The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

A friend just asked me if older buildings that have been cnverted to apartmemnts etc have strong reinforced roofs that can support the weight of a green space being created upon it or would their be the need for lots of strengthing to be able to create this city center wilderness? So here is my answer! [...]

I publish a message that my friend Gersh sent me: “Hey, I wish I had more to add to this discussion but all I can say is that there are two Parks victoria offices with roof top gardens. They’ve made both of these to have the soil from the roof meeting up with the ground [...]

The recent building boom in the Middle East has given rise to some of the world’s most extravagant and innovative buildings. The latest proposed tower to sprout up among the ever-changing skyline is the Burj Al-Taqa Energy Tower for the Middle East. Designed by Eckhard Gerber and cutting a 322 meter high silhouette, this commercial [...]

Environmental Design & Construction magazine reports that University System of Maryland’s newest building, which earned Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), has come in under budget. The magazine reports that he project team has achieved ninety-three percent of the proposed sustainable design and engineering initiatives without exceeding the project’s $45 million construction [...]

Revolutionary Australian natural lighting technology with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has attracted more than $1.23 million in Federal Government funding to support its commercialisation. The culmination of 16 years of research by applied physicists and daylighting experts at the University of Technology, Sydney, the Fluorosolar technology can “pipe” heat-free daylight anywhere in [...]

Funnelling daylight deep inside offices, factories and even homes is a challenge; dark corners are often too far away from the outside world for sunlight to penetrate. Now two resourceful groups in Brisbane and Sydney have devised ingenious methods for piping sunlight almost anywhere in a building, replacing the need for electrical lighting. These revolutionary [...]

The American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) green roof retained thousands of gallons of stormwater, reduced building energy costs by hundreds of dollars a month, and significantly lowered outdoor air temperature according to a report today from the association. The report examined various components of ASLA’s green roof demonstration project, ranging from water and temperature [...]

Montreal’s Gazette reports that from July to September, a city rooftop garden trialling an experimental ‘Biotop’ system has produced more than 113 kilograms of fresh fruit and vegetables – armloads of fragrant basil, cherry and field tomatoes, cantaloupes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, zucchini, swiss chard and spinach. “This is only an experiment, but imagine [...]

Green roofs and walls can cool local temperatures by between 3.6°C and 11.3°C, depending on the city, according to a new study. Here is the article from The New Scientist: Covering city buildings in vegetation – creating “green roofs” and walls – could substantially save energy by reducing the need for air conditioning on hot [...]

Thermal-power plants that store heat for cloudy days could solve some of the problems with solar power. Solar proponents love to boast that just a few hundred square kilometers’ worth of photovoltaic solar panels installed in Southwestern deserts could power the United States. Their schemes come with a caveat, of course: without backup power plants [...]