Veg.itecture: VIA Olive 8, Joost, Mission, + Busan et.al.

VIA: Vegitecture in Action: As promised, the inevitable death of posts related to Veg.itecture has spun, in this auspicious 50th post, into a new series that will investigate the dual sides of the concept - the VIA and the VIVA, if you will (explained here in detail). For this inaugural installment of Veg.itecture in Action (VIA) - a look at four distinctly different, yet equally real, projects along with a few ephemeral touches sprinkled on as endnotes.

Olive 8
The Seattle DJC blog had some installation photos of Olive 8, a condominium in Seattle that features a couple of green roofs - one a tray-based system of sedums. From the DJC: "The roof is actually two green roofs so the developer, R.C. Hedreen, can test out which system it likes best. Above the chillers there is a sod-based green roof. On the actual fourth floor ground level, there is a tray-based sedum system. There is a lasting argument between which one of these techniques is better, which I will discuss in a later post at greater detail. For more on this project, or to learn about R.C. Hedreen’s conversion to being a green developer, read the story in the DJC here."




:: Tray System - images via DJC


:: Sod-based System - images via DJC

Joost Greenhouse
City of Sound featured this interesting project from Melbourne Australia - a temporary structure with some inventive rooftop planters and a unique living wall: "The Greenhouse, by Joost and others, is an opportunistic temporary insertion into a gap in Federation Square, Melbourne. It’s built entirely from recycled and recyclable materials. The exterior is dis-assembled shipping containers and packing crates, filled with straw bale and covered with plants. When I was there, the walls were embedded with strawberry plants and potatoes were planted on top (and used in the potato salad served below), amongst other things."






:: images via City of Sound

More info about the agricultural aspects: "Particularly interesting to me - as a keen if limited urban gardener - is the building as platform and showcase for urban agriculture. A little more could be done to explain the system at work here - which plants make it into the food; how the waste is turned into compost etc. - and the opportunity for increasingly greening all urban spaces with productive planting."




:: images via City of Sound

Pacific Garden Mission
This project, found on Jetson Green, offers some images of the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago - which had some rooftop interventions. The ratty-looking tray system and rooftop? greenhouses shown below show some of the examples.




:: images via Jetson Green

But they definitely could use a little extra rooftop greening perhaps - looks comfy...


:: image via Jetson Green

Busan Green Room
This brief post from Vulgare highlights the unique 'Green Room' - a utility on the outside, green on the inside temporary pavillion installation from Gruppo A12 - for the Busan Biennale 2006.




:: images via Vulgare


:: image via Gruppo A12

et.al.
Getting ephemeral, there's a few little projects of veg.itectural work that caught the eye in the past few weeks. Both aim at some normal functionality, but fall perhaps a bit short in action. Starting with the ridiculous - Carpark in Taipai - from 3RW Arkitekter - comes courtesy of Vulgare - and gives new meaning to the term parkway:


:: image via Vulgare

And the sublime, a post from Inhabitat of some soft moss used as a bathmat: "This Moss Carpet by Nguyen La Chanh brings the outside indoors in an unconventionally natural way by placing it underfoot. The lush green lawn thrives in humid environments, which makes your bathroom a perfect place to grow."


:: image via Inhabitat

To the just plain wrong - another billboard greening - this time hawking the wares of Adidas. Thanks to Bill Badrick for pointing this one out - and linking to Toxel.


:: image via Toxel

And for an end to the ephemera, check out this interview with High Line Horticulturalist Melissa Fisher, as she describes the nitty gritty of planting the High Line, the Mod Eco-Deep Haus with green roof, courtesy of Jetson Green, and another simple and silly introduction to green roofs from Portland. Enjoy.

NYC Rooftops

A photo stream from Bill Badrick (a local architect/illustrator whose cartoony drawings of visionary bridges in Portland has been featured on L+U a few times) entitled Rich People Rooftops NYC... some nice stuff here. Enjoy... and thanks for the link Bill.


















:: images via Flickr - jwilly

Portland: Bridge to Commerce

Via Mike Thelin's blog at Portland Spaces, a recent proposal from local firm Path Architecture envisions a new bridge across our Willamette River. Not an actual proposal, but a visionary idea that aligns with the proposed future crossing of the new MAX Orange-line light rail alignment, along with bus, bike, and pedestrian. A very car-less and Portlandesque bridge...




:: image via Path Architecture

From Path Architecture: "Bridge as a connector, a center of commerce, and an icon worthy of representing the city of portland to the world. A glass enclosed, auto-free street with dedicated lanes for pedestrians, bikes, and trains, with over 100,000 square feet of bustling commerce. A city-level commerce and transportation bridge that creates a seamless connection between east and west Portland."




:: images via Path Architecture

Portland Spaces mentions some of the details and challenges: "Of course, pulling this off will be challenging. For one, the proposed site near Riverplace is located outside of the city’s retail core. Second, adding office and retail space would certainly add cost to the bridge, whose funding will be sourced from a variety of streams, including federal transportation funds... Still, the addition of 100,000 square feet (that’s 2.5 Portland city blocks) of commercial space could also create revenue and enliven the waterfront like never before."

Also mentioned in the coverage is the allusion to other bridges for commerce, particularly the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.


:: image via Portland Spaces


:: inside the Ponte Vecchio - image via Wikipedia

Another example I've never heard of, mentioned in the comment stream, was the Galata Köprüsü bridge in Istanbul. From commenter Rob: "The river deck of Galata primarily cafes and restaurants on the lower level, which is where pedestrians walk, below traffic level and pretty much at water level. It’s a cool spot in Istanbul summer. Popular for fishing too."


:: image via Wikipedia


:: image via ArkiteraForum

This idea of dual purpose bridges is powerful, especially in a city where bridges make up a good portion of the identity of the space. This reminds me of the ill-fated Interstate 405 capping project from the 1990's, which attempted to expand urban space and remove some of the severed downtown connection from the depressed interstate corridor.


:: I-405 scheme - image via The Aesthetic Condition of the Urban Freeway

The ability to provide not just commerce, but perhaps some green, harkens to Bill Badricks interesting cartoony and verdant pictorial representation of green bridges (shown here for the Columbia River Crossing) - and a proposal for a very green Willamette River span, that's even wind-powered...


:: image via Bill Badrick

Transportation and Space

It sounds obvious when you say it (and it has been said many times before) but it is always striking to see how influential modes of transportation are on the shaping of our cities. The magnitude and impacts are immense but also provide a range of new opportunities to explore. The typical figure ground study shows the differences and similarities of building and 'open space' - but misses the complexities of what these places are like experientially and ecologically. While some recent car-free cities have been proposed in other countries - is this a feasible option. It may be a fact of life that cars (in some way) will continue to have a sizable impact on planning for the foreseeable future.


:: image via Treehugger

To illustrate this point further, via Core77, a poster from the German city of Munster's planning office, showing the relative space taken up to transport the same number of people by auto, bus, and bike. Looks like bus and bike win out there hands down, what a surprise. (click to enlarge for more detail)


:: image via Core77

To put this in some numerical terms (somewhat non-spatial) a few choice stats from Yes! Magazine to reinforce the point some more:

:: Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on defense: 8,555
:: Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on health care: 10,779
:: Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on education: 17,687
:: Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on mass transit: 19,795 [source]

Or to put it more succinctly, the : "...amount of money that a community gains for every mile biked instead of driven: 50 cents [source]" This is reinforced with a call for real cost impacts of roads, challenging some of our existing and dated aesthetic notions, as well as striving for more 'Complete Streets'. This also involves re-envisioning the use of space in cities such as inventive new uses of alleys as well as perhaps redefining what it means to park downtown. Nonetheless, the web we weave is still there.


:: image via Treehugger

But we're talking about space, so what does this mean in terms of design? A compelling guest post on Where by Ella Peinovich describes some of the experience with a Winy Mass studio class aimed at 'Designing SkyCar City' ... which essentially had a simple aim: "…create a city built for the use of a skycar, a city with 'streets' at any level, or perhaps empty of streets as we know them…"


:: Futuristic Skycar - image via Skyaid

The essay mentions a companion book published of the solutions. One aspect that Ms. Peinovich addresses is the utopian tendency to want to make car-free cities - mostly as a cop-out to real problem solving of real problems. Here quote, again from Where: "...It is our responsibility as designers to address real issues rather than represent feel-good utopias. A city model that is designed in reaction to current outstanding issues of common society (e.g. waste disposal, greening, traffic relief etc…) will likely get a lot of attention and praise. On the contrary, our city model chose to explore and build up a topic which currently carries a negative stigma. We suggested that, as a society, we accept that every person wants the freedom of having their own car. We chose to assume this desire of every individual and suggest that public transportation has no future. We feel our model holds its clout because it is based on realistic projections of where society IS headed, rather than where it SHOULD be."

Well the promise of Skycars has not panned out so far, so perhaps looking at some of the materials in which to make space for our cars (and bikes, and people). Much press has been devoted to a variety of permeable options, which have a range of pros and cons. How about some other options? Jetson Green mentioned a recent project with: "...a Dutch office building that is both heated and cooled using heat (or cold) from the asphalt of the road outside the building, as opposed to the more conventional use of solar thermal panels on the building's roof."


:: image via Jetson Green

While not a flawless solution, the multi-functional aspects of this paving are laudable. Removal and/or burial is a great option as well. The Big Dig is finally completed and Boston is realizing the potential of this new found ribbon of open space and building areas within the fabric of the city. Adaptive reuse at it's finest. A profile in the NY Times showed some of this transformation.




:: images via NY Times

The benefits are huge, but burial is a problematic and expensive endeavor. Next option, get rid of the street. Portland (I brag) was on this trend previously, with the removal of Harbor Drive Highway that sliced through downtown alongside the riverfront, severing any connection to the river. In the earlier 1970s, the highway was removed and has become one of the most popular park spaces in the City.


:: Harbor Drive (1964) - image via Removing Freeways - Restoring Cities

:: Tom McCall Waterfront Park - image via Portland Ground

On a different local note, an installation by local Bill Badrick that is on display right now at the Northwest Portland location of the Lucky Lab Brewpub is a vision of the Columbia River Crossing - sheathed in rooftop green. Bill writes: "...The concept is to put a park roof on the proposed freeway bridge over the Columbia River [below]. The Park Roof protects drivers/walkers/bikers from the fierce winter storms , controls runoff , and mostly eliminates expensive re-painting. Imagine a picnic at 200' above the river with a panorama from Mt St Helens to Mt Hood!"

:: images via Bill Badrick

What the drawings lack in refinement, they definitely make up for in vision. Definitely more poetic that the latest versions of the CRC, to say the least... or an opportunity to not just build a road, but build some community.