Two proposals for vertical greening from Asia push some of the buttons and boundaries of our continually uneasy relationship with representation over implementation (the subject of the ongoing VIVA series).
:: not dumb boxes – image via designboom
VISION CITY
First, via Designboom, the Vision City proposal from sparch architects envisions a gargantuan a retail mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
:: images via Designboom
Via designboom: “…they cut the central portion of the new building to create a hybrid space—a voluminous garden naturally ventilated but sheltered from the elements—that is an extension of the urban fabric. with the originally planned hermetic air-conditioned box now drawing the streetscape into its carved out volume, vision city deviates from the mould of the ubiquitous modern mall, engaging more directly its immediate surroundings, physically as well as visually, to realize the urban rejuvenation that its developers and urban planners are envisioning for the neighbourhood.”
:: image via Designboom
The sections tell the best story of the project process, including green roofs and interior atria for microclimatic effect.
:: image via Designboom
My favorite visual has to be the faceted green wall (below) – offering an enveloping bowl of greenery to the interior spaces, and some dynamic vistas from within.
:: image via Designboom
NESSIE
Second, a design from SEIWOOO‘s Alban Mannisi, along with Pierre Alex providing 3-D Rendering for Nessie: Vertical Territoriality, the Green Water City – Quingpu, Shanghai, China – 2009
:: images via SEIWOOO
From SEIWOOO: “The growth of cities, their influences and the mask which they define on the whole grounds must be reconsidered. Extending a city should be no longer at the expense of arable land. Economic concerns that guide the new urban issues must be able to coincide with the same concerns that have established practices for cultivation before the development of cities. NESSIE project newly supplies the territory with oxygen thanks to the built towers which take place at the heart of the history of the territory. The towers have an open-aired column in their centers which allow oxygenation to go to the lower layer. Oxygenation, development of bacteria in these old asphyxiated strata, it can regenerate a necessary ecosystem to the superficial layers where life and vegetation grow. Groundwater, regulations, redevelopment, their bacteriological regulations in an autonomous way. And it can provide a healthy home to human activities, flora and fauna to immersed areas around the extension of the new town.”
:: images via