Trees on buildings: a growing trend
The Artdog Image of Interest
Trees ON buildings? We’ve heard about trees around buildings, but something new has begun to take root in architectural circles.
A major theme in environmentally sustainable architecture is the incorporating plants into designs. And that doesn’t mean just any plants. It means carefully chosen shrubs, grasses, and yes, trees on buildings
Truly integrating them into the design requires some unusual logistics. But it creates such research-established advantages as mitigating urban heat islands, carbon sequestration, and psychological benefits. Especially for the people actually using the buildings, but also for their communities.
Some of these designers really are not messing around when it comes to putting trees on buildings — and doing it sustainably. This video offers a contemporary survey.
A Science-Fictional Echo of this Trend
Life fuels art, and that means it was perhaps inevitable that when architects started putting all sorts of plants from herbs to trees on buildings we’d see it echoed in art. In this case, science fiction. Or is it the other way around? Did the science fiction come first? From satellites to flip phones, it’s easy to find examples of that!
Whichever way it flows, in the small but burgeoning sub-genre of speculative fiction called Solarpunk, interesting parallels crop up. Urban landscapes include rivers and streams, solar and other sorts of sustainable power, and sustainably-sourced materials. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Solarpunk visions nearly always include plants in urban settings. Sometimes that means trees on buildings in fantasy landscapes, too.
My own forthcoming novel, What’s Bred in the Bone (to be released May 22, 2019) probably doesn’t count as Solarpunk per se, because it’s not set in our Solar system. But its setting, a habitat space station designed to be self-sustaining, and powered in part by light from the local system’s day-star, is almost a character in its own right. I’ve drawn heavily on recent developments in architecture, intensive gardening, and related areas.
Do they grow trees on buildings in the habitat wheels of Rana Station? I invite you to read my book and find out!
VIDEO CREDIT
Many thanks to The B1M on YouTube for this excellent video survey of tree- and plant-enhanced architecture. My subscribers may notice I posted this a day earlier than normal for an Image of Interest; I have a special series running next week for Library Week that starts on Sunday, so I rearranged the posting dates just a bit. (Oh, and . . . sorry for the pun in the post’s title. I couldn’t resist.)
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