Vertical gardens – a new trend in architectural design

As a professional botanist, French Patrick Blanc studied tropical plants climbing the rocks with a green carpet, and came to a reasonable conclusion: if they almost do not need soil, then they can grow on the facades of houses. Blanc has developed a unique design: an artificial material, like felt, is attached to the wall; in each square meter of this “soil” up to 30 plants are implanted (water and fertilizers are supplied to them through tubes reliably isolated from the wall) and – voila! – the building is covered with a real living carpet. A huge variety of plants (Monsieur Blanc calculated that in Malaysia alone, 2,5 thousand grasses and vines do without any soil) makes it possible to compose the most picturesque compositions of them. The original invention turned out to be in great demand: the best architects of the world collaborate with Blanc, who also became a landscape designer.

When facing the authorities of Fukuoka, the largest port city in Japan, the task arose to build a new information and cultural center, the last unoccupied site in the city center turned out to be a small square with an area of ​​about two blocks. Only a miracle could have helped to avoid the storm of protest against the development of precious “green lungs”. It was for him that the customers turned to American Emilio Ambashuknown for his sustainable approach and ability to integrate architecture into nature. What Ambash built most of all resembles the description of the famous Hanging Gardens: he kept the park on one half of the site, and on the second he erected a 15-storey building, along the terraces of which, like giant steps, greenery rises. 76 species of plants with a total number of 35 thousand specimens have been planted on the southern facade. From some angles, the architecture completely “dissolves” in the lush thickets. It is not surprising that now this building is one of the main attractions of Fukuoka and a favorite place for romantic dates.

The advertisement is engine of the trade! An excellent advertisement for the store can be its fresh and luscious facade, literally “full of health” against the background of gray and dull concrete buildings. An example of how commercially viable a living wall can be for a store is the Belgian fashion designer Anne Demelmeister’s boutique in Seoul, designed by South Korea’s Mass Studies bureau. The structure, soft and plastic in outline, is made of monolithic concrete from the outside and from the inside, “wrapped” in a special geotextile fiber, in which the apical pachisandra (perennial evergreen shrub) is planted. There is a panoramic restaurant at the top of the building, connected to the boutique by a picturesque staircase that looks like it is carved into the thickness of a green hill. The architects explain that they were trying to create a new organism in which the artificial and the natural would be harmoniously combined. And they succeeded: even those who had never suspected the existence of the Ann Demeulemeester brand flock to the “green island”.

The bamboo rustled, the trees bent

Recently, architects are increasingly weaving elements of wildlife into their buildings, but no one does it as boldly, insanely and elegantly as Parisian Edouard François… What he just didn’t try: for example, he “tiled” a house in Montpellier with gabions, into which he fell asleep herb seedsthanks to which the building began to sprout in the most unexpected way; in the Parisian nine-story Tower Flower house, he replaced the balcony railings with bamboo tubs, transforming an ordinary concrete new building into a verdant and rustling tower. Edouard François likes to create buildings “like chameleons reacting attentively to their surroundings” and jokingly call himself “a master of camouflage”. However, jokes are jokes, and the Holiday Houses hotel he built in the Loire Valley is really better camouflaged: ten of its cottages are surrounded by trellis trees around the entire perimeter. They are pressed against the facades by an almost invisible mesh. Vacationers must be given a detailed route map, because it is as easy as shelling pears to slip through the complex without noticing.

A vent pipe cannot be beautiful by definition. If it does not disfigure the surrounding landscape too much, thank you for that. Two of the best “green” architects decided to fight this obvious injustice at the same time – Edouard François and Patrick Blanc. The design they came up with for the ventilation tower in Défense is ingeniously simple. The pipe is wrapped in 20 tiers of metal strips, into which a nutritious substrate is poured and supports for flowering vines are stuck. The sticks bristle in all directions, like a hedgehog’s thorns. However, the bare pipe did not last long. The loaches growing right in front of our eyes completely camouflaged the structure. It can be assumed that now the owners of neighboring offices are especially emphasizing such dignity as “the view from the windows to the ventilation pipe.”