abluegirl:

Living Wall

These vegetated surfaces don’t just look pretty. They have other benefits as well, including cooling city blocks, reducing loud noises, and improving a building’s energy efficiency.What’s more, a recent modeling study shows that green walls can potentially reduce large amounts of air pollution in what’s called a “street canyon,” or the corridor between tall buildings.

For the study, Thomas Pugh, a biogeochemist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, and his colleagues created a computer model of a green wall with generic vegetation in a Western European city. Then they recorded chemical reactions based on a variety of factors, such as wind speed and building placement.

The simulation revealed a clear pattern: A green wall in a street canyon trapped or absorbed large amounts of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter—both pollutants harmful to people, said Pugh. Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.Compared with reducing emissions from cars, little attention has been focused on how to trap or take up more of the pollutants, added Pugh, whose study was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

That’s why the green-wall study is “putting forward an alternative solution that might allow [governments] to improve air quality in these problem hot spots,” he said.

Full Gallery

(via mamisgarden)

malformalady: The 88-foot-tall tree, a single survivor among 70,000 trees in a forest along the coast in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, has been artificially restored in a project to preserve it. Japan marked the second anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that swept through northern Japan, damaging more than one million homes and killing almost 19,000 people.

malformalady:

The 88-foot-tall tree, a single survivor among 70,000 trees in a forest along the coast in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, has been artificially restored in a project to preserve it. Japan marked the second anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that swept through northern Japan, damaging more than one million homes and killing almost 19,000 people.

Entrance to Brion Cemetery by Carlo Scarpa The entryway represents the otherworldly architectural style of Carlo Scarpa, who used equally dramatic plant material to drape his concrete masterpiece (completed in 1978 before his accidental death). The Brion family founded Brionvega in 1945, an electronics manufacturing company. The cemetery is located at San Vito d’Altivole near Treviso, Italy. 

Entrance to Brion Cemetery by Carlo Scarpa

The entryway represents the otherworldly architectural style of Carlo Scarpa, who used equally dramatic plant material to drape his concrete masterpiece (completed in 1978 before his accidental death). The Brion family founded Brionvega in 1945, an electronics manufacturing company. The cemetery is located at San Vito d’Altivole near Treviso, Italy. 

bible-garden:

Historical Landmark Enhanced by Modern Technology: The Moses Bridge, Netherlands.

This sunken bridge was designed by RO & AD Architects to access a 17th Century fortress. The earthen fortress, surrounded by a moat, was created centuries ago as a defensive line against French and Spanish invaders. A series of villages were built on an inundation zone. The moats surrounding the fortress could be flooded with water from the West Brabant Water Line to make advancement by invaders difficult on foot because the water was too deep, or by boat because the water was too shallow.

The bridge provides visitors the sensation that they are parting the waters when they cross the bridge to gain access to the fortress.

Exodus 14:21 (NIV)
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

The Homebase Teenage Cancer Trust Garden

2012 Chelsea Gold Medal Winner:  Joe Swift

Large cedar structures, resembling vintage TV screens, are used to frame the garden rooms and create long views through a visually-connected space. The cedar framework not only provides a uniform structure to the garden, but it also creates shady areas of repose with its tall panels. Landscape materials include drought tolerant plants in a burgundy, green, and rusty-orange color scheme. The space is punctuated with copper water features to acknowledge the value of natural resources and sustainable landscapes. Plant materials were chosen for their texture and form, creating a visual feast of grasses, euphorbia, irises in a gravel base, woody herbs, and mounds of mock orange. Trees include Cornelian cherry dogwood, London plane tree, and Manchurian cherry. 

Photos:  Lisa Cox Designs

This Terrasse de Henri IV, so called, is one of the most splendid and best-known terraces in Europe, and is noted for its extent as well as for its marvelous point of view, the whole panorama Parisward being spread out before one as if on a map, a view which extends from the Chateau de Maisons on the left to the Aqueduct de Marly and the heights of Louveciennes on the right, including the Bois de Vesinet, Mont Valerian, Montmartre and the whole Parisian panorama as fas as the Coteaux de Montmorency.  Terrasse de Henri IV, Saint Germain, illustration by Blanche McManus. Royal Palaces and Parks of France by Francis Miltoun (1910).

This Terrasse de Henri IV, so called, is one of the most splendid and best-known terraces in Europe, and is noted for its extent as well as for its marvelous point of view, the whole panorama Parisward being spread out before one as if on a map, a view which extends from the Chateau de Maisons on the left to the Aqueduct de Marly and the heights of Louveciennes on the right, including the Bois de Vesinet, Mont Valerian, Montmartre and the whole Parisian panorama as fas as the Coteaux de Montmorency. 

Terrasse de Henri IV, Saint Germain, illustration by Blanche McManus. 
Royal Palaces and Parks of France by Francis Miltoun (1910).

Straight from the Stone Age: A Casa do Penedo (House of Stone), was built in the Fafe Mountain region of northern Portugal in 1974 as a family retreat. The two-story house is built between four boulders, and includes a fireplace and built-in swimming pool carved from the stone. There is no electricity in the house, and a wooden ladder acts as a staircase between the connecting floors. 

Beautifully integrated into the mountains, the house sits harmoniously in its surrounding environment, with only wind turbines scattered across the mountain that provide evidence of other civilization.  
Photos: Feliciano Guimarães  
A short-film can be found here, which was made in the summer of 2012.