Inside Urban Green

Pittsburgh » A Venerable Botanical Garden is Becoming the Greenest

Take a break and have a look at the digital age botanical treasure that Pittsburgh is building. It is a tribute to visionary leadership and looks simply fabulous. The newest green addition to the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden will be the Center for Sustainable Landscapes. I look forward to visiting it (on new knees) next year.

via www.youtube.com

One of the world's first living buildings is taking root on Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden's historic Oakland campus in Pittsburgh, PA. The Center for Sustainable Landscapes, slated to open in spring 2012, will produce all its own energy, and capture and treat all water on site, literally having as much impact on the environment as a flower. Learn more about this revolutionary project in "The Evolving Green Story of Phipps: A Living Building Takes Shape" and at www.PhippsCSL.org.

No Plants LEED Green Hotel

This CEO leads a tour of his LEED rated green hotel demonstrating solar panels, waterless urinals, low flush toilets, low flow faucets, low VOC materials …but no green plants in sight. 

How did we arrive at the situation where a green building may or may not have green plants? If it does have plants, they likely did not add any points to the LEED rating. 

What if there was a sub-irrigated grow box vegetable garden on the roof. You can't get any more local than fresh food on the roof. Would an edible roof garden add LEED credits to a building? 

In my view, this is an absurd situation and reflects once again on our weak horticultural education. Educators are still preaching arcane drench and drain watering methods that are hardly green. The practices they encourage are from the dark ages. 

There is little question however, that sub-irrigated plants are green. They can help clean the air and make buildings more livable while saving water. Dr. Bill Wolverton's NASA research demonstrated this.  

Sub-irrigated plants also require significantly less maintenance by reducing the number of plant care service visits. This reduces vehicle use and saves gas. 

It is a puzzle why the interior plantscaping industry is not publicizing the green business practices that many (but not all) of its members use. That would help immensely in convincing the Green Building Council to include points for plants in the LEED rating system. 

It is important to understand that green plants by themselves are not necessarily green. It depends on how they are maintained. 

How Green is this Building?

This is the new Solar 2 Green Energy, Arts and Education Center building by Solar One on the East River in Manhattan. It is a green building with  a lot of green growing on the facade as you can see. 

The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, part of the Holcim Group, selected it for its 2008 Gold Award North America. You can see project photos here and a PDF overview of the project here. 

The question is "Is there any green from plants inside this building?" There is none visible in the renderings. 

Green Grows Singapore

Inhabitat has this amazing green building story well covered. Check this out too. Singapore is where it's happening.

L.E.D. There be Light

J.R. Krauza

Will the green home of the future have L.E.D lighting sufficient to maintain decorative plants or even better to grow edible plants?

This article from The New York Times is encouraging. Incidentally I read this article in context of how misinformed the Times reporters can be regarding the maintenance and growing of container plants. That is a subject that I'm qualified to critique professionally.

However, I simply don't know enough about L.E.D. lighting technology to analyze this article in detail. If you do, please comment for the benefit of other readers. Here are some reader reviews of the article.

There is obviously significant money betting on an L.E.D. future. Will the living plants sector of the “green” movement be a significant player? Only time will tell, but the past is not a good precursor of the future.

Hopefully, projects like the “Smart Home” in Chicago, will soon demonstrate the use of L.E.D. plant lighting along with sub-irrigated planters. It will certainly make these homes a lot greener.

How Green is Your Future Home?

See the cut Calla Lily

If you think a green home includes living indoor plants, guess again. Watch both of these videos about the Smart Home exhibition at The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

You will see that there are no plants visible in this version of a "smart" home. There is, however, a vase with a cut Calla Lily. Is this supposed to be an example of a sustainable green plant?

Note that both the Museum president and Smart Home architect have a living plant close by them.

As previously posted, an in-ground garden is a part of the Smart Home. In what appears to be an afterthought, there are EarthBoxes on the entrance stairs to the museum.

UPDATE 2009: It is really a smart home now. There are now EarthBoxes on the upper deck of the Smart Home. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I  believe this would not have happened without The Growing Connection, a UN organization stepping forward.

This Smart Home could have been a wonderful demonstration of 21st century edible and decorative greenscaping using modern sub-irrigation methods. The technology is here now but poorly understood.

Incidentally, I also noted that “high-tech” clay pots and saucers from Botanicalls are included in the exhibit inside the museum. How green is that? Hardly!

We have a long way to go.

St. Gabriel's Passionist Parish in Toronto

St. Gabriel's Passionist Parish, originally uploaded by Scott Norsworthy.

Having been an interior plantscaper, I find this most impressive. The majority of vertical interior gardens I've found in North America (if not all) are in Canada. Note that this is a LEED rated green building.

Where is the leadership in the U.S. market for projects like this? I haven't found it.

Center for the Urban Environment Grand Opening

Click on photos for larger photos. View them as a slideshow.

Last Saturday was the grand opening of the new Center for the Urban Environment LEED rated green building here in Brooklyn. What a magnificent facility. It is everything a center of this type should be. It is at the leading edge environmentally and is a beautiful adaptive reuse of a neat old building. What more could you ask?

Green Plants in Green Buildings

Perhaps there is more to ask. Unknown to most about LEED rated green buildings is that 'green' does not include living plants. How odd. The interior plantscaping industry has attempted to get living plants included but so far has failed.

The Australians have done better with their green building ratings. Plants can be included if they are installed in permanent planters. The worry is that the most commonly used planters are movable, therefore not considered a permanent part of a green building.

In any case, top watered plants are hardly green. They can be a source of mold propagation and create a chronic problem with fungus gnats. Both problems are triggered by soil that is too moist, a common failing with drench and drain watering.

Sub-irrigation solves these problems and conserves water while doing it. There is no unnecessary water running out of a drain hole. The plants get a measured amount of water based on their needs related to the light level and other environmental factors.

Dr. Bill Wolverton, retired NASA scientist long ago recognized the difference between sub-irrigated and top watered plants. He clearly states this in his top rated book, How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office, but garden writers manage to ignore his scientific advice about watering methods.

In our sound bite media world, no one explains this vital fact regarding the plants that supposedly clean the air in your home or office. Unfortunately Wolverton's NASA research results have been morphed into junk or pseudo-science.

Wolverton’s patents underscore his findings. His fan-assisted Eco-planter is marketed in Japan. He knew better than to attempt penetrating the techno-averse garden market here in the U.S.

It was interesting that when I asked the tour guide at the CUE about the lack of personal plants in the office area, I was told that they were removed and hidden away. I found that most interesting.

What Community or Environmental Issues are you Interested in Learning About

It was a neat idea for the center to solicit feedback from visitors by including a posting board (see above). It was interesting to note those about personal food production and one about more recycling in schools.

The center had tomato plants for sale and a dozen of them came home with me. They are now planted in recycled pop bottle planters using sub-irrigation. They will eventually go into sub-irrigated grow boxes of the EarthBox type. There will be some tomatoes on the roof in my neighborhood this summer. They will appear red but be very 'green'. They will most definitely be environmentally friendly tomatoes.