Green Living

Chelsea Chic Garden

Green Roofs & Living Walls:

GREEN ROOFS:

This design contains many different features, but two of the more prominant being the green roof and living walls.  In todays world, we are all looking for ways to create a more environmentally friendly atmosphere, and this method is an enormously underutilized resource in both urban and suburban areas.  There are many benefits to green roofs and living ways:

  • They have substantial and wide-ranging advantages over traditional roofs.
  • Green roofs can go on any structure.
  • Some benefit individual buildings, some only benefit larger neighbourhoods – domestic gardens to the commercial industrial applications.
  • Three main advantage areas: 1. amenity and aesthetic 2. Environmental 3. Economical. With many cross overs between categories.
  • PRIVATE BENEFITS: savings in energy costs, extension of the life of the roof, aesthetic improvements. These will promote the use of green roofs by giving financial / personal advantages to the individual building owner/developer.
  • PUBLIC BENEFITS: storm water management, urban climate mitigation, promotion of biodiversity and habitat. These will encourage a change in planning regulations by local/city authorities, supporting green roof construction for a better quality of life.
  • Help integrate a building into its surroundings (especially if rural).
  • In apartment blocks, allows space for: clothes drying barbecuing, eating and drinking, dog exercising and even fireworks.
  • In larger building: golf courses, playing fields.
  • In smaller areas, weight limits will only allow: sunbathing, containerised plants.
  • Positive selling point to developers.
  • If an appropriate method of construction is used, green roofs will last longer than conventional ones, with obvious cost benefits.
  • Green roofs can provide additional recreational areas in neighbourhoods with little ground level green space.
  • Control social problems with recreational areas – graffiti, vandalism, assault. This adds feelings of security.
  • They can be used for a purely aesthetic purpose.
  • Therapeutic effects of planting surrounding a person is considerable: stress reduction, lower blood pressure, relief of muscle tension, increased positive feelings.

VERTICAL GARDENS / LIVING WALLS:

  • It is difficult to find spaces for vegetation within an urban environment and growing plants vertically up the outside of towering buildings is an excellent way to enhance the surroundings and make good use of bare surface areas.
  • Living Walls allow urban environments that are searching for areas to vegetate, a greater chance of transforming the Carbon Dioxide produced by traffic and heating into Carbon Hydrates and Oxygen.
  • The growth of vegetation is determined by the search for light - Photosynthesis, living walls assists in adopting the form of Vertical Growth
  • Vertical gardens improve the grayness of concrete architecture, bring nature and colour into the city.