables at affordable prices."




:: images via City Farmer

Still more modest interventions include creating space atop - which tend towards the augmentation of rooftop gardens by implementation of cold-frames or vertical elements. These range from the modest fire-escape planters and balcony growing to rooftop structures to provide additional growing season (at a much smaller cost than greenhouses). An example from the Bastille Restaurant in shows this hybrid.


:: image via City Farmer

The concept of mobility is always an issue - so another small-scale garden greenhouse starts to attach to vehicles - such as this mobile greenhouse spotted in Brooklyn. A bit silly and obviously not a solution, but a visible example to create awareness of food production in urban areas - and more accessible than rooftops and distant farms.


:: image via Urban Greenery

One of the most enlightened proposals I've seen is the modular system from Casa HuertaTreehugger: featuring a series of vertical greening components for maximizing food production in high density slums. Via "A group of architects from Argentina have come up with a project called Orchard House, which proposes the implementation of vertical gardens in shanty towns to provide local people with food and improve the visuals of these villages."




:: images via Treehugger

The social component of this is just as important as the scale. As Despommier mentions in this Discovery News video - the optimum size to feed 50,000 people with a vertical farm is 30 stories of a 5 acre lot. While potentially viable, how transferrable is this to common use and how many people will be employed in these endeavors? Also, will this be another elitist addition to cities for the haves - while paying lip service to less fortunate people and areas much more significant food insecurity. Would we be better served with a more decentralized and multi-pronged (even if still vertical) approach using walls and other elements woven within the fabric of our urban areas.

The scale is a big issue - and is at the heart of any agricultural endeavor. Our evolution from home gardens and shared community gardens to feed ourselves to more large-scale methods of agribusiness increased our ability to produce food manifold. It also made our agriculture more polluting, significantly increased transportation costs, and depleted the workforce for farm-based areas through the use of mechanization. This is what we subsidize on an annual basis - not the most productive form of food production.

This begs the question - are we interested in feeding ourselves (or the world) or are we also creating jobs and skills for folks to feed themselves and doing so in a way that is equitable and socially responsible? While nay-sayers may disregard the role of urban farming as impractical to feed urban areas, I say the role is of vital importance. As more people move to cities it will become more and more important to offer productive green jobs to city-dwellers. Agriculture used to be a major employment driver that slowly gave way to industry, manufacturing, commercial, service and white-collar economies - an economic heritage in which we are all suffering and 'waiting' for things to get better. If we could find ways to increase the skills and direct the energy of 10% plus unemployment on feeding ourselves - we would have better food and a more robust and healthy economy and workforce.


:: image via Treehugger

This is why I like the proposal from Argentina so much - as it's simple, modest, and imminently scalable (but also innovative) to any area of any size. More from Treehugger: "The idea is to build some of these houses inside shanty towns in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the help of organizations and private companies, and then teach the system to local people for them to be able to put together structures on their own. By doing that, the project seeks to generate cooperative work that creates jobs and production in shanty towns."

Vertical Agriculture + Solar Access

It's been a bit since I've posted on Vertical Agriculture - but an architecture studio I'm helping with at Portland State has a number of students pursuing food production as part of their buildings relating to urban ecology - and has me again thinking of the practicality of these building-based growth modules. While intrigued by the concept, I want to see a more holistic concept of food production through cities - and also better information on these concepts and how they work.


:: Design by Greg Chung Whan Park - image via Yanko Design

It is no surprise have been somewhat critical of the implementation of these solutions - as they tend to be more style over substance - and many are not thinking about the practicalities of growing food in buildings. Mostly, they are impractical because we still have a lot of vacant and underused land, rooftops, and walls that make more sense to grow food before investing in these expensive installations. Case in point is this Fortune rendering from Detroit of a virtual amusement park of agriculture... in a city that has literally square miles of contiguous terrestrial land ready for cultivation.


:: Detroit Visions - image via Treehugger

All the practicality aside - as a thought exercise the implementation of vertical farming is a fascinating architectural problem - as just the ability to maximize solar access is key to providing the most growing surface area with access to quality light. This is typically accomplished with a series of terraced landings stepped back as the height grows, often augmented by glass enclosure to create a greenhouse like interior rooms on multiple levels.


:: Growing Power, Milwaukee - image via City Farmer

A lot of the solutions lack a simple understanding of solar access - something that at least should have been drummed into architects related to daylighting practices for passive solar design. While allowing access and bouncing diffuse light within building for people is one thing - the integration of quality solar access. How does the following building work in terms of maximizing productivity? As mentioned about 30% of the building space is taken with productivity through a combination of thin terraces and living walls - enough to feed 200 people for a year. Is it worth the investment?


:: Urban Farmway - image via City Farmer

Again back to solar access - it is a fundamental tenet of vertical farming to do extensive solar access studies - starting with the. Back to the proposal by Greg Chung Whan Park , a couple of simple diagrams show seasonal and daily movement of sun.



:: images via Yanko Design

One idea is the spiral, which takes advantage of the circular nature of solar access through a spherical form with spiraling layers of greenery. Overall An image here of the installation, along with a video showing off some of the key elements inside - which gives it a feeling of more machine than garden.



:: Plantagon Greenhouse - image via City Farmer



A more sectional view gives an indication of the amount of solar gain. Again, I think weighted towards the visual and less about the overall efficiency - as the single-purpose building is a lot of expense for what amounts to very little productive space.


:: image via Plantagon Blog

The machinic aspect of many of these proposals is evident in the design - sort of a form follows form approach that makes for striking (if somewhat ridiculous) architectural solutions, and names to boot. For a full survey of many of these check out the Vertical Farm Project website. Most notable in the wild solutions is Dragonfly by Vincent Callebaut is one of those examples, for instance derived from a thin form to maximize surface area - but somewhat dubious thinking as to the viability of the project. In this case, I'd say that the fact that the land area is spread thinly over a surface would mean that it would be difficult from a 'farming' standpoint to maintain this on a daily basis. Is it done by robots, as some concepts look at? Does it work? Can you build it? More important, what's the cost of produce grown in these, and does the energy required to build and maintain these structures outweigh the cost of more traditional agriculture?


:: image via Spiegel Online

All of these questions permeate my thinking as I see proposal after proposal. Even some of the proposals with diagrammatic study leave questions, like the Eco-Laboratory sections by Weber Thompson. The ability of orientation - in this case the entire facade for production, gives maximum potential solar gain. The shading mechanism seem to reduce the effectiveness, by limiting solar access at steep sun angles during summer, when the production potential is greatest. Perhaps a way to limit the amount of solar gain, it seems as if this would reduce overall productivity - or at least shift the building to more winter based, season extending work. While laudable to extend the season, shouldn't the configuration work on a 365 day basis?


:: image via Vertical Farm Project

The other variety is those cylindrical towers that give the idea of maximum access. In the case of the Living Skycraper by Blake Kuresek - the tower is wrapped in spiraling layers (similar to the Plantagon greenhouse). On one facade - let's say 1/2 of the cylinder, the solar gain will be great - it's unclear what's happening on the sides and back that is getting north light and less intense east and west light (I'm assuming Northern Hemisphere). The other aspect not mentioned specifically is what is grown in these various spaces - as the levels of light and amount of exposure - along with intensity and heat - will determine a continuum of what is more appropriate in different parts of the building.


:: image via Vertical Farm Project

This is but a cursory view of some ideas, but a good chance to take stock of the myriad solutions and evaluate them on their building-specific merits. Often information isn't available to have a true discussion, but when looking at these ideas (or designing them) a few trends emerge:

1. How does the building configuration work with maximizing solar access, and how is this explained?
2. Are there beneficial synergies utilized with growing food in building such as capture of waste heat, rainwater collection and storage, or tapping into waste water sources for irrigation?
3. Is there specificity in form tied to the types of vegetables grown, and how does this fit the overall food needs of the location the project is planned? Is it generic or specific based on high-value foods or ones that benefit from the added cost of production?
4. Is the building agricultural only or woven into another use?
5. What is percentage of renderings to diagrams in the solution? (An informal indication of rigor)
6. How is maintenance addressed in location, access, and size of growing plots?
   

Look forward to some additional posts on this, as I've got a lot of source material I'm sifting through, and will be able to tease out many more ideas based on the explosion of solutions in the past couple of years.

Planter Pocket Facade

An interesting project from Osaka, Japan featuring a variation on vertical green with a Hundertwasserian flair. There is a certain transparency in the system, and I was amazed that the project has been in place since the early 1990s. (via Inhabitat)


:: image via Inhabitat

From Inhabitat: "Italian-born architect and artist, Gaetano Pesce designed and built the plant-clad Organic Building in Japan. The exterior of the building is an eye-catching vertical garden that takes its conceptual cues from bamboo. ... Completed in 1993, the Organic Building has since been named a civic landmark by the City of Osaka, which has undertaken its maintenance in perpetuity. The exterior is covered with steel-encased concrete panels glazed with a red finish that feature rather cute extruding pockets. Inside these containers are fiberglass planters that contain more than 80 types of indigenous plants and trees selected in collaboration with Osaka horticulturists, and they are all irrigated via a computer-controlled hydrating system of mechanical pipes."

:: image via Inhabitat

Packaged Vertical Garden

The 'Garden for a not too distant future' is an installation that is part vertical garden, part statement about the lack of green space in cities and the preponderance of overpriced, difficult to maintain vertical walls.


:: image via luzininterruptus

Via luzininterruptus: " With the installation Packaged vertical garden, we wanted to promote the preservation of urban greenery, because if we continue to eradicate it from public spaces or reducing it to inaccessible vertical faces, the only form of contact with nature will be in supermarket refrigerators, packaged with expiry dates. This is our last intervention “Packaged vertical garden”.




:: images via luzininterruptus

Check out additional photos and text at luzininterruptus.