The World Wide Web. – September 24, 2018

Greenroofs.com has been bringing the latest projects in chic sustainability to the living architecture community since 2007

Now in our twelfth year, Greenroofs.com Publisher Linda Velazquez announces the “2018 Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof & Greenwall Design.”

What are the developing trends pushing our building envelopes to be greener and captivating world class designers and sustainability leaders in 2018?

In our increasingly climate-challenged world, the ongoing evolution of architecture and green building has become a way, in many cases the only way, of doing business for many architects, designers, governments, and other project stakeholders.  Green infrastructure, and living architecture specifically, can offer a multitude of elegant solutions to our overburdened ecology, and in many cases they make beautiful, stunning, and even over-the-top design statements for us to appreciate and emulate.

Linda will be inaugurating the Greenroofs.com’s 2018 Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof & Greenwall Design this week in Brooklyn for the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities’ Cities Alive 2018.  Join her at CitiesAlive, held at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge on Wednesday, September 26 in the Design Track at 3:00 pm.

Projects from Across 6 Continents

For 2018, once again outstanding projects were compiled from across every continent except Antarctica.  With so many outstanding and inspiring examples of green infrastructure this year, it was extremely hard to choose just a handful of specific projects to be showcased in each of the ten categories.

Get prepared to be dazzled and inspired by some of the latest and greatest living architecture projects from across the global greenroof and greenwall industry with the 2018 Top 10 List!

2018 Greenroofs.com “Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof & Greenwall Design”:

10) Client Specific ‘Boutique’ Greenroofs & Greenwalls

9) Living Eco-Bling to Welcome & Inform

8) Sponge Infrastructure: Rebuilding water edge development for climate change resiliency

7) Overstructure Greenroof Plazas: Green spaces as social catalysts

6) Controlled Environment Agriculture 365 Days a Year: Vertical Soil-free Farming

5) Lushly Landscaped ‘Fractalized’ Terrace Towers

4) Living Architecture Ecosystem Services: Blending Biophilia Seamlessly with the User Experience

3) The Middle East: Arid & Sub-humid Greening of the Desert

2) Hi & Low-Tech + Living Architecture = Smart Bioclimatic Design

1) Unicorn Status: Divine Vertical Oases Wrapped in Nurturing Green

Designing for increased public realm spaces and climate change have become a necessity although sometimes we just need to shake things up a bit too, architecturally speaking, and many of these architects, landscape architects, and designers do just that.  To get a glimpse into the 2018 Hot List, here is but one project featured in each category:

10) Client Specific ‘Boutique’ Greenroofs & Greenwall

For those projects just too unique to fit into any other category

Image: Elmich Pte Ltd

The Campus @ Sengkang Riverside Park is a ‘Large Childcare Centre’ for 300-500 children in Singapore.  Blurring notions of indoor and outdoor using its ‘cocoon’ – the curving greenroof with 12 species – this is the first time a daycare has been located within a public in park.  Designed by Freight Architects, students learn biodiversity, composting, farm-to-table concept & harvesting for meals in the Garden Atrium.

9) Living Eco-Bling to Welcome & Inform

dazzling visitors & making a statement with beautiful plants

Image: Patrick Blanc

Located in Muharraq, Bahrain, the Green Gate Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Center for Culture and Research is a forum for dialogue between people in philosophy, literature, poetry, culture and the arts.  Patrick Blanc’s first outdoor Vertical Garden in the Middle East, temperatures rise up to 122° F.  The greenwall has over 200 species including subtropical and desert areas from the Mediterranean, Middle East, Australia, and South Africa.

8) Sponge Infrastructure: Rebuilding water edge development for climate change resiliency

maximizing permeable surface areas for stormwater & amenities

Image: Fundació Mies van der Rohe

The Underground Parking Garage in Katwijk aan Zee, The Netherlands is an integral part of new water defense system, protecting the town against the North Sea with its “dike in dune” approach. The 1,200m-long restoration and reinforcement project involved moving the beach 120m into sea; the 663-space greenroof garage follows the natural dune landscape, planted with marram grass.

7) Overstructure Greenroof Plazas: Green spaces as social catalysts

encourage collaboration, relaxation & inspiration in the workplace 

Image: CDDC

The interactive outdoor extension of the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, OH has a new 6.5-acre overstructure greenroof park with 630-space parking garage underneath.  Dorrian Green boasts a Sensory Garden, Butterfly & Pollinator Garden, Reading Garden & Prairie Garden, all plants native to central Ohio.

6) Controlled Environment Agriculture 365 Days a Year: Vertical Soil-free Farming

~ 124 million people in 51 countries endure food insecurity or worse – 2018 Global Report on Food Crises

Image: REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

Based in Berlin, Infarm is a (R)evolutionary hydroponic urban farming company whose “Farm-in-a-Box” concept offers on-demand greens in stores.  They want consumers to eat well, play a role in reshaping the landscape of cities and re-empower people to take ownership of their food.  ‘We are the new farmers, and the city is our farm.’

5) Lushly Landscaped ‘Fractalized’ Terrace Towers

planted balconies offer a bit of nature & respite from the ills of the city

Image: Safdie Architects

Safdie Architects’ planned residential development, Qorner, is set to be one of Quito’s tallest. The vertically stacked 24-story tower dwellings have staggered units creating generous garden terraces on each level with a green garden wall on the north façade. The private landscapes encourage outdoor living and foster a sense of a ‘vertical neighborhood’ wherein each apartment forms part of a greater whole.’

4) Living Architecture Ecosystem Services: Blending Biophilia Seamlessly with the User Experience

nurturing employees and visitors with nature

Image: Make

The BREEAM ‘Excellent’ 800,000 sf London Wall Place constituting two office buildings surrounded by 1.5 acres of landscaped public realm and 35,000+ sf of landscaped roof terraces. The site also has over 780 m² of greenwalls across multiple terraced levels.  Rainwater and grey water harvesting is used in landscape irrigation and façade cleaning.  Make: “It is about bringing in a social, human, tactile scale to the City, and the architecture is all the more successful for the spaces around it.”

3) The Middle East: Arid & Sub-humid Greening of the Desert

hot, hot & hotter can have flourishing living architecture, too

The King Abdullah Financial District’s Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is an engineering marvel with its “megaroof” of 165 massive steel triangles joined at 98 nodes.  The modular Hypertufa medium is planted with indigenous cliff dwelling arid plant communities of the Arabian peninsula desert landscape.  The plants blur the boundaries of the jagged exoskeleton which is based on steep ‘Wadi’ valley stream bed slopes.

2) Hi & Low-Tech + Living Architecture = Smart Bioclimatic Design

designing with nature doesn’t necessarily take a rocket scientist – just an eco-designer

Image: © Yiorgis Yerolymbos/SNF

Designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre in Kallithea, Greece has a 170,000 m² sloping landscaped park which houses the National Library of Greece and Greek National Opera with sustainability elements as key to design: reduction of energy and water demands using passive design solutions.  A 10,000 m² canopy above the opera house supplies shade and supports 5,600 pv’s which reduce cooling demands below and generate 2.5 megawatts above.  The native greenroof flora includes over 1,400 trees and more than 300,000 other plants, doubling the area’s greenspace.

1) Unicorn Status: Divine Vertical Oases Wrapped in Nurturing Green

mythical beings aren’t the only ones who can save the world

Image: Stefano Boeri Architetti

A derivation of the broader theme of architect Stefano Boeri’s theme of Urban Forestry, the offices, houses, hotels, hospitals and schools in Liuzhou Forest City, China will be entirely covered by plants and trees.  The new city will host 30,000 people and the massive amount of vegetation will absorb almost 10,000 tons of CO2 and 57 tons of pollutants per year and produce approximately 900 tons of oxygen.  Approximately 40,000 trees and almost 1 million plants of over 100 species will decrease the average air temperature, create noise barriers and improve the biodiversity of living species, generating new habitat for birds, insects and small animals.

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About Greenroofs.com:

Founded in 1999, Greenroofs.com is a dynamic interactive website, online media company, vibrant social network, and comprehensive resource Connecting the Planet + Living Architecture promoting People, Projects & Solutions. We are a collaborative platform and catalyst for our growing industry, and Earth’s connection to emerging trends of nature-based infrastructure via news, Projects & the Directory. We produce the international Greenroofs.com Projects Database and Directory, plus the biennial Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summits: Connecting the Planet + Living Architecture: People, Projects & Design since 2011.  Join us in 2019!

For more information:

Aramis M. Velazquez
Greenroofs.com, LLC.
(888) 477-1326
media@greenroofs.com