The World Wide Web. – June 29, 2017 – Now in our eleventh year, Greenroofs.com Publisher Linda Velazquez announces the “2017 Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof & Greenwall Design.”

Amidst growing media interest and in our climate-changing world where it is more essential than ever to design with nature, Greenroofs.com has been bringing the latest projects in chic sustainability to the living architecture community since 2007.

As usual to be expected from the annual Top 10 Hot List, decisively outstanding, inspirational, and magnificent avant-garde structures and designers are underscored by exceptional green building envelope vegetation. And 2017 marks the first time Linda Velazquez has gone solo curating the yearly Top 10 compilation since previous collaborator Design Editor Haven Kiers stepped down due to a heavy professional schedule.

Linda recently inaugurated the “2017 Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof & Greenwall Design” in Berlin last week at the highly successful WGIN, FBB and EFB World Green Infrastructure Congress 2017, which enjoyed over 800 registrants.  If you missed attending her fun and fast-paced presentation in Germany, join Linda and fellow colleagues this September in Seattle for the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Cities Alive 2017.

Projects from Across 6 Continents

For 2017, projects were compiled from across every continent except Antarctica – but should anyone ever propose or attempt to build a greenroof or greenwall in this snowy and icy domain, Linda will certainly add it to an upcoming List!  And since 2017 is barely half through, Greenroofs.com will keep an eye out for additional projects to be potentially added and delivered in Seattle.

2017 Greenroofs.com “Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof & Greenwall Design”:

10) Client Specific ‘Boutique’ Greenroofs & Greenwalls

9) Greening Remote Residences

8) Innovative Uses for Spacious Green Civic Spaces

7) Buildings Gone Wild (in a Green Cultivated Way)

6) Bringing the Outdoors In: Surrounded by Nature

5) Living Green Hotel Façades: Hanging Gardens in the City

4) Cascading Terraced Gardens Are All the Rage

3) Dazzling Starchitect-designed Luxury Condos in Miami

2) Leadership Designer Spotlight: SWA Group – landscape architecture, urban design & planning

1) Fantastic & Fantastical Designs to Enrich the Planet

Holistic approaches take center stage through integrating vegetation and using technologies to encourage energy efficient and environmentally friendly building envelopes.  Some of the projects include:

10) Client Specific ‘Boutique’ Greenroofs & Greenwalls

Photo: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

A Greenroofs.com perennial favorite category for those projects which are just too unique, the Client Specific ‘Boutique’ Greenroofs & Greenwalls category includes: The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles – May the (Green) Force Be with You: Showcasing the life work of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, the $1 billion museum resembles a sinuous space ship, with undulating ribbons of plant life set on a sprawling, lush 6 – 7 acre greenroof park set atop underground parking. The Vancouver Public Library in B.C., Canada: Opening the “Garden in the Sky” to the Public. The renovation of the iconic 1995 Central Library by Cornelia Oberlander and Moshe Safdie (and others) will include a new public roof garden at grade with the existing maples.

9) Greening Remote Residences

Villa 3 Marias. Photos: Paisajismo Urbano, SMA.

The Villa 3 Marias in Morelia, Mexico overlooks hills and the Guayangareo Valley. Its 13 separate lush hydroponic greenwalls are located inside and out with a total of 11,000 plants, 35 species and 15 varieties. Villa Ypsilon in Greece is an accessible Y shaped greenroof which becomes an extension of olive grove landscape since the height of house is limited to tip of the olive trees, offering panoramic view to the mountains, bay of Schiza, and the island of Sapientza.

8) Innovative Uses for Spacious Green Civic Spaces

Skyline Plaza Frankfurt. Photo: Optigrün international.

The mega mall Skyline Plaza Frankfurt in Germany has a 2.7-acre Skyline Garden rooftop garden with a huge network of paths, lawns, and playgrounds open to the public. Seoullo in Seoul, South Korea is a former 1970s inner city highway transformed in to a 983m-long public park. Fifty types of plants are displayed in 645 tree pots with 228 species and sub-species.

7) Buildings Gone Wild (in a Green Cultivated Way)

Greendo. Photo: Keita Nagata Architectural Element.

Greendo in Takamatsu, Japan are five residences sandwiched between two roads in the mountainous terrain. Greened terraces form roofs of the homes below where children play and gardens aare grown. Cidade Matarazzo’s Rosewood Tower in São Paulo, Brazil will transform a former historic maternity ward into a 100m tall building to be “oasis at the heart” of the city. Native vegetation will populate the ‘landscape building’ with flowers, plants & trees protruding through and above the structure’s latticed steel façade.

6) Bringing the Outdoors In: Surrounded by Nature

The Spheres: Amazon HQ. Photo: NBBJ.

Why build a boring office park, when you can create living architecture with three giant biospheres? NBBJ is working with Amazon to revitalize three city blocks of Seattle’s Denny Regrade neighborhood, and the centerpiece of the new Amazon headquarters will be the spheres: a multi-story, glass-enclosed workplace containing tens of thousands of plants and trees from around the world.  Patrick Blanc’s Rainforest Chandelier in Bangkok is the longest free hanging structure in the world totally covered by plants at 103 m long. Built for the luxury EmQuartier shopping mall renovation, the Spiral blade chandelier is suspended on stainless steel cables and planted with Ferns, Anthurium, Hoya, Cissus sicyoides, and many more from the French botanist.

5) Living Green Hotel Façades: Hanging Gardens in the City

Oasia Hotel. Photo: © K. Kopter.

In Singapore, WOHA’s stunning red aluminum mesh cladded Oasia Hotel in the CBD: Conceived as a living green tower at 190.15 meters with four sky terraces and the sky garden above, it integrates 21 species of creepers, plants and flowers. The “landscaping is used extensively as an architectural surface treatment.”  The Atlas Hotel in Vietnam drips with vegetation: Vo Trong Nghia architects incorporated drapes of greenery to the 5-story balconies with plants overhanging each side of the building to reconnect guests with nature. The sheltered network of inter-connected courtyards is immersed in trailing plants, too.

4) Cascading Terraced Gardens Are All the Rage

Google London HQ. Photo: Google.

Google’s London HQ is a £1 billion “Landscraper” to be as long as it’s tall and will bring all Googlers into one campus of 11 stories with 300-meter long rooftop gardens to be stepped just like the building. The garden’s many zones include a “pause area” filled with wildflowers & woodland plants, a cafe, and 200m running trail. The design of Beirut Terraces in Lebanon are influenced by layers of the city’s rich and tumultuous history. And the 119 m-tall highrise of staggered plates are large planted overhangs whose lush vegetation offers privacy screens, creates cooler micro climates, and frames views.

3) Dazzling Starchitect-designed Luxury Condos in Miami

Monad Terrace. Graphic: Ateliers Jean Nouvel.

Highlighted here in this trend for the wealthy are the spectacular Monad Terrace by Jean Nouvel in Miami Beach; One River Point Towers by Rafael Viñoly on the Miami River; and the Grove at Grand Bay by Bjarke Ingels of BIG.

2) Leadership Designer Spotlight: SWA Group – landscape architecture, urban design & planning

Shanghai Tower. Photo: Connie Zhou via My Modern Met.

Known for the firm’s iconic work on projects such as the Library of Congress Packard Campus and the California Academy of Sciences, some of SWA’s spectacular “Public Realm” overstructure greenroofs are highlighted including the Burj Khalifa Tower Park in Dubai, UAE influenced by traditional Islamic patterns – currently the #1 tallest building in the world; and the Shanghai Tower in China spiraling high with nine vertical zones and Sky Garden Terraces at every 22nd floor, and the #2 tallest building in the world.

1) Fantastic & Fantastical Designs to Enrich the Planet

Mashambas Skyscraper. Photo: © Pawel Lipi?ski / Mateusz Frankowski.

The Mashambas Skyscraper for Swahili, Africa is the 2017 eVolo Skyscraper Competition Winner, a mobile educational center to introduce a green revolution providing education, seeds, and fertilizer. The scalable skyscraper is conceived to reduce hunger in sub-Saharan where over 40% live in absolute poverty. Once a community becomes self-sufficient it moves on.And to wrap up the Greenroofs.com 2017 Top 10 Hot List, ‘Tour & Taxis’ is a mixed-use 135,000 sqm eco-neighborhood in central Brussels: Architect Vincent Callebaut proposes the concept of greening the site of the former customs clearing and storage complex and maritime terminal with vertical forests to build villas in the sky surrounded by roof gardens and creating public parks inside the office, retail, and public buildings. Of course, the Energy-Plus Masterplan Metamorphosis of the Gare Maritime is all covered in green and renewable energies.

Tour & Taxis. Graphic: Vincent Callebaut Architectures.

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About Greenroofs.com:

Since 1999, Greenroofs.com has been the international greenroof and greenwall industry’s resource and online information portal. We inform, promote and inspire through the interchange of ideas, projects, news, videos, events, research, people, company and community updates and marketing opportunities. Our interactive website, online media company, and vibrant social network produces the international Greenroof & Greenwall Projects Database and Directory, plus the biennial Greenroofs & Walls of the World™ Virtual Summits: Connecting the Planet + Living Architecture: People, Projects & Design since 2011.

Register now and join us online for our 2017 Virtual Summit with live events + videos on demand through December, 2017.  Round #2 coming soon!

For more information:

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