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 Digital Canopy (Expanded)

It's intriguing that Google Earth 6 has started populating the virtual 'planet' with 3-Dimensional trees, which together with buildings and terrain offer the opportunity for some reasonable representation of exterior sites.  Right now, only a few cities have been added in selected cities and natural areas:

"I think we can all agree that our planet without trees would be a pretty desolate place. Besides the ever-important task of providing us with the oxygen we breathe, trees are an integral part of the landscape around us. In Google Earth, while we and our users have been busy populating the globe with many thousands of 3D building models, trees have been rather hard to come by. All that is changing with Google Earth 6, which includes beautifully detailed, 3D models for dozens of species of trees, from the Japanese Maple to the East African Cordia to my personal favorite, the cacao tree. While we’ve just gotten started planting trees in Google Earth, we already have more than 80 million trees in places such as Athens, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Tokyo. Through our Google Earth Outreach program, we’ve also been working with organizations including the Green Belt Movement in Africa, the Amazon Conservation Team in Brazil and CONABIO in Mexico to model our planet’s threatened forests."

A short video from Google, particularly regarding their concept for showing specific species of trees to promote understanding and great conservation.

The problem, of course, is the rendering of trees, which is so often problematic in digital formats as to be more distracting than useful.  The trees are somewhat abstracted, due to the need to provide simple shapes lower memory usage.  (UPDATE: the images previously shown were from the old version of Google Earth - so I have no provided a comparison with these and a city that has the new Google Earth 6 Trees  - thanks to Damian @ World Landscape Architect for the heads up on this).  All images are exports from the Pro version.

Digital Trees (A Comparison)
A contextual overview is somewhat interesting, for instance, Central Park in New York City (which does not have the new trees yet) looks surprisingly robust with the old trees.

Central Park

The new trees - in this case from San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, show a more homogenous and subtle patterning of the canopy, a bit more realistic in the inability to see separate trees, and the lack of repetition.

Golden Gate Park

The distant views at eye level are interesting to provide context for the adjacent buildings, something missing in the sterility of the 3D google earth buildings.  From a flattened view, the Central Park trees do provide a foreground to the adjacent urban edges.

Central Park

Standing in a similar field looking outward, there seems to be a bit more depth in the new 3D trees, and the rendering of individual tree components is more noticeable (maybe it's just the lighter trunks?).  There's obviously less density surrounding Golden Gate park, but the foreground/background relationship of the distant hillside is pretty effective (now when is the Weather on Google Earth going to be perceptible on the ground-level view, which might make the sky look a bit more real).

Golden Gate Park

The whole thing falls apart for the old trees, similar to many other attempted representations of vegetation, at a close-up scale. You can see the X-shaped geometry of the trees (a common way of providing lo-res 3D vegetation) start to give up their individual facets and look a bit strange.

Central Park

While the new 3D trees are an improvement, as you can see a better approximation of the trunk and canopy as well as a distinction between varieties of species.  As anyone that's worked in Sketchup knows, the search for good approximations of trees is a difficult task to find good representations of trees to match diversity of real vegetation.  I think some Google Earth to actual photo matching shots would be interesting to show the differences and see how close these have come to true representation.

Golden Gate Park

An interesting first attempt (check out all of the cities with trees here), but one that still needs a lot of work.  Talking with folks that do a lot of 3D rendering, landscape is always a difficult aspect for a couple of reasons.  The overall complexity of a tree, for instance, is immense - even when compared to a building (which is typically more uniform in shape and is covered with 'flat' materials.  

The Problems of Rendering Trees.

Thinking of a tree as a complex system - there's a infinite branching system of components - trunk, branch, stem, leaf, bud, flower - radiating in 3 dimensions in an ordered, yet flexible paths.  A beautifully rendered tree is a masterpiece, but one that takes a lot of time and memory to accomplish and is a mere snapshot in time of one species, of a certain age, and at a certain time of year.

:: image via Peter Guthrie

Even with the perfect specimen, there are many other factors at work - which in essence requires each one to be slightly different, as well as the ability to capture form at different ages.  Take into account a changing canopy over the 4 seasons - often representing with spring leaf out, coloration, summer full foliage, fall color and leaf drop, and winter branching - and that adds another complex variable to the equation.  A bit simpler for evergreen species, but just think of the number of species of trees that exist in any particular city.  Thus attempts to simplify often create trees which are somewhat cartoony approximations of the real thing.  It boggles the mind - just think what it does to the CPU.

:: Revit Trees - image via YellowBryk

Finally, trees are but one aspect of the landscape - and unless you are living in a park from the picturesque era, most are juxtaposed with a layered structure from overstory, understory, shrubs, and groundcover - especially when viewed from a close-in site scale.  There are programs available that will allow for this complexity - but how many project budgets do you think have this built in, or how many firms have the technological capabilities and personnel to do this type of work. This dilemma becomes evident in the eventual jump from the 3D to more 2D forms of rendering (predominately Photoshop) which allows a snapshot to take on a much richer palette, with less time and expertise - to more accurately render vegetation.  These are relegated to a one-shot image, and lose the potential for fly-throughs and other 3D tools for representation.  The search, alas, continues - for the perfect set of tools.

Bio-luminescent Trees: WTF?

Bad idea of the week?  The Inhabitat story "Gold Nanoparticles Could Transform Trees Into Street Lights" mentions new research:  "A group of scientists in Taiwan recently discovered that placing gold nanoparticles within the leaves of trees, causes them to give off a luminous reddish glow. The idea of using trees to replace street lights is an ingenious one – not only would it save on electricity costs and cut CO2 emissions, but it could also greatly reduce light pollution in major cities."

:: image via Inhabitat

Is there something inherently wrong with this, or is it just me?  Another case of techno-madness seeking to solve a problem by asking a wildly misguided question?  I see future cross-pollination of 'modified' species, mixing with other hardy invaders to provide glowing urbanscapes - a perpetual daytime that messes with the diurnal cycles of humans and other species, until we, madly, run from cities into the wilderness - but find our way lit like a runway with the dull glowing of plantings from city, to suburb, to wilderness... 

Feral Green Streets (Tamed)

It was bound to happen, but a nice walk for some coffee showed the new 'orderly frames' for the previously unruly green street planters along Burnside Street.  Some updated images displaying what is quickly becoming 'stock' in the local green street planting arsenal -  (c) Jason King | Landscape+Urbanism.

I'm really intrigued by the planters that have captured the existing street trees.

 

My guess is it is a compromise between impacting the tree roots with excavation, versus impacts to the root zone via additional water.  They are all columnar red maples, and the majority of runoff directly on them is from small sidewalk inlets - so seems as if the wet feet may not be so much of an issue.

The neatness of the planting array keeps it from being monochromatic, there is an additional species or two thrown in here or there, particularly in larger areas without trees, and there is a slight differential in height in texture, but they just seem a bit tired at this point.  Maybe the novelty of the green street has worn off - not in function, but that they aren't special anymore, which maybe is OK?.  While still visible, is it preferable to have green infrastructure stick out, or is it acceptable, through ubiquity, for these to involve somewhat into the same invisible infrastructure.  Being common is a good sign, and that's why the 'feral' varieties were interesting:  I kind of liked them in their wild form...

Another interesting shot was the excavation of some of the new planters on the south side of the street (still under construction, I can tell from the wonderful odor of black tar in the air).  The subsurface condition of a stormwater planter is always fascinating, as what you see on the surface is rarely what is doing the heavy lifting for retention and infiltration.

Botanical Neurobiology

A TED Talk on Plant Intelligence by Italian botanist Stefano Mancuso will leave you on the edge of your seat and asking all sorts of questions of both your house-plants and about the wide-ranging implications for landscapes.  Mancuso operates the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology in Italy.  




A brief synopsis of the talk:  "Does the Boston fern you're dutifully misting each morning appreciate your care? Or can the spreading oak in your local park take umbrage at the kids climbing its knotted branches? Not likely, says Italian researcher Stefano Mancuso, but that doesn't mean that these same living organisms aren't capable of incredibly sophisticated and dynamic forms of awareness and communication.

From his laboratory near Florence, Mancuso and his team explore how plants communicate, or "signal," with each other, using a complex internal analysis system to find nutrients, spread their species and even defend themselves against predators. Their research continues to transform our view of plants from simple organisms to complex ecological structures and communities that can gather, process and -- most incredibly -- share important information."


Some more on Plant Intelligence:  Smarty Plants

Feral Green Streets

On E. Burnside Street in Portland, the construction of the Burnside-Couch Couplet, a project aimed at 'humanizing' the wide arterial that slices through Portland and provides the dividing line between North and South. Construction is ongoing, and as part of the design, the streets on both sides of the couplet have a number of green street planters. As I was moving into my new office, I couldn't help but notice a new 'planting' scheme on the Burnside planters - predominately populated with a mixture of weedy pioneering vegetation.



The jute netting and wood (??) weirs have been in for some time - prepped for planting and keeping erosion at bay. The late summer of sun and moisture have allowed for perfect conditions for weeds to germinate in pockets of wet ground, making for a lush green tapestry that is starting to overtake many of the curb extensions - most probably from weeds carried from car tires and deposited in the planters.





It would be interested to see if the general public noticed the difference between these 'feral' varieties compared to many of the specifically planted varieties (which at times look somewhat messy themselves) - or more likely what do business owners think? Will the weeds persist after planting? Will hand removal be adequate to keep these down once the planting is completed? How much money could we save with treatment of stormwater facilities as early successional ecosystems recently impacted with disturbance? Would this vegetation work better or worst than the monocultural rushes that have seemed to become the mainstay of storm facilities? I'm kind of hoping they just leave them as some form of radical urban ecosystem experiment - followed by soil only ecoroofs that are left to colonize via birds and wind.



Not sure what the delay in planting actually is - as the heat of summer is over and we've now hit a good part of the season for planting sans irrigation. Another month and these will be bursting and lush with weedy varieties. Some of the newer ones have yet to be overtaken, as seen in a view of one of the pristine sections - ready for colonization.


(all images (c) Jason King -Landscape+Urbanism)

Reslience

A tree at Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Islands.

Soon, if this tree has its way - trespassing will again be allowed on this property:

(images (c) Jason King - Landscape+Urbanism)

Restoring the Garden of Eden

A great feature from Spiegel Online covers the work of Azzam Alwash, a US/Iraqi hydraulic engineer aiming to restore what were once vibrant wetlands flourishing in the cradle of civilization through an organization called Nature Iraq. While most news coming from the region focuses on bricks and mortar rebuilding, it's important to note the power of restoration of ecosystems in rebuilding efforts. The connection between people and land is vital.


:: image via Eden Again

The area was originally marshland fed from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. From the article: "Only 20 years ago, an amazing aquatic world thrived in the area, which is in the middle of the desert. Larger than the Everglades, it extended across the southern end of Iraq, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers divide into hundreds of channels before they come together again near Basra and flow into the Persian Gulf."

This is especially evident in satellite photos of the region from 1976 and 2002, showing the widespread ecosystematic destruction of the marsh.




:: images via Spiegel Online

From the article, the motivation is clear:

"The official explanation was that the land was being reclaimed for agriculture. The military was sent in to excavate canals and build dikes to conduct the water directly into the Gulf. The despot, proud of his work of destruction, gave the canals names like Saddam River and Loyalty to the Leader Canal.

In truth, Saddam was not interested in the farmers. His real goal was to harm the Madan, also known as the Marsh Arabs. For thousands of years, the marshes had been the homeland of this ethnic group and their cows and water buffalo. They lived in floating huts made of woven reeds and spent much of their time in wooden boats, which they guided with sticks along channels the buffalo had trampled through the reeds. They harvested reeds, hunted birds and caught fish.

When the fishermen backed a Shiite uprising against the dictator, the vindictive Saddam turned their "Garden of Eden" into a hell. He had thousands of the Marsh Arabs murdered and their livestock killed. Any remaining water sources were poisoned and reed huts burned to the ground. Many people fled across the border into Iran to live in refugee camps, while others went to the north and tried to survive as day laborers. By the end of the operation, up to half a million people had been displaced.

Within a few years, the marshland had shrunk to less than 10 percent of its original size. In a place that was once teeming with wildlife -- wild boar, hyenas, foxes, otters, water snakes and even lions -- the former reed beds had been turned into barren salt flats, poisoned and full of land mines. In a 2001 report, the United Nations characterized the destruction of the marshes as one of the world's greatest environmental disasters."

The use of ecosystems as essentially a weapon against people is striking - a much more appropriate usage of the term eco-terrorism (versus it's common parlance) or at the very least eco-despotism... (although a quick google search of that term yields a totally different meaning). A future post at least on the linguistics of that one I imagine :)

The view from 1976 shows what was once a thriving 'human ecosystem' supporting wildlife as well as economies of small reed farmers, fisherman and shrimpers... followed by a representative shot of the area prior to any restoration activities.




:: images via Spiegel Online

The restoration is ongoing, and an amazing story of folks (Alwash and others) risking their lives to restore the ecological and cultural heritage of a vital global region - folding in conservation and humanitarian needs to offer an alternative scenario to 'rebuilding' after devastation occurs. While public works, dams, roads, electrical grids, and schools offer much by way of infrastructure to support a society in transition, the ecological is an important aspect not to be overlooked. There are lessons here that perhaps we can implement in our own disasters (both 'natural' and man-made) and remember the connections between resiliency in the human as well as the ecological systems.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Rooftop Agriculture

I've purposely steered away from the pure rooftop farms in discussions of vertical farming solutions recently featured (here, here, here, and here). This isn't due to any particular reason other than I think that rooftop farms area a separate typology in it's own right - as it is focusing on a separate area of emphasis including horizontality and openness to sun and air. For instance I mentioned the greenhouses at Zabar's - but there is also a significant amount of traditional rooftop agriculture.


:: image via City Farmer

Otherwise, plenty of proposals abound for rooftop planters on housing, and event making it's way into corporate campuses for use by workers. One example is the simple Sophos Vancouver Rooftop Community Garden - implemented on an office rooftop.


:: image via City Farmer

Recent proposals (and there have been many along with a lot of press) incented me to look through a number of these rooftop examples past and present as a way of rounding out the vertical farming survey. First, via The Architect's Newspaper: "The Fifth Street Farm Project has it all: It addresses childhood obesity, stormwater runoff, and climate change. Conceived by a grassroots organization of teachers, parents, and green-roof advocates, the project’s plan calls for a roof farm atop the Robert Simon Complex..."


:: image via The Architect's Newspaper

A troubling quote I think brings up some inherent issues as we drive towards implementation of rooftop farms - and some of the challenges that are necessary to address. As quoted in the article: "In spite of all the good intentions, there are formidable technical hurdles and political challenges to building a farm on top of a school. “There’s a lot of bureaucratic craziness,” said Susannah Vickers, director of Budget and Grants in the office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, "...Things as arcane as the warranty of the roof—they have to do boring samples and engineering reports—and oftentimes the roof substructure is not able to support the new use.”


:: image via The Architect's Newspaper

These aren't arcane or minimal issues - but fundamental to proper technical installation that meets project goals while protecting the health, safety and welfare of the community - and specifically the kids at these schools. A recent example of a project gone awry in Vancouver, and a related story of the Brooklyn Grange installation in Queens getting a stop-work order for not filing necessary permits reinforces the need for these project to both have the energy of urban farmers, but also the technical backup and processes necessary to ensure they are appropriate. (The stop-work order has subsequently been lifted after permits were filed and a fine paid, which is good news as this project is gonna be pretty awesome).


:: image via Brooklyn Grange Farm

The Brooklyn Grange Farm was preceded by the amazing Greenpoint, Brooklyn rooftop farm 'Eagle Street Rooftop Farm' - which features 6000 s.f. of rooftop growing and 200,000 pounds of soil - not in containers, but as monolithic soil based growing - lessening initial investment and maximizing productivity.


:: image via NY Magazine

A local precursor on the west coast isn't the Rocket in Portland - but rather the Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver, B.C. which has been in operation since around 2000 - making it one of the very first examples - and also one with some good economic data: "Hotel accountants say the roof garden produces fruits, vegetables, herbs, and honey worth about $16,000 annually."


:: image via City Farmer


:: image via City Farmer

Japan has been looking at rooftops, as limitations in the amount of arable land . City Farmer shows a photo of one example: "Wasted space in the modern metropolis may become productive “farmland” thanks to advances in waterproofing green roofs. Some of the rice used to brew Japan’s popular Hakutsuru sake grows atop the company’s Tokyo office."


:: image via City Farmer

The first issue of Bracket with the topic 'On Farming' offered some One of these is Long Island City: Farming Park. A bit of project description:

"All too often we see land being taken away for parking and at the same time the reclamation of abandoned parking lots to turn into viable land, specifically farms in urban environments. The project, which is a park and ride facility and urban agricultural farm attempts to combine these two typologies to co-exist on one site, bringing the process of food production and consumption in contact with a major multi-modal transfer point between the car and NYC’s existing public transportation network. The project will provide an alternative option for those accessing NYC by car and also challenge the conventional function of a park and ride facility to provide a greater good for those users and the surrounding neighborhoods; connecting Long Island City and Sunnyside Queens with a much needed public green space. "

:: image via Bustler

As [BRKT] showcases, there are plenty of zoomy architectural options out there - some of these simple and brilliant, others a bit overwrought with possible maintenance and installation issues. One very cool example (that may lean towards the overwrought side of the perspective) - comes via Pruned is Taebeom Kim's Gastronomic Garden - including: "...allotment gardens hovering over — perhaps are even propped up by — compost tanks used for recycling garden scraps as well organic waste of local residents."


:: image via Pruned

Vertical Agriculture (From Outer Space)

While I continue this impromptu study of the current state of Vertical Agriculture - it's important to realize that the ingenuity of humans is always a factor. Industrialization of growing food is a long-standing feature of agriculture - which has probably simultaneously done the most good for productivity and the most harm in severing our connection to the land. Conversely, hard times lead to necessary solutions to make life possible even here on Earth - so the combination of technology needs to be paired with common sense and thought of the consequences beyond economics and efficiency.


:: plans to grow food on the moon - image and story via Palscience

As a rabid sci-fi fan - the more technologically referential proposals provide inspirations of how we may feed ourselves on a trip to the far reaches of the galaxy (or in the distant post-apocalyptic future) - but are less inspiring as solutions to feeding people on this planet due to the fact they seem like they're making something really simple and creating a super complex way of doing it.


:: image via Dezeen

The gee-whiz techno-gadgetry sure is fun though (both to parse and to make fun of). I laugh when I see the commercials for the tomato towers (see Topsy Turvy for the latest) - as I am just waiting for someone to propose version of this under the guise of vertical farming to save the planet and wonder what the benefits are from growing tomatoes the way i've been doing for years - up! While garden space and solar access are always an issue - i'm having a hard time wondering how this vertical solution is better - maybe in zero gravity?


:: image via Charles and Hudson

In all seriousness - the ideas of vertical farming is definitely influenced by the research into space and the ability to grow food both indoors and in close quarters. For those promoting these solutions - it's evident that they see this work as essentially saving the planet.


:: space food - image via NASA

A recent proposal from Philips Design called Biosphere Home Farming is a perfect example that you could see displayed in the mess hall of the Millennium Falcon (although by no means the only one). "We wanted to develop something initially that would supplement the nutritional needs of a family living in high rise accommodation, without drawing electricity or gas."


:: image via City Farmer

One major player in the technology-driven side is Valcent Technologies, which you've probably seen over the years with a range of products (and the addition of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to their board of advisors). My first introduction was the relatively innocuous High Density Vertical Growth (HDVG) panels aimed as maximizing square footage using simple hydroponic techniques.


:: image via Treehugger

This has been followed up with VertiCrop, which is more of a tray based rotating hydroponic system that could smoothly tuck into the food court on the Death Star. "The VertiCrop system grows plants in a suspended tray system moving on an overhead conveyor system. The system is designed to provide maximum sunlight and precisely correct nutrients to each plant. Ultraviolet light and filter systems exclude the need for herbicides and pesticides. Sophisticated control systems gain optimum growth performance through the correct misting of nutrients, the accurate balancing of PH and the delivery of the correct amount of heat, light and water."


:: image via Valcent Technologies

Another new system is called AlphaCrop - which is a bit different and looks like a rotating A-frame to maximize solar access: From their site: "Larger commercial growers may also employ AlphaCrop™ to compliment their VertiCrop™ systems and to produce a wider range of crops including baby carrots, salad potatoes and strawberries." Looks like from the size of the photos, their keeping this one a bit more vague, but you get the idea. Use energy to provide lighting and maximize productivity by using more energy to rotate trays to areas to get more access. Maybe it's worth it - with proper accounting of all externalities - I'd love to see the balance sheet for a project such as the recent installation of VertiCrop at the UK Zoo which boasts a 20-fold increase in per-acre production.

This brings up space age point number 2. While the sun our amazingly cheap grow lamp, but also a great limiting factor in food production especially when fighting against density and shading from buildings, lack of horizontal surfaces, and many other factors. In this vein, are there times when supplemental electricity (perhaps from renewable sources) makes sense to grow plants indoors? Does the cost to produce electricity and grow food with it outweigh or at least equalize our cost of transportation? There's a long lineage of hydroponic growing indoors - from the winter tomato to the kind bud - but the question does still remain - even with high-efficiency lighting, as to the efficacy of these systems. Valcent has a proposal for a large scale installation in a warehouse using artificial lighting and information on their collaboration with Phillips.


:: image via Valcent

A number of posts delve into this, such as the transformation of a steel factory in Japan to growing hydroponic lettuce, and also City Farmer discussing the rise of indoor food production facilities in that country of which space is a premium. In 2005 they took a basement space and "Pasona Inc, a human resources service company, built the greenhouse in order to introduce the pleasure of agriculture also to train aspiring farmers in the city."


:: image via City Farmer

Another to this list is the Omega Garden Hydroponic 'Ferris Wheel' which takes the space age vibe to the extreme with rotating cylinders of growth around supplemental lighting. Check out the photo and video below for more info.


:: image via Treehugger



Another interesting proposal in the vein of the less commercial is the urban space station , which is a "parasite architecture," the semi-permanent structure sits atop any roof as it filters air, grows food, and re-uses organic waste for inhabitants."




:: images via Jetson Green

As mentioned on Jetson Green, the project (and maybe outer fantastic urban ag solutions) may be most important as a conceptual thought exercise that generates discussion and innovation, versus providing the silver bullet solution: "While the feasibility a system like this that actually works well is very low, this concept does have some relevance to the green building community. Perhaps above all, the urban space station is important as a built experiment. "

Designer Natalie Jeremijenko states:

"It's most important function [is] as an icon for future possibilities." It is a creative attempt to push the boundaries of urban design, and to continue the conversation around sustainable living solutions. As the green movement matures, it is critical to continually produce new concepts to challenge the ways of the past, and to ensure that the movement is more than a media-driven fad."

Oh, I can't wait for that day.