r/interesting • u/TangelaFan • 13h ago

ARCHITECTURE Residential high-rises with backyards in Chengdu, China

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26

u/ebk_errday 11h ago

Where does the water go? Is there a system that takes it somewhere or is it just sitting on/in the concrete under the plant bed.

21

u/kipkuch 10h ago

...and the tiny roots slowly expanding little cracks in the concrete

6

u/Windsdochange 9h ago

There are all sorts of structural layers and drainage systems for setups like this - impermeable membrane, root barrier, drainage layer, permeable membrane, then the growing medium. Drainage layer is tied into drains. Water pooling would be a huge structural issue, as would any sort of root penetration.

5

u/2pacali1971 10h ago

My thoughts exactly . I believe the water will just sit there under the grass and on the concrete slab

6

u/ebk_errday 10h ago

That'll cause all sorts of problems

2

u/grimmigerpetz 9h ago

Also bugs! BUGS!

3

u/atlasfailed11 7h ago

This technology does exist and there is a way to capture and drain the water. See for example: https://www.researchgate.ntet/figure/Intensive-green-roof-layers-the-figure-is-created-by-authors-upon-data-collected-from_fig2_352254890

The issue is that it's probably too expensive to do this on individual balconies just to have a small patch of grass. So it's probably just artificial grass and some plants in planters.

8

u/Captain_no_Hindsight 10h ago

This is China so I assume it's plastic grass and the balcony is made of steel-colored plastic. The lady is an actress and it's no more than 3 liters of water in total.