Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
Green Skyscrapers That Add A Touch of Nature + Sustainability To Modern Architecture!
Polish designers Pawel Lipiński and Mateusz Frankowsk created The Mashambas Skyscraper, a vertical farm tower, that is in fact modular!
06/09/2021
Skyscrapers have taken over most of the major cities today. They’re symbols of wealth and power! And most of the skylines today are adorned with glistening glass skyscrapers. They are considered the face of modern architecture. Although all that glass and dazzle can become a little tiring to watch. Hence, architects are incorporating these tall towers with a touch of nature and greenery! The result is impressive skyscrapers merged with an element of sustainability. These green spaces help us maintain a modern lifestyle while staying connected to nature. We definitely need more of these green skyscraper designs in our urban cities!
Zaha Hadid Architects designed a pair of impressive skyscrapers that are linked by planted terraces, for Shenzhen, China. Named Tower C, the structure is 400 metres in height and is supposed to be one of the tallest buildings in the city. The terraces are filled with greenery and aquaponic gardens! They were built to be an extension of a park that is located alongside the tower and as a green public space.
Polish designers Pawel Lipiński and Mateusz Frankowsk created The Mashambas Skyscraper, a vertical farm tower, that is in fact modular! The tower can be assembled, disassembled and transported to different locations in Africa. It was conceptualised in an attempt to help and encourage new agricultural communities across Africa. The skyscraper would be moved to locations that have poor soil quality or suffer from droughts, so as to increase crop yield and produce.
The Living Skyscraper was chosen among 492 submissions that were received for the annual eVolo competition that has been running since 2006. One of the main goals of the project is to grow a living skyscraper on the principle of sustainable architecture. The ambitious architectural project has been envisioned for Manhattan and proposes using genetically modified trees to shape them into literal living skyscrapers. It is designed to serve as a lookout tower for New York City with its own flora and fauna while encouraging ecological communications between office buildings and green recreation centers. The building will function as a green habitable space in the middle of the concrete metropolis.
ODA’s explorations primarily focus on tower designs, in an attempt to bring versatility and a touch of greenery to NY’s overtly boxy and shiny cityscape. Architectural explorations look at residential units with dedicated ‘greenery zones’ that act as areas of the social congregation for the building’s residents. Adorned with curvilinear, organic architecture, and interspersed with greenery, these areas give the residents a break from the concrete-jungle aesthetic of the skyscraper-filled city. They act as areas of reflection and of allowing people to connect with nature and with one another.
Heatherwick Studio built a 20-storey residential skyscraper in Singapore called EDEN. Defined as “a counterpoint to ubiquitous glass and steel towers”, EDEN consists of a vertical stack of homes, each amped with a lush garden. The aim was to create open and flowing living spaces that are connected with nature and high on greenery.
Designed by UNStudio and COX Architecture, this skyscraper in Melbourne, Australia features a pair of twisting towers placed around a ‘green spine’ of terraces, platforms, and verandahs. Called Southbank by Beulah, the main feature of the structure is its green spine, which functions as the key organizational element of the building.
Mad Arkitekter created WoHo, a wooden residential skyscraper in Berlin. The 98-meter skyscraper will feature 29 floors with different spaces such as apartment rentals, student housing, a kindergarten, bakery, workshop, and more. Planters and balconies and terraces filled with greenery make this skyscraper a very green one indeed!
Algae as energy resources are in their beginnings and are seen as high potential. Extensive research work has dealt with algae as an energy source in recent decades. As a biofuel, they are up to 6 times more efficient than e.g. comparable fuels from corn or rapeseed. The Tubular Bioreactor Algae Skyscraper focuses on the production of microalgae and their distribution using existing pipelines. Designed by Johannes Schlusche, Paul Böhm, Raffael Grimm, the towers are positioned along the transalpine pipeline in a barren mountain landscape. Water is supplied from the surrounding mountain streams and springs, and can also be obtained from the Mediterranean using saltwater.
Tesseract by Bryant Lau Liang Cheng proposes an architecture system that allows residents to participate in not just the design of their own units; but the programs and facilities within the building itself. This process is inserted between the time of purchase for the unit and the total time required to complete construction – a period that is often ignored and neglected. Through this process, residents are allowed to choose their amenities and their communities, enhancing their sense of belonging in the process. Housing units will no longer be stacked in repetition with no relation whatsoever to the residents living in it – a sentimental bond between housing and men results.
In a world devoid of greenery, Designers Nathakit Sae-Tan & Prapatsorn Sukkaset have envisioned the concept of Babel Towers, mega skyscrapers devoted to preserving horticultural stability within a single building. The Babel towers would play an instrumental role in the propagation of greenery in and around the area. These towers would also become attraction centers for us humans, like going to a zoo, but a zoo of plants. Seems a little sad, saying this, but I do hope that we never reach a day where the Babel Tower becomes a necessity. I however do feel that having towers like these now, in our cities, would be a beautiful idea. Don’t you think so too?
Hydroponics - A Growing Trend in Architecture
Hydroponics might as well be the most sustainable way to feed the growing communities in moving forward. It is most efficient to grow leafy vegetables in vertical farms. Compared to traditional farms, vertical farms use 90% less land, gives 90% more fruit, and uses 90-98% less water with no soil.
‘In which Annie gives it those ones’, a movie that came out in the year 1989 featuring an honest life of a typical architecture college and its students. The principal figure is a titular character – Annie, or Anand Grover (played by Arjun Raina) who dreams of revolutionizing India through radical concepts. With a motive to reverse the whole process of urbanization, he suggests the growth of fruit farms alongside railway lines to make better use of excreta dumped on tracks by passing trains. This would end the migration from rural villages to urban cities. Such hare-brained schemes are “those ones” of the title – hippy-dippy fantasies of using architecture to be of some use of society. He questions in the movie, how could anyone else have not thought of the idea before he did. Well, the real scenario was even worse until hydroponics occupied its seat in the field of Architecture.
Farmlands in urban cities ©www.dezeen.com
Hydroponics Brings Farmlands To Urban Cities
With the rapid change in the world, there is a proportional decline in land availability and the quality of the soil. Resources like freshwater are left to count on throughout the world. By the year 2050, the population figure is predicted to rise to 9 billion and at the same time climate change could lower crop production by 25%.
Currently, with the expansion of cities & exhaustion of the rural lands, a vegetable growing on farmland travels about 2400 km before it reaches households. To keep it fresh and edible, it is sprayed by pesticides and chemicals. The food that one eats thus gets reduced to 50% of its nutrients, even 100% in some cases. Hence, the future of farming is being brought to cities across the world. Kimble Musk, brother of Elon Musk, and co-founder of Square Roots has a shipping container farm in Brooklyn. Under the streets of London there is a shelter being converted into an underground farm. There are tiny farms under Michelin Star Restaurants in New York City and a Tokyo office building which has its own rice paddy field in the lobby.
Vertical Farming in True Garden, Arizona ©www.usatoday.com
Hydroponics might as well be the most sustainable way to feed the growing communities in moving forward. It is most efficient to grow leafy vegetables in vertical farms. Compared to traditional farms, vertical farms use 90% less land, gives 90% more fruit, and uses 90-98% less water with no soil. The UN estimates that 20-40% of crops that are grown are destroyed by pests. So, growing in a closed environment without soil means no pests and thus, no pesticides. Tower Garden collaborated with Tower Farms to birth True Gardens in Arizona, USA. It is one of the major successful examples who have envisioned to drastically reduce the regional agricultural problems against the temperatures and lack of resources.
Hydroponics In Small-Scale Projects
Courtyards in office space ©www.archdaily.com
Backyards ©www.wallpaper.com
While people are getting under built concrete to fabricate urban farms in the cities, some architects open a new aspect of Hydroponics in the field of Architecture. C.C Arquitectos – an architectural firm in Mexico, designed a contemporary office that meets modern hydroponics. The site became a major driving force for this project. The building block is located between two production warehouses of leafy green vegetables. The project was intended to resolve the location of offices in a space that made emphasis on the constant interaction of the areas.
The context consists of agricultural fields that generate deep horizons. This became the second aspect the architect wanted to address: how to contain workspaces, bring a human scale to the whole, and provide visual breaks. He took advantage of the proximity to one of the production plant warehouses to visually involve the production process. It was intended to promote a friendly atmosphere, take distance from the corporate condition, and try to approach a community working for common purposes. This example shall inspire one, and all the designers to break the stereotypical boundary of application of hydroponics that limits to only vertical farming.
Hydroponics Meets Art
Before you proceed to read further, I would like you to take a pause and imagine –what if, hydroponics meets art and architecture with a pinch of technology? In advance of you declaring the amalgamation impossible, I would like to introduce a project known as Kinetic Green Canvas, built by Associative Data (BAD) along with Green Studios to create a prototype green art installation for building façades.
The Canvas consists of individual modules, each of which is a cube made from a steel framework, back paneling, L-shaped jambs, secondary structure, waterproofing board, irrigation piping, Green Studios hydroponic skin, and plants. These layered components are assembled on four sides of the cube module, with a motor and water pipe attachment that circulates water throughout. Varied shades of green grass are grown on each face and can create changeable ‘pixel’ art. All we need is art and plants to cheer up the neighborhood, so why not combine the best of both worlds?
Kinetic module ©www.materialdistrict.com
Stacking rows of pixel units’ ©www.materialdistrict.com
Kinetic green canvas creating art ©www.architectureanddesign.com
Hydroponics Builds A Tiny Ecosystem
Solar power at top level ©www.smithsonianmag.com
Fish farming at bottom level; ©www.smithsonianmag.com
Amidst the sea or river, grows a field yielding tons of vegetables, fruits, and fish each year! Barcelona-based architectural firm – Forward Thinking Architecture floats an idea of a complete ecosystem. With the ideology of no land-no problem, the firm proposes ‘Smart Floating Farms’; large triple-decker agriculture barges that feature fish farms down below, hydroponic gardens up top and, solar panels on the roof to keep things running. The designers contend that all of this could, in theory, operate pretty much automatically with minimal human intervention. A project takes the right direction when the classical elements merge together to support life and are self-sufficiently sustainable.
The extent of Hydroponics spreads exponentially more and beyond. It has been experimented in the farming sector and is successfully solving major world crises in the present and for the coming future. The growing trend in architecture shall meet advanced technology and who knows, we might even have growing buildings using hydroponics! Contradicting what we’ve always been taught – I would recommend building castles in the air. It could be one significant bridge for the human race to jump to productive architecture.
Architectural Journalist
Rethinking The Future
Tanushree Saluja is constantly inspired by connecting different forms of art and translating into architectural experiences. She strives for the eccentricity that’s interminable in the mind of the receiver. Bringing in fresh perspectives and unique outlook has been the greatest challenge and reward to her creativity.
This Vertical Farm Idea Promotes Beekeeping, Aquaponics and Algae Production. Can It Take Off in Asia?
Instead of salad vegetables, French designer Nicolas Abdelkader’s Superfarm would produce a wide range of food such as honey, fish, insects and algae. The structure will be sited on water so as not to compete for land in cities.
Instead of salad vegetables, French designer Nicolas Abdelkader’s Superfarm would produce a wide range of food such as honey, fish, insects and algae. The structure will be sited on water so as not to compete for land in cities.
In the wake of last year’s fire that tore through France’s Notre Dame Cathedral, design studio founder Nicolas Abdelkader was one of many designers and architects who came up with ideas for a new spire and roof for the Parisian landmark.
He proposed turning the top of the iconic cathedral into a greenhouse complete with beehives.
Now, Abdelkader has come up with an idea for vertical urban farms of the future. Instead of producing salad vegetables, his vertical farms would produce a wide range of food with high nutritional value such as honey, fish, insects and algae.
The Superfarm project would also strive to recreate an ecosystem in an urban environment through features such as beekeeping and an aquaponics system.
Fish such as tilapia would be reared in a recirculating aquaculture system where water is largely reused after treatment. The waste produced by fish would be used as nutrients for plants.
Algae such as spirulina and chlorella would be produced in bioreactors, and plants such as goji berries, aloe vera and ginseng would be grown. The farm would be powered by wind and solar energy.
Consumers would be able to buy produce directly from the farm and deliveries to households, restaurants and other customers can be done on tricycles, Abdelkader said in his pitch.
The French national is still refining the idea to make it more economical, consume less energy and use less raw materials in its construction. The six-storey structure, 12 metres in both length and width, will be sited on water in order not to compete for land in cities. It is likely to be anchored in the seabed but a floating farm might be possible, he said.
Asked where the Superfarm might be sited, Paris-based Abdelkader said it would ideally be set up in a “sufficiently populated coastal city” in places such as Scandinavia, the United States or Asia.
The varieties of plants and animals cultivated on the farm would also be adapted to the places in which it is set up.
“Superfarm could be a real game-changer for coastal cities, I am sure,” said Abdelkader, who is self-taught. He worked first as a designer and then a project manager for various architectural agencies, gaining experience in complex engineering projects before founding Superfarm a few months ago.
Urban farms have emerged as one of the solutions to boost food security, promote the farm-to-table movement and make better use of available pockets of land, such as rooftops, in cities. Urban farming and the shoring up of local food supply have also gained prominence as global supply chains are disrupted by coronavirus-induced lockdowns and border closures.
Abdelkader declined to provide a cost estimate for the Superfarm project. “For the time being we have been approached by potential investors, especially in the Gulf countries but I cannot say more at this stage,” he said.
Asked about the feasibility of the project in Southeast Asia, fish farmer Shannon Lim said the concept may not produce enough food economically on a commercial scale.
Going by Superfarm’s illustrations, he reckoned it would be able to produce a maximum of a few tonnes of food a year.
The idea “definitely works as far as fish production goes”, said Lim, the owner of Singapore firm OnHand Agrarian, which operates and provides consultancy on land and sea-based farms. “But it would have to be cheap freshwater fish that Asia already produces in abundance. Whether or not it’ll have enough plant mass to capture all the nitrogen compounds the fish produce is questionable.”
Lim felt the Superfarm concept would work better as part of an integrated office building that produces food for employees at an in-house café.
“It looks like a great live-work-play space that can customise production of different types of food. It would be a shame to not have it as part of a business ecosystem,” he said.
By Neo Chai Chin | Eco-Business | May 8, 2020
Greenroofs.com Featured Project
Sky View Parc
Flushing, NY, USA
55,000 sf. Greenroof
April 15, 2019
Wow, this awesome project looks like something you’d see in pro-environmental design Singapore with its highrises, beautifully landscaped park, and living architecture, right? But it’s not – the lucky location is in the New York City borough of Queens.
Image: Sempergreen
Due to its undeniable scale and multi-color presence, the distinctive Sky View Parc green roof benefits not only condominium’s residents and the environment, but developers and marketers, too. It’s as a great sales tool for eco-friendly design!
Read the entire article here
Does AI Hold The Key To A New And Improved “Green Revolution” In Agriculture?
Producing enough healthy food to feed the world—on a changing planet—is going to be a steep challenge. These researchers are giving farmers AI-driven techniques and tools to find solutions
Producing enough healthy food to feed the world—on a changing planet—is going to be a steep challenge. These researchers are giving farmers AI-driven techniques and tools to find solutions.
BYJACKIE SNOW FEBRUARY 19, 2019 NOVA NEXT
Automation in agriculture may soon make robots as common in greenhouses as they are on factory floors. Photo credit: Shutterstock
On a stretch of highway in the Netherlands not far outside of Amsterdam, a row of greenhouses at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) poke up like knuckles along the flat landscape. The Dutch university is known for its cutting-edge agricultural research, but some of these greenhouses recently ran an experiment that’s novel even for them: autonomous growing.
Stepping into a humid box from a brisk autumn day, you hear the noises of machines adjusting themselves mixing with the sounds of leaves rustling. The amount of light, water, fertilizers, and carbon dioxide—along with the temperature of the greenhouse—are all set by deep learning algorithms and executed by machines. Humans are still responsible for moving vines up the lattices as they grow, as well as pruning and harvesting.
But it’s pretty clear who—or rather, what—is calling the shots.
The Future of Farming?
By 2050, we’ll need to feed nine billion people with about a third less arable land than we had in the 1970s, experts estimate. Farmers will need all the help they can get, including insights gleaned from artificial intelligence, or AI. Developed carefully—and with the people who will be using it taken into account—AI can be part of the solution to feeding a growing world, according to the Refresh report, a document put together by researchers from Google, university professors, nonprofits, and farmers. And as an added bonus, some of the unsustainable practices developed over the past 70 years could be reversed with more efficient, AI-driven technology.
The Green Revolution was a set of advances that started in the 1950s in areas like high-yield crops, synthetic fertilizers, and irrigation technology that greatly increased food production, especially in developing countries—saving an estimated one billion people from starvation. But it left in its wake a culture of pesticides, reduced agricultural biodiversity, and overuse of chemical fertilizers that deplete the soil and poison waterways.
“It was never meant to be used in the long term,” says Danielle Nierenberg, the president of Food Tank, a non-profit working to build a better food system that also worked on the Refresh document. Farmers were supposed to transition back to organic, Nierenberg adds: It just never happened because increased yields generated by industrial-scale farming put pressure on smaller farms to follow suit.
One of the main ways AI could help agriculture transition out of practices forged in the Green Revolution and into a more sustainable future is with precision farming. Until now, there hasn’t been an easy way for farmers to learn from historical or real-time data. But AI-powered programs can combine data on weather patterns, crop yields, market prices, and more to guide farmers to planting at the right time, adding the appropriate level of fertilizers, and harvesting at peak ripeness.
WUR is one of the places where big data approaches to growing food are being tested. Last fall, five teams of AI researchers and biologists from around the world competed in growing cucumbers in separate 96-square-meter greenhouses, with a sixth grown manually as a reference. Each team trained its own algorithm, although the teams had the ability to decide how closely to follow the solutions that their AI models came up with. The teams kept an eye on their crops with sensors and cameras, and could feed the algorithms new data and tweak them as needed. To win, teams had to maximize total yield and net profits while minimizing the use of resources.
The winner was a team called Sonoma, made up of Microsoft Research employees and students from Danish and Dutch universities. According to Silke Hemming, head of the scientific research team for greenhouse technology at WUR, Sonoma’s plan used more artificial light earlier and kept carbon dioxide levels higher than a typical gardener might. But other teams also discovered counterintuitive ways to increase yield, such as pruning smaller cucumbers close to harvest or letting bigger ones have a chance to grow a little more.
Like all problems in AI, growing cucumbers and other crops by algorithm demands a food source of its own: data—and lots of it. The cucumber contest was a start at putting information together that other researchers can build on with future projects.
“You have a dataset you would never have,” Hemming says. “You can learn so much from that.”
The researchers organizing the competition chose cucumbers because they are a fast-growing crop cultivated worldwide, and problems like blight show up in them immediately. But this project could transform how other indoor crops are grown. It’s a first step in finding ways to combine humans and AI technology to produce more food, more efficiently.
“It’s not all about winning.” Hemming says. “It’s also about learning.”
FARMWAVE Founder and CEO Craig Ganssle uses its smartphone app with an automated kernel count feature to assess corn yield. Photo credit: FARMWAVE
AI on the Farm
“Farming is a lot more complicated than other industries,” says Joshua Woodard, an agricultural business and finance professor at Cornell and founder of the farming data company Ag-Analytics. “It’s a really complex system of environment and management practices."
Ag-Analytics’s wants to bridge that gap with easy-to-use data analysis tools to help farmers plan and monitor their fields. Their farm management platform takes data from sensors in John Deere farm equipment and combines it with other datasets, like satellite imagery and weather forecasts, to develop predictions for individual farms.
Algorithms working from afar could make a huge impact for less tech-heavy farms, too. Farmers in the developing world are working with minimal data and stand to make leaps in productivity with algorithms in the cloud instead of expensive machinery in their fields. According to the United Nations, 20 to 40 percent of crop yields are lost each year due to pests and diseases. AI tools like Plant Village and FARMWAVE allow farmers to take photos with their phones of sickly plants, bugs, and weeds, and then have computer vision-powered algorithms diagnose the problem from afar in seconds. FARMWAVE is already working with farmers in countries across the world, who, despite their distance, are all dealing with similar problems that AI can spot.
"Army worm in corn looks the same in Africa versus the U.S.,” says Craig Ganssle, the founder and CEO of FARMWAVE.
In India, a team at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is working on providing real-time pest predictions to help Indian farmers take specific actions to protect their crops. ICRISAT uses cloud computing, machine learning, and data from IoT (short for the “Internet of Things”) sensors to come up with personalized predictions about pest risks.
Dr Avijit Tarafdar of ICRISAT converses with chickpea farmer Mr Srinivasa Boreddy in Adilabad District, Telangana. Photo credit: D Chobe, ICRISAT
“Whenever [farmers] see the pests in the field, they simply go for pesticides,” says Dr. Mamta Sharma, a principal scientist at ICRISAT. “It will help them reduce the amount of sprays that farmers are applying."
ISCRISAT has offices in Africa that could eventually use the tool, with interest coming from South America as well. As these offices collect more data, Sharma says, it could be used to spot new risks due to climate change.
“It helps us recognize emerging threats,” she says.
Robot Green Thumbs
Indoor farming currently occupies around 2.3 million square feet worldwide. But based on information from growers, the analysis firm Agrilyst predicts this number will balloon to 22 million square feet over the next five years. Despite the expense of setting up these spaces and the limited types of produce that can currently be profitably grown, much of AI research is being done in greenhouses and other indoor spaces because, with the reduction of arable land, these production methods will become more critical. Indoor farming can also produce up to 20 times as much fruit and vegetables per square foot as outdoor farming, while using up to 92 percent less water, according to one study, with one company claiming it needs 99 percent less water.
In San Carlos, California, two robots cruise within a hydroponic farm developed by the start-up Iron Ox. These robots, which plan, care for, and harvest produce, are overseen by a computer program affectionately nicknamed “the Brain.” Even before the advent of AI, hydroponic systems were known to use less water, need fewer pesticides, grow faster, and produce more plants in less space. However, hydroponics are notoriously labor-intensive, requiring plants to be moved to different vats throughout the growing phase. Training robots for this monotonous task could make razor-thin profit margins a little less tight.
“A lot of things that weren’t feasible outside of a lab five years ago are possible now,” says Brandon Alexander, the CEO of Iron OX.
In the end, improved agricultural processes lead to better food options. And making small indoor farms more efficient could open up the possibilities of food grown closer to city centers. Most produce travels an average of 2,000 miles from farm to shelf in the U.S., which forces farmers to plant fruits and vegetables that can handle being transported—not necessarily those that taste good.
“Fresh produce isn’t that fresh,” Alexander says.
After improving its robotic systems, Alexander says, Iron OX’s long-term plans include breeding plants using data currently being gathered on its farm. Algorithms crunching this data and other local information, like what sells best, could replace tasteless, homogenized tomatoes and lettuce with more varieties suited to different communities’ tastes.
“We could make delicious, extra healthy things that people want to eat,” Alexander says.
VIA 57 West
VIA 57 West, a decidedly fantastic architectural mash-up with resident connection to views and nature
Linda Velazquez on September 24, 2018 at 2:50
VIA 57 West
22,000 sf Courtyard Greenroof
New York, NY, USA
Greenroofs.com Featured Project September 24, 2018
With the launch of our website redesign today, what better way to follow up the awesome Venice-Mestre Hospital (Ospedale dell’Angelo Mestre – Angel Hospital) than with the over-the-top VIA 57 West, a decidedly fantastic architectural mash-up with resident connection to views and nature at the forefront of its design strategy?
And the fact that BIG is one of my personal favorite team of architects just sealed the deal.
We also chose VIA 57 West this week in honor of CitiesAlive 2018– Green Infrastructure: Designing the Future of Resilience held in NYC starting today, September 24 and running through Friday, September 28. Brought to you by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, this year’s conference theme focuses on how green infrastructure builds resilience and equity in cities.
New York City has had quite a ride with an early array of beautiful and sensitive greenroof projects, and VIA 57 West adds a splash of the dramatic to its list of greened buildings.
Image courtesy of BIG, ©Iwan Bann
Mini Description & Details
Comprised of VIA, FRANK and Helena, the 57 WEST Superblock is an oasis in one of New York’s most vibrant neighborhoods. Designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the multi-award winning 35-floor VIA 57 WEST is redefining green living with a vision of sustainability that both respects nature and promotes wellbeing.
And its gleaming tetrahedron shape is an immediately recognizable presence on Manhattan’s West Side. A hybrid between the European perimeter block and a traditional Manhattan high-rise, VIA 57 West combines the advantages of both typologies: the compactness and efficiency of a courtyard building with the airiness and the expansive views of a skyscraper.
Image courtesy of Starr Whitehouse
Image courtesy of BIG
By keeping three corners of the block low and lifting the north-east corner up towards its 450 ft peak, the courtyard opens views towards the Hudson River, bringing low western sun deep into the block and graciously preserving the adjacent Helena Tower’s views of the river.
The form of the 77,202 square meter building shifts depending on the viewer’s vantage point. While appearing like a pyramid from the West-Side-Highway, it turns into a dramatic glass spire from West 58th Street.
Image courtesy of BIG, ©Iwan Bann
Image courtesy of BIG, ©Iwan Bann
Designed by Starr Whitehouse, the design of the open-air landscaped courtyard shares the exact proportions as Olmsted’s Central Park, planted with 47 species of native plant material including over 80 trees and lawn.
Starting in a grove of fern and birch, the path meanders up one story into a plaza that recalls a forest glade. Crossing through a fog feature, the path climbs a flight of stairs to arrive on a platform overlooking the Hudson. At this rocky summit, visitors can barbecue, enjoy the view, or sunbathe on a grassy knoll beneath a honey locust, surrounded by sumac, pine, and meadow grasses.
Image courtesy of Starr Whitehouse
Image courtesy of Starr Whitehouse
The single-source greenroof system chosen for Via 57 West is the Garden Roof Assembly® with Waterproofing Monolithic Membrane 6125® from American Hydrotech.
Built with an array of sustainable features and materials – not to mention stunning, unsurpassed vistas across the Hudson River and Manhattan – the spacious alfresco courtyard sky garden beckons to become a part of the engaging VIA 57 West community.
Image courtesy of BIG, ©Iwan Bann
Image: VIA 57 West Facebook page.
Year: 2016
Owner: The Durst Organization
Location: New York, NY
Building Type: Multi Use, Multi-Family Residential
Greenroof Type: Intensive
System: Single-Source
Size: 22,000 sq.ft.
Slope: 5%
Access: Accessible, Private
Image courtesy of Starr Whitehouse
Credits:
ARCHITECT: BIG
PROJECT ARCHITECT: David Brown, BIG
EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT: SLCE Architects
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER OF RECORD: Thornton Tomasetti
MEP ENGINEER OF RECORD: Dagher Engineering
CIVIL ENGINEER: Langan Engineering
MAIN CONTRACTOR: Hunter Roberts Construction Group
FAÇADE CONSULTANT: Enclos Corp., Vidaris, Inc.
TRAFFIC CONSULTANT: Philip Habib & Associates
VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANT: Van Deusen & Associates
ACOUSTICS CONSULTANT: Cerami & Associates
WIND CONSULTANT: CPP (Cermak Peterka Petersen)
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANT: AKRF and ROUX Associates, Inc.
LIGHTING CONSULTANT: Brandston Partnership Inc.
GREENROOF SYSTEM: American Hydrotech Roof Garden Assembly®
Image courtesy of BIG, ©Iwan Bann
All the Info:
View the VIA 57 West project profile to see ALL of the Photos and Additional Information about this particular project in the Greenroofs.com Projects Database.
Image courtesy of BIG, ©Iwan Bann
Featured Project
Watch the VIA 57 West Featured Project Video above or see it on our GreenroofsTV channel on YouTube.
Greenroofs.com Featured Project 9/24/18 video photo credits: Courtesy of BIG, ©Iwan Bann and ©Nic Lehoux; Starr Whitehouse, ©Iwan Bann and others; and American Hydrotech, ©Kirsten Bucher.
Did we miss your contribution? Please let us know to add you to the VIA 57 West profile.
Would you like one of your projects to be featured on Greenroofs.com? We have to have a profile first! Submit Your Project Profile.
Love the Earth, Plant a Roof (or Wall)!
By Linda S. Velazquez, ASLA, LEED AP, GRP
Greenroofs.com Publisher & Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summits Host
dmvA Suspends Greenhouse For Urban Farming Over Steel Rods In Belgium
September 28, 2018
house tp is located in the working-class area in mechelen, belgium – a local woman with green fingers bought there a little house next to the church and asked dmvA to reconstruct it. due to the specifics of the site and the client’s requirements, the architects have created a levitating greenhouse in the home’s courtyard.
the client had the desire to do urban farming, which is not evident in the center of the city. moreover, the plot was fully built and the backside is oriented north, being in the shade of the house most of the time. a green spot behind the house seemed difficult to create due to the lack of sunlight. dmvA, therefore, decided to remove the rear of the building, except for one steel beam.
the beam inspired the architects to add some extra beams and place a greenhouse on top of them. by hanging the structure up in the air, dmvA found a solution to the lack of illumination that ensured the patio to stay bright and light. as there is less light reaching the ground floor due to the orientation of the house, the bedroom is downstairs, while the living room is upstairs. next to the patio, there is a small living space that can also be used as a bedroom in the future.
by removing all interior walls and creating open spaces, the house seems larger than it is, despite its small living area of 80 square meters. the stairs are always placed on a side of the building so that the open spaces would not be disrupted.