Botanical Buildings

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-8Green oasis

- 92 Green circle

DA NANG, VN

ALUVA, KERALA, IN

- 18 Soul garden

- 102 Green medicine

HYDERABAD, IN

- 30 Green heart NICOSIA, CYPRUS GR

- 36 Perfect pavilion COTIA, BR

- 48 Food for thought SÃO PAOLO, BR

- 56 Outside in MEXICO CITY, ME

- 66 Paradise dreams AMSTERDAM, NL

- 74 Upside down SÃO PAOLO, BR

- 86 Green façade HO CHI MINH CITY, VN

LEEDS, UK

- 110 Rainforest appeal PARIS, FR

- 116 Dream-like paddy fields SINGAPORE, SG

- 124 Plants in store SÃO PAOLO, BR

- 132 Indoor-amazone SEATTLE, USA

- 140 Green waterfalls

- 164 Inside outside KARNATAKA, IN

- 174 Winter garden OSLO, NO

- 182 Gardener’s home SAN ISIDRO, AR

- 194 Cloud forest MILAAN, IT

- 200 T house HO CHI MINH CITY, VN

- 210 A manifesto for a natural balance

- 222 Yellow pages

SINGAPORE, SG

- 150 Future farming UNFINISHED PROJECT

- 158 Green canvas AMSTERDAM, NL

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PREFACE

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It’s impossible to imagine the world we live and work in without nature and a nature-inclusive lifestyle. That thought, and my daily work as a plant architect, led me to write a book about plants and architecture. It’s the book with the working title When plants meet buildings that presented itself as the sequel to Wonderplants 1 and 2 and Ultimate Wonderplants. What does a world in which plants and architecture come together look like?

For Botanical Buildings: plants + architecture, I collected inspiring projects. I found buildings and homes where greenery and nature had formed the starting point for the design and the architect had given our living environment a new appearance. Each of the cases does that in its own unique way, working with the elements and a clear structure for nature to grow in.

Some projects are small, taking an existing building as the basis; others are bigger and new and based on a nature-inclusive and sustainable idea.

To shape the book and find the words, I spoke with inspiring architects and landscape architects from all over the world, every one of whom feels the necessity of having a clear vision on designing sustainably and biophilically and applying that to the way they look, design and build. I admire them. They see the importance of nature and use their knowledge, their origins and their cultural backgrounds in a beautiful way to move with nature and design places where we can live and work in a healthy manner. They are at the forefront of a new generation of designers and builders who are giving new direction to the Anthropocene in which we are central, not as humans but as part of nature.

'If we give plants and nature the space, they can grow as they have always grown. In doing so, we will be able to live in a meaningful balance in the future, in a healthy world.'

Judith

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GREEN OASIS + shaded + cooling + noise-reducing + restful + decorative

DA NANG, VN

Where trees grow in a loose, open structure and the long branches of Epipremnum aureum (golden pothos) and Quisqualis indica (Rangoon creeper) sway like curtains in the wind.

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PERFECT PAVILION

+ climate-controlling, cooling + insect-loving + noise-reducing + restful + focus + decorative

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COTIA, BR

The residents of this house had something completely different in mind when they asked the architects to design their new home outside the city. Their dream was a wooden cabin surrounded by nature, so that they could live a simple life, close to the elements. But it was precisely those elements, such as the fierce sun and the high humidity, that turned out to be too much of a challenge for wood; using this material would have made the project very expensive. Having considered several designs, they finally opted for a pavilion constructed entirely of corrugated sheets, metal and concrete blocks, with an open connection to the nature round it.

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SAÕ PAULO, BR

In a building with no fixed place for greenery, a structure can be made in which to grow plants.

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GREEN FAÇADE HO CHI MINH CITY, VN

+ + + +

restful noise-reducing cooling decorative

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The front of this Vietnamese townhouse features a grid of white containers arranged in a graphic pattern and intersected by a balcony lined with potted plants. Thanks to natural sunlight and a simple irrigation system, the vegetation here is able to grow into a thick, green screen, forming a natural green façade on the west side of the house.

You don't have to search far for nature if you live here: one look outside from this Vietnamese townhouse is enough.

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HO CHI MINH CITY, VN

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If you love nature, trees and animals, it can be a challenge to live in a place with very little greenery such as Ho Chi Minh City, where concrete houses and corrugated metal roofs spread as far as the eye can see. Even more so if your roots are originally in the Vietnamese countryside. And yet the residents of this house, who work in the art world, chose to stay in this urban environment, turning to architect Tran Ngov Thach for help. Their brief had three important requirements: the new house would be a place for rest; it would foster good and pleasant contact with the neighbourhood; and it would allow for more contact between human and nature.

Wherever people are in this house, they can see each other. Walls have been replaced with glass partitions as much as possible, giving this building an open character and making it feel like the house its inhabitants grew up in, a rural home consisting of one large space that is open from front to back and where everyone can live in harmony together. Yet at the same time, the view to the street is restricted; from the outside, the house is much less transparent and open.

Plants including Dracaena reflexa, Rhapis excelsa (bamboo palm), Dracaena marginata (dragon tree), Aglaonema commutatum (Chinese evergreen), Heliconia psittacorum (parrot heliconia), Sansevieria laurentii or Dracaena trifasciata (variegated snake plant or mother-in-law's tongue), Asparagus plumosis (asparagus fern), Asparagus falcatus (sicklethorn) and Pelargonium graveolens (sweet scented geranium) stand side by side here in a series of containers of three different heights. They create a natural screen that protects the house against the fierce midday sun and adds privacy. That makes it cooler indoors, provides peace and lets you move about freely.

The green exterior softens the surroundings, allowing people in the neighbourhood also to feel more in touch with nature. When room is left in the structure for nature, it can give something back to us – it's a beautiful and simple way of making cities greener and utilising the natural, cooling and air-purifying characteristics of plants.

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INDOORAMAZONE

+ + + + + +

air-purifying CO2-processing noise-reducing restful climate-controlling decorative

SEATTLE, USA

Is an office where plants outnumber colleagues your dream working environment? This employee lounge and workspace, part of the Amazon headquarter campus in Seattle, was designed as a space in which people can both focus and relax. The green and healthy environment helps employees find inspiration and recharge their batteries, something that it is sometimes difficult to do in your average grey tower-block office.

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SEATTLE, USA

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WHEN MEET

PLANTS BUILDINGS:

In a world in which we are realising more and more how important nature is to us, and just how simple, accessible and valuable it is to allow it to thrive, the question is no longer whether or how to build in a more nature-inclusive way, but how often. It’s clear now that we have to change the way we live and work because of our lifestyle’s negative effects on the climate; the extinction of species of plants and animals will ultimately lead to the threat of extinction for humanity.

So we have to invest in biophilia and take into consideration the mental and physical health in which humans and nature merge. We can help our broken nature to recover and thrive with our activities, rather than sabotaging it. And there are inspirations and new ideas everywhere. We can find solutions in nature, perfectly engineered, if we only care to see them.

A MANIFESTO FOR A NATURAL BALANCE

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The Anthropocene: the age in which Earth’s climate and atmosphere are affected by human activity, is taking a new turn.

Our need for greenery and nature, in our search to escape the stress and the many stimuli of our world, started to become more obvious a number of years ago.

We took to nature, looking for balance. We visited forests

In order to surround ourselves permanently with

and ancient landscapes to find ourselves and feel better.

nature, and due to the need we feel to help nature so

Feeling grounded did us good. Once we got used to the

it can help us, we are increasingly integrating natural

greenery and tranquillity, we tried to recapture the

elements in the design of buildings, both inside and out -

sensation of that greenness closer to home too. Nature

no longer thinking in terms of nature versus concrete

was allowed to literally come indoors because it felt good.

jungle, but more of nature as an urban jungle. We’re

Nowadays, we are still seeking out nature, certainly in

making space for nature in a newly designed ecosystem

times of pandemic, and surrounding ourselves with even

in which humans collaborate with nature. Scientists are

more greenery in the city, at home and at work (also at

researching, testing and developing new ways for humans

home). We’ve noticed that it has made us happier and

to thrive without damaging the environment. Designers,

healthier. At a time when house plants are being given a

architects, fashion designers and artists identify and

new place in our lives – partly because we are spending

follow these, engaging in crossovers with science and

more time in the home – vegetation is becoming an

creating new forms and styles with new materials and

essential component in interior design and architecture.

techniques. In cities, that means that we fully embrace

And now a new building philosophy, biophilic design,

nature and let it in, in a new and creative manner.

has emerged.

Nature and architecture join forces in an inspiring way in the form of stimulating new buildings and interiors

The way we build is constantly evolving. Human

constructed with new materials or new designs, such as

beings are always looking for a way to protect themselves,

circular ones. And with the same questions every time:

feel at ease and make room for personal development

why has it been designed and created, for whom and

and self-reflection. The way we regard a space and the

what is the next step? We are working towards permanent

layout of the world is a dynamic and changeable process

structures, in both interiors and exteriors, that offer

that is subject to the time in which we are living and the

space to plants and nature rather than adding them as

challenges we have to face. As architect Rafael Iglesia

an afterthought. That might consist of small gestures

so beautifully put it: ‘Architecture is a verb.’ These days,

such as a structure being made with room for plants, or

we are moving ever closer towards our primitive place:

it might be a starting premise for the construction. From

nature. We’re not quite there yet, but we have made it

small to great, from simple to complex.

through the pioneering phase and greenery has been given a lasting place.

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