Urbanization Trends
Urbanization is a general and natural trend all around the world. It is inevitable that people migrate from rural area to the major city to seek better job or better living condition. People gathered in the urban area is also good for the development of economy and culture of the area. While more problems occurs with the urbanization trend, for example, over-crowding, excess carbon dioxide which put tremendous pressure to the local ecosystem. Well, this really matters our future.
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The current solution
Since the highly urbanized area keeping spread, the residence of human are forced to transform from flat to vertical.
For decades, scientists was keen on finding the connection between human and plant, some universities have done the research about how the plant can help people to enhance our living quality. And the answer is much more complex than you might think. Buildings that surrounding by plants from interior to exterior have lower noise than normal building, and lower carbon dioxide, plants even provide fresher air and higher productivity to people who lived in this kind of building.
E. O. Wilson introduced his Biophilia Hypothesis in 1984 which he points out that human preferences things towards nature. Human are happy to have green plant in and around living area.
Build a rooftop garden has become all the rage among metropolitan areas around the world. There are several benefits that install a garden in people’s rooftop, such as reducing carbon dioxide, saving the rainfall and redistribute it, etc.
However, is the rooftop garden really work? Or in other world, is it enough to help our city become more ‘green’?
New solution-The great green wall
There are massive blocks in urban areas which means tremendous room to plant the climbing or hanging plants.
One building normally has five surfaces, rooftop garden only takes one, but what would happen if we let the green plant grow on two out of four surfaces? The effects double. So let’s imagine the situation after transform the traditional glass facade to a green wall.
The first benefit of green wall comes to my mind is energy saving. The wall provide huge shade to helping the building cooling down in summer season, which will reduce electricity consumption inside the building. Several researchers have been conducted and there is one of the research result done by D.Holm. team which showing that in summer the leaf cover building has the cooler indoor temperature (19°C – 30°C) than the building without leaf cover (17°C – 34°C).
The green wall are build by human but the rest work are largely depend on nature, human play a role in the design to make a connection between the building and plant.
Green wall is also a natural sound barrier for human, one EU-funded SILENTVEG project shows us that green wall can absorb the noise by an average 15dB, the reduction is not that obvious comparing with other solutions, however, the green wall is the most sustainable and environmental-friendly one. The green method to cut noise is effective for human living space which not only reduce the noise level also improving living quality in terms of the Biophilia Hypothesis. Less energy is required here if we choose the green wall which allow the plant self-organized.
Green wall contribute to urban biodiversity by creating food sources and habitat. It also provide a instructive way to teach children learn about biodiversity. The picture below is a primary school in Sichuan, China, buildings are surrounded by Boston ivy which are planted in 1989.
Plant can help control global climate in several ways. Plant can effectively draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, moreover, plants also can help to reduce the surrounding temperature by release water to the air from their leaves, which the process is known as transpiration. Growing considerable plants in our city by build green wall will balance our city environment by absorb excess carbon dioxide.
More works to do….
Even green wall offers so much benefits while more research need to be conducted in terms of some issue that may happen in future.
The first concern I believe is the maintenance cost. What is the specific figure that needed to spent on maintenance every year? How to effectively reduce the maintenance cost?
Moreover, I think the selection of plant in specific site is also a major concern, the second ecological engineering principle is important here. We need a professional guidance of plant selection about green wall. Temperature play a major role in the life of plant, besides, different species have different preference about living conditions, for example, it is impossible to plant a tropical tree in Snag, Canada. I suggest researchers conduct a study to find out the best plant in different area.
After all the works mentioned above done, next job is create a complete criterion about the construction and maintenance. We can imagine that the green wall is not that easy to build if the building is over 200 meters. Moreover, if the plant falling down from 200 meters high, which will be life-threatening.
References:
https://www.ambius.com/blog/plants-and-people-the-biophilia-hypothesis/
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/vertical-gardening/5333486
http://www.mrroof.com/the-growing-popularity-of-rooftop-gardens
http://www.searo.who.int/entity/health_situation_trends/data/chi/unbanization-trends/en/
https://www.scotscape.net/living-wall-research-development/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114005073
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/037877888990025X?via%3Dihub
点击以访问 Green_walls_show_promise_as_sound_barriers_for_buildings_403na3_en.pdf
Applications for Ecological Principles 
Nice idea! good to see the comparison of the old method and the new solution. The consider of the maintenance is very necessary. what I think is that the cost may not only on the maintenance of the plants but also on the buildings. one more thing is that should we do some animals control, such as bugs, mosquitoes?
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This is an interesting topic. The blog make a comparison of old and new solutions, and put forward idea of The Green Wall. We live in and around city everyday, city environment can effect every citizens. This idea is similar as low carbon city, low pollution and better living environment are priority.
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It is so cool to do things like that. It is a creative idea to tree planting on the wall. The modern society needs more green lights rather than only with steel and cement. The plants on the wall will convert carbon dioxide to oxygen as well. Which is also a good thing for people living in the city.
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