
Renderings vs. Reality: The Improbable Rise of Tree-Covered Skyscrapers - misnamed
http://99percentinvisible.org/article/renderings-vs-reality-rise-tree-covered-skyscrapers/
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rathish_g
V-Guard office in Kerala, India is a 12 storied green spectacle. Plants spill
out from every floor turning the structure into a vertical garden. Architect
formulated a building that would use natural light and ventilation. The south
and the west of the building would have more plants to block the sun. The
green-screen would be equipped with drip irrigation so that when the air
passes through, it would become cooler. Therefore, the office does not use
much artificial lighting or air conditioning. The façade of the building
becomes an interesting play of lines, planes and plants.

It is a model that works in a place such as Kerala, India where the
temperature does not cross 35 degree Celsius. With the plants that line the
balconies, direct sunlight does not fall on the building. Hence, 90 percent of
the building is not air-conditioned.

Look for images here
[https://www.google.co.in/search?q=v+guard+headquarters](https://www.google.co.in/search?q=v+guard+headquarters)

~~~
pluteoid
Those plantings use herbaceous plants, climbers, and well-behaved shrubs of
moderate size. Not trees.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
The article even mentions that other types of plant can be much more practical
than trees.

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ABS
"Perhaps there is a seasonal element, or the trees need time to grow and fill
the space"

Perhaps?!? of course, it would have been enough to look for recent photos
online to see it's already nearer to the original rendeering, e.g. from
wikipedia:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bosco_Ve...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bosco_Verticale_from_UniCredit_Tower,_Milan_%2817591709258%29.jpg)

~~~
Angostura
Interesting that in the original renderings a large proportion of the trees
look like broadleaf, deciduous varieties. The eventual species chosen look
largely coniferous. I wouldn't have though that would have been so good in
terms of biodiversity.

~~~
ABS
plants, trees and flowers were chosen and put together considering the effect
they have as seasons change.

Page 12 of this PDF has a list of them grouped by season with an idea of their
visual impact: www.porta-nuova.com/pdf/BOSCO.pdf

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galfarragem
Architect here.

That amount of green is mostly shown in early renderings made by unrealist
young architects or by CG artists. A rendering is just an ad, a way of selling
the project and having areas of greenery is highly regarded as positive by the
market. After the project is "won" that "details" are scaled down to meet
reality and budgets, this time by more experienced architects pressed by
investors and a ton of technical advisors.

 _Correction: The article 's image that is wrongly attributed to "Villa Bio by
Enric Ruiz-Geli" should be attributed instead to "Outrial house by KWK
Promes"._

[http://www.archilovers.com/projects/42124/outrial-
house.html](http://www.archilovers.com/projects/42124/outrial-house.html)

~~~
huuu
I heard from some architects that's the exact reason they stopped using
photorealistic 3D renders. A lot of customers started to complain that the
building looked totally different when finished.

~~~
pjc50
Well, yes, "item not as described": if you're going to show pictures, they
should be representative of the final result.

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jensen123
Some of these designs look amazing. One thing is for sure, trees make cities
much more pleasant wherever they are, whether along tree-lined streets, in
parks or I guess on skyscrapers.

Perhaps putting trees on the ground is more practical, but the conclusion to
this article makes no sense: "A treescraper approach suffers the same problem,
but magnified: it lifts trees out of shared public spaces entirely, putting
them up where they can be seen by many but enjoyed by few. Thus removed, they
become more like window dressing, green ornaments rather than social
activators." If you're seeing the trees, you're enjoying them. Trees are
"social activators"? Whaaaat? Is this yet another attempt by a journalist at
manufacturing some sort of outrage, in order to drive page views? Why turn
treescrapers into some social justice issue?

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Ygg2
I think they are saying only rich people can fully enjoy skyscraper trees
(i.e. they can lie on the ground). Pleb can just watch but never touch the
trees.

~~~
worldsayshi
Adding trees on the building doesn't take remove them from the ground. What
kind of argument is that?

~~~
restalis
It is probably about a mental association of decorative trees in the city-
dense areas with public space and the off-limits skyscraper tree space gets in
conflict with this association. Don't worry, in time they'll get used to it.

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mabbo
The root system of many tree species is as large or larger than the canopy of
leaves. Where are those roots supposed to be? Did you add an additional 20 get
below each floor for them to dig into?

Far more likely, the architect either didn't account for the invisible part of
the tree, or knows what will actually happen: these trees will live a decade
at most.

The trees on the 30th floor will never have a thick trunk, because they will
die and be replaced every 5 to 10 years with new saplings.

~~~
cmiller1
> The trees on the 30th floor will never have a thick trunk, because they will
> die

And won't it be lovely to see these trees falling thirty stories onto
unsuspecting pedestrians.

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huuu
A related article from 2013: [http://www.archdaily.com/346374/can-we-please-
stop-drawing-t...](http://www.archdaily.com/346374/can-we-please-stop-drawing-
trees-on-top-of-skyscrapers)

 _" There are plenty of scientific reasons why skyscrapers don’t—and probably
won’t—have trees, at least not to the heights which many architects propose.
Life sucks up there. For you, for me, for trees, and just about everything
else except peregrine falcons. It’s hot, cold, windy, the rain lashes at you,
and the snow and sleet pelt you at high velocity."_

Edit: it makes me wonder: what about grass. A lot of grass can live up to 2km.

~~~
lumpypua
The comments rip on that article fairly hard. The top comment is a pile of
pictures of trees in real skyscrapers. They look nice.

[http://www.archdaily.com/346374/can-we-please-stop-
drawing-t...](http://www.archdaily.com/346374/can-we-please-stop-drawing-
trees-on-top-of-skyscrapers#comment-1698484878)

~~~
WiseWeasel
Wow, not linked in the comments, but user Silvia mentioned the Austrian
architect Hundertwasser with an interesting photo, and more the architect's
work can be seen here:

[http://www.inspirationgreen.com/hundertwasser-
architecture.h...](http://www.inspirationgreen.com/hundertwasser-
architecture.html)

I would love to live in a city designed by him.

~~~
restalis
Yeah, it reminds me of American McGee's Alice urban scenery.

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venomsnake
The errors are in thinking trees. You should think ecosystems. But of course
ecosystems require soil, bacteria, worms, bushes, insects, animals that are
not cute, plants that are not majestic.

The idea of having cohabitation with other species in the high rise is noble
one.

~~~
true_religion
Do you think its realistic (honest question) to have 57,116.0 people per
square mile and also have a fully functioning ecosystem?

I think if we've decided to build a skyscraper network, we've already decided
against a normal ecology by default.

~~~
venomsnake
We could not have sustainable ecosystem with humans included.

But we could leave some space for greens and vegetation. What I meant is - if
you want a tree at floor X, you also need to have soil, worms, grass, bushes,
spiders, beetles around it.

Of course this is the icky stuff that people in the high rises don't want to
deal with too much.

But it is definitely doable with some nice mirror play, rain collectors,
windbreakers (for the higher floors) and leaving some floors empty to have
high rise gardens.

But you cannot just lift a tree with roots - you must put up soil and plant
stuff and wait. It could be nice places for socializing.

So we turn the trees from gimmick into something that creates value.

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jakozaur
Anyway, the trend to have include some green plants in buildings is very
positive to me. Not everything has to be made just from steel, concrete and
glass.

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Loic
The big problems with all these "full of trees" designs is that it cut the
light coming in the living space. When designing a house to live in, the
quality of light in the living space is really important.

~~~
true_religion
That upper floors get more light has always been touted as a benefit of
apartments however, on the actual ground people are happy within forested or
even brush covered suburbs where trees break up direct sunlight.

There may well be a market out there for people who live in short suburban
apartments now, but desire to have the same kind of treescape outside their
window but live in densely populated downtown.

~~~
aetherson
Lots of people in the suburbs want to remove trees near their houses to
increase the sunlight they get. It always struck me as crazy, but a close
friend was a city planner at (at various times) Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and
other cities, and she dealt with tree removal permits. It's a big thing.

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underwater
Whenever we see a rendering of a new building or city design they're always
shown from a high altitude. Maybe this makes the buildings more approachable.
They all look human sized.

But in reality people aren't 300 feet tall and we end up seeing at the
building from a low angle. In this case the trees, which look great from
above, are obscured by the balconies that hold them up.

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victorhooi
We have an apartment complex called Central Park, in Sydney CBD which seems to
have successfully grown plants on the side:

[http://www.finder.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/Broadway...](http://www.finder.com.au/wp-
content/uploads/2014/06/Broadway-looking-up.jpg)

[http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/one-central-
par...](http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/one-central-park-sydney-
green-wall_0_0.jpg)

[http://www.sbs.com.au/news/sites/sbs.com.au.news/files/style...](http://www.sbs.com.au/news/sites/sbs.com.au.news/files/styles/full/public/5_One%20Central%20Park%20East,%20Copyright%20Simon%20Wood%20Photography.jpg?itok=LwqlqVCd&mtime=1400573853)

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Those don't appear to be trees, but rather other kinds of plants that the
article mentions are much more practical than trees.

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jccalhoun
Greensburg Indiana is ahead of the curve:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decatur_County_Courthouse_%28I...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decatur_County_Courthouse_%28Indiana%29)

~~~
macintux
Led a group of Jeeps through Greensburg a few weeks ago. Suddenly over the
radio I heard exclamations of surprise; even within Indiana most people don't
know about that tree.

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MichaelBurge
There's a lot about skyscrapers. Are there any deep earthscrapers in dense
cities, where land is scarce? Probably not New York, since it's close to the
ocean.

I personally wouldn't mind living deep underground. It feels safer than living
high in the sky, even though it probably isn't due to fires or earthquakes.

~~~
Xophmeister
Don't underestimate the importance of natural light or fresh air.

~~~
MichaelBurge
Fresh air you can get with ventilation shafts.

Natural light is harder: If it's that important, you might need either mirrors
or expensive lighting that can replicate the necessary radiation.

~~~
m-i-l
Light tubes [0] (or sun pipes) are fairly established ways of transporting
natural light, although I suspect they would need modifications to feed
multiple destinations. An alternative would be to have the homes built around
a central light shaft, like the proposal for Alice City in Tokyo [1].

Another great advantage of living underground is the relatively stable
temperature (not too hot and not too cold) all year round.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube)

[1]
[http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=8150](http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=8150)

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ph0rque
Seems like a lot of these problems go away if you keep the trees small (i.e.
bonsai). Of course, you still have to have someone do maintenance.

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onetimePete
Imagine you could take a tree, put it into hibernation mode, split it into
planks, build a house from it and reanimate the house... Three years ago, this
would have been fantastic, but today it is impractical and tomorrow just
eccentric

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exabrial
Just curious... how do you trim/prune trees on the sides of skyscrapers? Seems
like a ton of building maintenance that probably uses a lot of diesel fuel...

