Can GREEN in architecture improve the climate in cities, reduce heat build-up, reduce fine dust formation and increase people’s well-being? The exhibition “Greening the City” of the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt (DAM) is dedicated to the advantages and challenges of urban greenery – especially greening houses and roofs in existing and new buildings. In addition to the scientific perspective, the exhibition also takes a look at the technical possibilities and practical issues.

[tcl-gallery id = “1”]

Things can’t get any greener. Or can they? The topic of Building Greening as a response to climate change (felt especially in cities) is more current than ever and has not become any less important during this pandemic – on the contrary. And yet, actually realized cases of green roofs or walls are slow to spring up, at least in this country. Or is there simply a lack of oversight? The DAM in Frankfurt has now made a virtue of necessity and has, in the run-up to its current exhibition “Simply Green – Greening the City”, invited Best Practice examples from near and far; a photograph and short explanation sufficed. The response of 120 entries before the opening of the exhibition was pleasing, so they say. Entries ranged from more traditional house walls with ivy and vines, to new urban farming examples with raised beds on the rooftop. There were submissions from both larger firms (Schneider-Schumacher, Sauerbruch-Hutton) and from tenant communities, who seem to be particularly active in this field.

Fresh wave of green innovation

The exhibition aims to encourage a fresh wave of green innovation, an ambition currently realized more by its handbook since the building’s closure due to Covid-19. The handbook appears to be practical, informative and argumentative. It approaches the topic with questions that are often posed by interested parties as well as readily by greening-sceptics: How beneficial to the environment is the greening of an individual building? What techniques of wall-based greening exist? Which plants are suitable? How does irrigation work in winter? What effect do green roofs have on the reduction of precipitation and noise levels? How can you calculate costs? Which permissions are needed?

In light of the positive conclusions about the values of building greening that one can come to after reading this handbook, the question remains: Why has so little of it been implemented in this country? A glance at the section of the handbook with real-life examples reveals how the majority really are located abroad: Singapore, the worldwide center for green buildings, is of course mentioned, as are Chinese metropolises as well as the almost historic prototypes by Stefano Boeri in Milan (Bosco verticale) and Edouard Francais in Paris (Flower Tower).

[tcl-gallery id = “2”]

Development is mostly focused on large cities

Further research unveiling examples from Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and the US only proves this point. The fact that development is mostly focused on large cities is no surprise, given the climatic effects within densely built-up areas. A hesitant yet apparent trend seems to be the combining of green buildings with new parks in their vicinity. This would presumably be desirable both climatically and socially.

It also becomes apparent how a small number of individual players, operating worldwide and making this topic their core brand, now set the tone: WOHA in Singapore, MVRDV from Rotterdam, Stefano Boeri in Milan, as well as Parisian firms Jean Novel, Vincent Callebaut and OXO Architectes. The German firm Ingenhoven Architects can also be added to this list. According to Nicole Pfoser, professor at the University of Nürtingen-Geislingen, the reasons for the comparably limited spread of this development in these parts are additional costs of producing and maintaining the greened facades, together with a lack of established inclusion in development plans.

A lack of showpieces to increase public confidence

A worldwide leader in this field, Singapore accelerates this development through a regulated Green Plot Ratio, a site coverage index for green spaces, which is specified in the development plans of the city state. Finally, Pfoser argues that there is a lack of showpieces to increase public confidence, especially with regard to public administrative buildings. In this regard too, it seems Germany is less cosmopolitan and innovative than it likes to think of itself as being.

Talk in context of the exhibition „Simply Green – Greening the City“ with Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ (WOHA, Singapore)

In any case, readers viewing the exhibition – or rather the handbook – will in future be able to better confront developers. And maybe architects will gain inspiration from those pages on which are shown the creative possibilities that building greening offers for the design of facades, as well as their immediate and wider surroundings.

//
Exhibition „Simply Green – Greening the City“. DAM, Frankfurt, 23.01. – 11.07.2021

The exhibition is still closed because of the current hygiene measures due to the Corona pandemic, nevertheless it is possible to get the handbook or to use the digital offers.

Handbook: Hilde Strobl, Peter Cachola Schmal, Rudi Scheuermann Hg./Ed.: ‘Einfach Grün. Greening the City’. Frankfurt, 2021, ~300 pages.

During the 2019 UK General Election, the Labour Party put the issue of tree planting at the top of its agenda. The media response showed how important it is to educate the public about tree planting.

During last year’s UK general election, the Labour Party manifesto committed the party to planting two billion trees over two decades if it were to be elected to government. Since they lost the election, we’ll never get to see this striking policy proposal unfold. Which is unfortunate, because forest restoration is currently one of the most promising methods for combatting climate change (indeed, it was recently confirmed in a study from Prof. Thomas Crowther at ETH Zurich as the “most effective solution to climate change available today”).

[tttgallery id=”817″]

One thing we did learn from this election is how much resistance there might be from the mainstream media to policy solutions which effectively grapple with the scale of the threat we face from the climate crisis.

Dubious Fact Checking

To give a flavour of what went down after Labour announced its tree-planting policy, the most common response across UK news outlets was to conduct highly misleading “Fact Checks”, breaking down how many trees would need to be planted every minute over the next twenty years to achieve that 2bn figure. For instance, an article by The Sun entitled “FACT CHECK Labour says it will plant 2 billion trees by 2040 – almost 200 a minute – but is this possible?” wrote that “Experts have raised eyebrows over Mr Corbyn’s wild promises, suggesting the Labour leader can’t see the wood for the trees.” Interestingly, the experts they’re referring actually amount to a single “forestry expert”, one Richard Schondelmeier, whose forestry expertise is dubious to say the least (this didn’t stop the Adam Smith Institute from giving him a platform to write a spurious fact check of his own, which lacked any independent verification).

A more important source of the backlash against Labour’s pledge came from BBC political correspondent Chris Mason, who wrote a tweet citing essentially the same figures as The Sun, albeit in the neutral-seeming tone characteristic of a BBC reporter. Yet while Mason indeed made no judgement on the policy’s feasibility, the heavy implication from his decidedly selective breakdown was that this was an unimaginably high number. This was certainly how his tweet was interpreted when it was picked up by other news outlets, including the Daily Express who opened an article on Mason’s tweet by describing the 2bn figure as “astonishing”.

False Equivalence

The negative affect of this tweet was also reinforced by Mason’s colleague Emily Maitlis, presenter of the BBC’s flagship news show Newsnight. Making a more general point about spurious policy pledges, Maitlis tweeted that “We may come to dub this ‘the Election of 2 billion trees and 50 thousand nurses’ – where numbers and accountability became meaningless. That’s a scary legacy.” As Guardian journalist Owen Jones pointed out in a response to the tweet, “We know that Labour’s mass tree planting policy can be done, because it’s been done in several countries” whereas, he continued, the Conservative Party’s nurses pledge is “objectively bogus” (since it involved retaining thousands of existing nurses).

All this bad faith fact checking seemed to rely on readers not giving much thought to the numbers, and perhaps vaguely assuming that they alone might be being expected to plant 200 trees a minute for 20 years. But as several people were quick to point out, the figure was also equivalent to each UK citizen planting two to three trees per year.

The Policy was eminently feasible

On that note, Friends of the Earth (FoE) wrote a useful blog during the election, in which they reminded people to look past the seemingly high figures Labour committed to, and accept that “the world of trees is dominated by huge numbers”. They also highlighted that the Labour proposal to essentially double UK tree cover from 13% to 26% (in line with FoE’s own recommendations) would still be relatively modest. As they say, “the current EU average woodland cover is 38%”.

This points to another common counter-argument, hinted at by Jones, which highlighted various countries that had achieved far greater tree planting feats in the past few years. Ethiopia, for instance, committed to planting 4bn trees in 2019 and managed to plant 350m seedlings in a single day, a remarkable feat which the BBC itself reported on.

What this media backlash illustrates is the essential importance of educating the public about tree planting, spelling out in clear terms what is possible, what needs to be done and where, and also why it is important. In this instance, mainstream journalists manifestly abandoned their stated role to inform the public, in favour of hammering a seemingly fanciful policy which was actually quite modest, either for narrow political ends, or merely out of wilful ignorance. Which all suggests grassroots climate protest movements should probably stop relying on mainstream channels and start educating people themselves.

Roof greening and plantings are an almost mandatory part of nowadays developments. For a good reason: Green roofs not only have an appearance, they also have an impact on the urban climate. Rainwater is collected and used by the plants, while the roof cools down in the urban heat island.
With the Planar House, Studio MK27 raised roof greening to the next level. Laying outside of São Paulo, the building isn’t struggling with heat islands and surface sealing, it’s a radical horizontal design, which try to hide in its grassy surroundings. Most remarkable feature is a vast 1,000-square-meter roof, barely identifiable as part of a building.

[tttgallery id=”461″ template=”content-slider”]

Roof as Façade

The lack of visible support beams and the large overhang seem to let the roof flying. From some perspectives of the surrounding hills, the building seems to disappear completely. The roof appears to be a rectangular grass area. Also, from the side view, the top panel is the defining element of the structure. “This type of insertion on the plot demanded care and attention with the design of the rooftop, which is the fifth facade of the building,” the architects said. On aerial photographs, only the terrace and the solar panels reveal the presence of a building.

[tttgallery id=”462″ template=”content-slider”]

Spacious Residence

As vast as the roof, so is the interior. A central corridor divides the house in two volumes, both oriented north-south. While the first contains a kitchen, a gym and service rooms, the other one houses five bedroom suites. A large living room is situated at a corner and can be completely opened by sliding glass doors, transforming the entire space into a terrace. The only curved element is a brick wall, which meander around the building and closes the property to the rear. Despite its building material, the wall seems permeable through voids between the bricks.