Green Rooftop Art

Santa Maria Catrina Market employs colour and pattern to describe its function. Its roof is made from Spanish mosaic tiles which relate to the markets cultural context, and whose vivid colours represent the food that market vendors sell. The part I find most important about this structure though is the way that the roof enhances the esthetic of the community. The neighbours views are enhanced by the market's rooftop. This example was shown by Vaike during her lecture on colour, by Jae during our studio input, and I am showing it again here! But I think this example is important and I wanted to post it because I see a strong correlation between this fresh, exciting rooftop/art piece, and the potential for green roofs to achieve the same esthetic in a more sustainable way. In our last lecture the speaker's green roofs were so beautiful that they should be incorporated into future market designs, perhaps growing some of the food the market would sell.

Reflections for Last Class

Our last lecture for the semester was given to us by Anna, a professor from the landscape department. Originally from Germany, Anna brought to the class a huge knowledge base of green roof's and a variety of different practices. The green roofs that were shown as examples from Germany were outstanding. Some places looked as if you wouldn't even know you had neighbours because the buildings and its rooftops were completely outfitted with greenery. The main difference in the number of green roof's here in Winnipeg versus Germany was not due to climatic factors, but instead the difference in our laws. In Germany, developers must compensate to add more green space if they are to build something. This is a concept that Winnipeg should definitely start looking into. 

The different layers that are needed to create a green roof and different soil levels to accommodate certain plants were explained to us. We also learned the difference between a Green Roof and a Roof Garden, the latter being accessible to the public and the prior only used for ecological purposes. Some may say green roof's are "tarting up  a building", but I believe green roofs are an excellent way of integrating the built form and nature. The roofs provides us with heating and cooling services and water retention, at the same time putting green landscapes back into the city.

Jae ended the semester with an anecdotal experience in his architecture career involving, 14 cats, a dying woman, and a grow op. My views about design have definitely changed and expanded as a result of Natural and Human Systems. My human-centric thoughts that design is for people first has definitely changed with the realization that architects design for everyone and everything (including cats). I must say overall I really enjoyed the variety of people who lectured in our class. I found the blog to be extremely effective in getting students to explore all the innovative types of designs and technologies out already in development or practice.

Living, Breathing Architecture

What I love about this design is that it reads life and breath and looks like it was brought directly from nature. The expansive green roof is designed to mimic the function of low-lying ground cover vegetation. What particularly attracted me to this design is the way it takes on complete life, in it’s movement of form and the way it sort of looks like it could inhale and exhale, as if the structure as a whole was a living organism, not only the green roof. The idea of living, breathing structures is an element that I am considering with my final studio project. Creating an installation that incorporates movement of life into a space with its actual built form. Architecture does not have to be static, nor a place that solely houses life, it can become a part of the living realm as well.
http://www.calacademy.org/academy/building/

Green Walls Patrick Blanc

Our last class lecture on green roof's inspired me to search for other ways of integrating the natural world onto our buildings. It didn't take me long before I came across the work of Patrick Blanc. A botanist and designer, Patrick Blanc has created the most stunning vertical gardens I have ever seen. Inspired by plants that grew on surfaces such as rock and needing little soil, he used the same principles of these plants and applied them to our wall surfaces. His vertical gardens turn the city from an urban jungle to an actual jungle. This is another great example of learning from nature and how we can use observed ecological principles to better the overall quality of life aesthetically and environmentally. An aspect which makes vertical gardens more appealing to me than a green roof is that it isn't hidden up on top of a building. Gardens on walls allows for more direct and interactive design.

Class Reflection, November 27, 2008

The presentation on green roofs by Anna, (a professor from the landscape department) really helped clear my mind of some biases that may have altered some of my own thoughts on green roofs. I am intrigued to discover the cultural history and folklore behind the conception of green roofs, having always retained this idea that green roofs were quite modern and a only a recent response to a lack of green space in our urban centers. I especially loved Anna’s own landscape project entitled Five Courtyards, which demonstrated a kind of natural containment, where the vegetation kept within certain boundaries while maintaining it’s natural state and growth patterns. The challenge is in choosing the right species for the right space, and avoiding the possibility of placing restrictions on things that do change and grow. This surrendering to the natural environment and allowance to take it’s own pace is what I find so refreshing about environmental design.

Sink or Schwimm!

Both the last studio project, where my group built a water metropolis, and Eduard Epp's lecture last week have led me to consider alternative dwellings to cope with floods. The Schwimmhaus by Confused Direction is one possibility of after-flood architecture. This modern, sustainable houseboat is constructed from reclaimed wood and it has a green roof!
As Epp mentioned last class we need to consider new ways of living for the future, and a future with water seems likely. These houseboats help me envision exciting new inhabitations. Like in Amsterdam and Venice, perhaps most of the world's city streets will one day become water and people will reside along canals, sipping lattes on the patios of these cool little structures.