Following an international design competition for Singapore’s Marina South Gardens back in 2006, a team lead by UK-based Grant Associates was selected to design the masterplan. And now, with the massive construction of Singapore’s largest garden project is well underway.
Below are the conceptual sketch and the illustrative masterplan from the original competition followed by an illustrative section in the area of the SuperTrees. Some text from Grant Associates explains,
The masterplan takes its inspiration from the form of the orchid, and has an intelligent infrastructure that allows the cultivation of plants that would not otherwise grow in Singapore. The centrepiece of this infrastructure is the cluster of Cooled Conservatories along the edge of Marina Bay.
The dual theme of Marina South is ‘Plants and People’ and ‘Plants and Planet’. Each narrative encompasses the length of the gardens, with the Conservatories providing the focus and main educational message.
The Cool Dry and the Cool Moist Conservatories showcase Mediterranean, tropical montane and temperate annual plants and flowering species. They also provide a flexible, flower-themed venue for events and exhibitions.
The Supertrees…are an iconic landmark for the Gardens and Singapore. They are also the environmental engines for the Conservatories and Energy Centre, containing solar hot water and photovoltaic collectors, rainwater harvesting devices and venting ducts.
The photograph above, which was shot just recently on June 29th, shows the massive tree-like structures called the “SuperTrees” in the midst of construction. Although these concrete structures aren’t trees so much as they are massive vertical gardens built as large sculptural elements that will house hundreds of species and varieties of plants. There will be a total of 18 of these vertical super structures with heights ranging from 82 to 164 feet when construction is complete.
The scale of the concrete “trees” next to the human figures is what makes this image truly amazing and quite surreal. It’s hard to believe that this is an actual construction shot and not just another crazy illustrative rendering.
Besides providing the people with a massive botanical park and vegetated shade in the dense urban setting during the day, the grove is supposed to “come alive with lighting and projected media” for a nighttime display.
Luzinterruptus, a Spanish guerrilla-style art collective based in Madrid who’s work I adore, is at it again but this time they’ve set their aim at the vegetated and the vertical. Their humorous criticism here is two-fold. One, the lack of green in urban spaces and two, the vertical gardens that are becoming so popular in many countries that the group feels lacks a certain level of accessibility in addition to the cost. They’ve chosen to make their statement in a traditional Luzinterruptus way, an at-first beautiful installation with light using materials chosen to deliver a message, installed by black-clothed messengers at night.
In addition to their message about urban green space as well as the criticism on vertical walls, the installation made me think about the food that we see in grocery stores today. Food now is packaged, preserved and made to look beautiful as it sits on shelves year round, completely disconnected from seasons and geography. It looks good but it is essentially artificial in nature. Perhaps the discussion of packaged beauty reaches far and wide, beyond urban greenery. And while I’d argue that vertical greenery is beneficial in many ways, there is a bit of a fad that has developed where blankets of green are appearing in various shapes and configurations in some design drawings and even the occasional built project that seem to have lost touch with the real purpose and are reaching more into the category of adornment. Here’s what the artists have to say about their installation,
With the installation Packaged vertical garden, we wanted to promote the preservation of urban greenery, because if we continue to eradicate it from public spaces or reducing it to inaccessible vertical faces, the only form of contact with nature will be in supermarket refrigerators, packaged with expiry dates.
In general, it is more comfortable for city planners to build inhospitable cement spaces, where there is no need for special care, than to design green spaces where the citizens can spend their time and enjoy public places.
In addition, we have noticed the increasing proliferation of vertical gardens, which are interesting decoratively speaking, but expensive to maintain and with which the citizens cannot interact or put to real use, being a minimal attempt at providing greenery, but in an inaccessible and artificial way…
For this installation we used 110 transparent food packaging containers, inside which we put leaves and branches found in the trees in the area and lights of course. Afterwards, we placed them on a wall in an ugly square in the center of Madrid and there we left our form of fashionable vertical garden.
Previous posts on the work of Luz Interruptus have been written about their recent and first ever public participation project called Caged Memories, their installation for Madrid’s White Night festival, an installation titled “Green Light Grafts” and also their piece titled “A Cloud of Bags Visit the Prado” where 80 recycled and lit bags were brought to the steps of the Prado Museum in Madrid with the overarching message to recycle. Also check out more of their work on their website.
Tuesday February 16th 2010, 1:17 pm
Filed under: Living Wall
During a recent excursion to Seattle I made a stop in Tacoma, Washington to check out the living wall by Patrick Blanc on the new Goodwill-Milgard Work Opportunity Center, designed by BCRA Architects. The installation measures 20 x 40 feet and was completed in September of last year. Like a piece of art there is prime space on the new building dedicated to the vegitated piece and it sits perfectly in line with the walkway up to the front door as well as being visible from the busy nearby street.
The wall sits just a couple feet off the ground so anyone can easily walk right up to it, in fact the sidewalk even encourages it. The wall is still new and therefore the plants are small so the fabric that covers the wall can plainly be seen. The fabric has been completely covered by a slimy green algae that in some places has been taken over by moss, much in the same way a typical rock face might look in a nearby forest or on the edge of a waterfall. This allows the wall to completely mimic those natural conditions that plants native to those types vertical surfaces would be accustomed to, and to provide a natural-like situation for those plants that don’t typically grow up in the air. The nutrient rich water that seeps down through the system to keep the fabric thoroughly saturated and feed the plant material is dispersed through a drip line along the top and middle of the wall. The excess water then simply drips from the bottom onto the gravel below.
The ability to walk right up to the wall allows for an easy close examination of the system involved. Even though I am quite familiar with the construction technique used in this style of living wall, it still continues to amaze me how little plants require for survival in a vertical system and how thin each layer really is. The roots are stripped of their potting soil from the nursery and inserted bare into the pockets that have been slit into 1/2 inch thick fabric layer and stapled into place.
With 96 different varieties of plants running in bands across the wall, it’s no surprise that a couple of them aren’t yet loving their new home but overall, it’s looking pretty good both from a distance and up close. What will really be interesting is to see how the wall continues to take shape when spring rolls around and how it grows together over the years and works itself out among the difference species. While I was wandering around, taking pictures and examing the system, an employee came up to talk to me. He was excited that I was so interested in the wall and told me that they are very proud of it, like the way it looks and look forward to watching it grow in the years to come. It was cool to hear the thoughts from someone who looks at this wall on a daily basis.
While the most visible edge of the wall is completely wrapped in fabric, the edge tucked into the corner of the building is open, revealing the metal structure that attaches the wall to the side of the building. This is the most interesting part in being able to walk right up to a vegetated wall, the ability to take a peek behind the scenes.
The lightweight metal structure holds the vegetated wall out about 6 inches from the building face, making the living wall a completely independant system and keeping any roots or water away from the architecture. On top of the metal structure is a plastic sheet, a layer of fabric mesh and then the fabric which holds the plants. The system in it’s entirety is about less than 1 inch thick. Staples can even be seen poking through the back of the plastic sheet. You can bet that I’ll definitely make more stops in the future to document the progress of this wall.
