Can skyscraper contribute to sustainability?

According to the World Population Prospect 2015, published by the United Nations, 66% of the world population will live in urban space by 2050. To solve the problem of high urban density, sustainable strategy is quite necessary. Vertical development might be one way. However, some challenges may be caused by vertical development. For example, the height (or tall buildings) may cause isolation and bring much danger. Also, when the building reaches specific height, the vertical transportation inside can be inefficient.

In the design of NYBILLBOARD, a new horizontal layer is proposed to add to Manhattan. An elevated link, separated from traffic and noise is constructed to connect two towers. In the linked part, plenty of public functions, such as bicycle lanes and walkways are located, which positively introduce the public life into skyline of Manhattan.

Moreover, the NYBILLBOARD Tower may also achieve great success in sustainable aspects. The 14,000 sqm-area PV-Panels on top is said to produce approximately 7,200,000KW hrs per year, and the 60m gap between the main functions will be equipped with helical wind turbine technology. That is to say, the tower may have potential ability to regenerate around 13% of its energy needs.

However, this design has not been brought into practice so far. It somehow reminds me of the design of Shanghai Center Tower. The spiral tower creates a garden in its double façade every three floors for potential users to relax after work. However, after the construction, the gardens (or the ‘sky lobby’ called by designers) seems to be quite boring and without any plantation and public infrastructures. Furthermore, there is no connection between gardens. Users’ activities may be limited into specific space. To achieve real public experience in tall buildings is still challenging.

The proposed sky lobby

The constructed sky lobby in Shanghai Tower

In addition, 270 wind turbine generators are built on top of the Shanghai Center Tower. 1,189,000 KW hrs. energy is expected to produce annually. Nevertheless, according to a report published by Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, since the land area of the city is relatively small, it has no advantages in wind power generation on land. Recent years, the wind power generation in Shanghai is gradually moved from land to sea. In consequence, it is quite doubtful whether the tower could achieve its target in energy supply. To some extend, tall buildings may naturally be contrast with sustainability. In the construction of Shanghai Centre Tower, over 400 cement trucks kept working for 63 hours to deposit the concrete foundation and 1049 concrete columns.

Building skyscrapers with high performance and potential sustainability seems to be a reasonable strategy nowadays. However, a great deal of time and attempt is still required to explore the most proper way to realize sustainability in tall buildings.

Reference: 

http://www.gooood.hk/_d271536419.htm?

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/ch/6413-Is-the-Shanghai-Tower-the-world-s-first-eco-friendly-skyscraper-

Green Building(2)

Let’s talk about the vegetation itself. Boundary layer, for plants, serves to control evapotranspiration, which is about the losing of gas and water through the leaves.  In calm and mild conditions, the boundary layer is comfortably thick. However, in a hot and windy climate plants would modify their figures to adapt the harsh circumstance, including tiny hairs on their leaves that expand each leaf’s surface area and thus its boundary layer. So in these situation plants are not as graceful and tall as we draw in architecture design.

On the terrace and top of a skyscraper, extreme wind, heat and cold should be mixed to consider. Wind would be the most formidable force tress face at the elevation. Even if not blow down, their trunks are perhaps bowed away alone the prevailing winds. So they would spread in confusion not the decoration you wish to be. On the other hand, cold wind would take away the water in the leaf, and also prevent for the photosynthesis, which will harm the trees. The hot weather would also do the same effort as cold, but the surface of the leaf temperatures would be higher than the air because it receives the radiation directly. So at some certain weather, add 10 to 14 degrees C in to the plants.

As conclusion, trees would not perform well on building than they are in nature even we spend a lot on them. So if we want to gin up plants to make a building look sustainable, how about think of far better ways?

Green Building: Drawing Trees on Your Design? （1）

Park royal hotel on Pickering

‘Green Architecture’, to some extension, is becoming a new design style. Just like put some birds to make something look trendier, you plant numbers of verdant trees on your building, especially in your student age. Even for formal architecture competition or proposals, you would find dozens of trees. Yep, put a tree on it, looks better and sustainable. Combining landscape with architecture would be a good idea. However, does it really work for all building?

You would rarely find trees planted on skyscrapers, and even on some certain built projects, vegetation is not as tall as on the ground. It seems very hard to be flourishing.  Trees need well and intensive care indeed, which would cost plenty of time and money to maintain. Besides you should also provide irrigation system for the water supply. Covering with green may not mean green on economic somehow. And think about accommodation about those plants, their roots are the same sizes as they look on top, so how many spaces you leave for they to grow decide how luxuriant they could be. So if you want a green roof or a green terrace, except the thickness of the roof, you should add the thermal insulation, the support panel, water proof, filter membrane and growing soil, then your building is not a slim beauty, but a very fat and overstaffed one.

Your clients may tell you don’t care about money, just put the trees onto the surface of the building because they like it, and they also don’t want to be delicate. In this situation can we have a green sustainable TREE building?

Reference:“Le Cinq” Office Tower / Neutelings Riedijk Architects, Rendering by Visualisatie A2STUDIO