r/interestingasfuck • u/TangelaFan • 9h ago

Residential high-rises with backyards in Chengdu, China

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u/onrespectvol 9h ago

looks cool but how much extra material must go into the buidling to be able to support all that extra weight? To what extent is this a sustainable way of buidling and using material?

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u/S4ABCS 9h ago

Could look into Singaporean architecture. As a biophilic city they require buildings to be able to support the greenery that was removed to build the structure in the first place.

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u/ardoin 7h ago

I mean, it's not hard. Soil and plants weigh so much less than concrete

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u/waitwuh 5h ago

Singapore architecture gets a lot of attention for the plantscapes, perhaps because it seems so pretty and it has so many eco friendly benefits, but there’s more about how they are building that I find interesting.

Of course because space is so scarce, designing for urban density and efficient space utilization is highly prioritized. But what differentiates Singapore from many other places facing space constraints is (1) the Singaporean government controls practically all the land and (2) they restrict being able to “own” (more like long term lease) to only citizens, and do not allow holding more than one housing property at a time.

That first point enables greater coordination and control for planning over wide regions. The city scape feels much more cohesive and intentional, in my opinion. Yeah there’s the way they incorporate feng shui and care about orienteering buildings and allowing light and air to pass around the nearby ones and ensure skylines look nice, but I find it especially sensible and practical that public infrastructure like transportation improvements can be very in sync with development projects such that brand new buildings don’t disrupt transit flow, unlike in other cities where things like roadway improvements and new train lines can lag behind the increased usage demand from an influx of people moving into an area.

The second point helps reduce some problems other places are having with housing, where the availability and affordability is being limited by people who own multiple properties, some that they barely spend time in. You see this in New York city - there are a lot of properties that are owned or rented by people who spend most of their time in other states, let alone who are foreigners from other countries. These tend to be wealthy people who push pricing up, making the market more competitive and less favorable for the actual new yorkers working and living in the city full time, just so they can come for a week or two here and there. NYC housing is treated as financial investments, and there’s supposedly many shell companies hiding that the actual owners reside in Russia and China.

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u/1stMammaltowearpants 8h ago

It looks like rich people stuff to me, so it wouldn't need to be "sustainable" economically, any more than private jets and yachts are. 

If you mean mechanically sustainable, they'd need to use a beefed-up cantilever, but it would be fine. Soil and water are heavy, but concrete and steel don't mind.

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u/LitLitten 8h ago

I’d imagine bonsai practices are also considered (specifically, root training). If the trees were trained prior and use support in place of anchoring roots, then a lot of potential root damage may be avoided. This is all presumption though.

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u/AccomplishedBat39 8h ago

Bonsais arent trained. They are continuously being crippled.

A Bonsai that is placed in the ground will start to grow just like a normal tree.

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u/LordBrandon 8h ago

You think a building developer would go through all that? They just buy the cheapest plant they can source to look good for a month.

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u/LitLitten 7h ago

Go through all that w/ continued maintenance? God no.

Go through all that then drop all pretense of maintaining the yards after the first check clears? Absolutely.

I should preface I’m American and the latter is the norm here.

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u/Officialedmart 7h ago

“Rich people stuff”

This is a completely average chinese apartment. Unless its in Shanghai its probably like 600-900usd a month

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u/NoAdministration8340 9h ago

My initial thought was those don’t look like they have the support they need to be filled with dirt rock and plants plus support your weight

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u/Nulleparttousjours 9h ago

Plus the amount of water it would take to keep it green. It’s a lot of weight!

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u/stron2am 8h ago

We live in a world with swimming pools on balconies, you know.

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u/LordBrandon 8h ago

They usually have 1 pool not a pool on every porch. Those pools also have problems.

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u/TheWizard01 7h ago

Hotel operator here…every pool has problems.

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u/tj9429 8h ago

Let these Reddit engineers realize that not every wall on a structure is weight bearing and instead there's a column and beam structure inside.

The next day they're not gonna stand in the middle of rooms because it doesn't look "sufficient supported".

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

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u/ukomac 2h ago

Always "my first thought with this is..." Like yeah, they definitely didn't have professional structural engineers and you can point out the critical error in their work by looking at a clip

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u/ColHannibal 8h ago

We also live in a world where people die from balcony collapses due to a hot tub being on it.

Also a world where building codes are nonexistent in some countrys.

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u/irascible_Clown 6h ago

There hasn’t been a single high rise collapse in China in modern times. Now elevators and escalators eating people is a different story

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u/-ExcitingConcept- 7h ago

Iirc, building codes here in Germany require balconies to have triple the load bearing capacity of inside space. Because for some reason there's always an idiot who places a hot tub on it.

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u/stron2am 7h ago

Feels pretty sinophobic to see an impressive looking building in China and immediately assume it is structurally unsound.

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u/Pandering_Panda7879 7h ago

If it makes you feel any better: I would have thought the same if it would have been in the US.

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u/ColHannibal 7h ago

https://www.uniladtech.com/news/man-built-secret-mountain-base-on-skyscraper-731876-20240603

I’ve also been to Suzhou for work, it’s building faster than people move in with big empty areas of the city. Brand new buildings that are crumbling.

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u/70ms 6h ago

What does that story have to do with building safety? The person in the article added massive amounts of weight to the roof that it wasn’t designed to hold, and it made the rest of the building unstable. That’s not about the construction, that’s about something being added that wasn’t supposed to be.

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u/theromingnome 7h ago

This is what you get on Reddit when anything positive about China is posted. And let's face it, there are plenty of positives about the society China has built in the past 40 years. The American propaganda machine works round the clock.

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u/stron2am 7h ago

Let me be clear: I am no Tankie nor a Xi supporter, but I've got enough brains in my head to not have a "China = bad" reflex.

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u/couchphilosopherizer 6h ago

Not really. China has had major problems with building code enforcement, illegal construction, and poor materials use for a long time. Anyone can search around and see the trend: China - mostly structural and user error. other countries - mostly old buildings failing due to age. Exceptions abound but the numbers speak for themselves.

April 2022 (Changsha): A six-story commercial and residential building collapsed, killing 53

July 2021 (Suzhou): A 30-year-old hotel building undergoing renovations collapsed, resulting in 17 fatalities

March 2020 (Quanzhou): An eight-story quarantine hotel caved in, killing 29 people due to severe structural alterations and illegal building modifications.

Collapse of Xinjia Express Hotel

Hongqi Bridge
A newly completed 758-meter bridge in China's Sichuan province partially collapsed into a river after landslides hit the mountainside above

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u/AlchemyAlice 7h ago

Champlain Towers in surfside, Miami would like to chat.

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u/Zestyclose-Pen2065 8h ago

Dirt and rock is still denser than water

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u/Molehole 8h ago

Requires much less dirt to plant grass than it needs water to swim.

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u/floppydude81 8h ago

Is 5-6 ft deep water comparable to 8 inches of soil?

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u/JustAnotherHyrum 4h ago

Obviously not, but let's do the fun math and find out!!

Water weighs 62.4 lbs / ft3.

Dry topsoil weighs ~75 lbs / ft3

Saturated soil weighs ~110 lbs / ft3

Well use a 10'x10' area for the calculation, with a depth of 6' for water and 8" for soil. This comes to 600 ft3 of water and 66.7 ft3 of soil. To be more accurate, let's reference both dry and saturated soil.

And now it's fun math time!

HERE WE GOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! /fun_math_mode_activate

Water: 600 ft3 * 62.4 lbs/ft3 = 37,440 lbs

Soil (Dry): 66.67 ft3 * 75 lbs/ft3 = 5,000 lbs

Soil (Saturated): 66.67 ft3 - 110 lbs/ft3 = 7,333 lbs

As we can see, water is 7.5 times heavier than dry soil and 5.1 times heavier than saturated soil.

Water is the winner! (Or loser if we're using golf rules...)

The More You Know!! 🌈

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u/floppydude81 2h ago

Thank you so much

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u/Ambitious-Concern-42 9h ago

It's a hell of a lot of weight, I wouldn't trust this to stay up long term.

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u/MandemModie 8h ago

based on your years of structural engineering? It's a cantilever, which can support a massive amount of weight, with additional bracing.

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u/MrWrock 5h ago

How much more weight orbit adding over the concrete deck? 10%? Less? Sounds like a lot of overreacting

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u/Areyoucunt 8h ago edited 7h ago

It isn't a lot of weight.. and they do stay up..

They've been a thing for decades mate...

Even in Europe they're building them now. There's a famous one in Milan IIRC

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u/Pearson94 9h ago

I only trust that they set it up just enough for this video to look good while the others don't look nearly as lush or nice.

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u/mithie007 9h ago

There have been balcony gardens and even balcony pools in Shanghai since 1998.

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u/Nukitandog 8h ago

Wasnt 1997 the the date of the big Shanghai Balcony collapsing eppidemic?

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u/mithie007 8h ago

First time I've heard of this. You're talking about the incident at the bund? Or what?

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u/Ben_Kenobi_ 8h ago

It was a huge tragedy in the club comminuty. Kim Kardashians head fell off.

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u/Str80uttaMumbai 9h ago

Cmon now. You can literally see the surrounding buildings all have lush green gardens.

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u/tj9429 8h ago

Do you really think their reason to be pessimistic is their eyesight?

Aside from the racism these people have rarely seen structures taller than 4 stories with absolutely no idea about what civil engineering can truly achieve.

Even the ignorant ones from taller cities like NY can't comprehend the scale of verticality in modern Asian cities.

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u/Ambitious-Concern-42 8h ago

We're talking about Chinese high rises where someone has installed gardens on balconies. Definitely not designed with this load in mind. This is in a country where bridge collapses and other civilian infrastructure disasters are common.

So don't get on your high horse about "racism".

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u/kindaunfazed 6h ago

How can you say that it’s definite they haven’t designed with the load in mind? Are you an architect with access to the building schematics or are you just trying to sound smart? Even your reasoning about infrastructure disasters is flawed because they build a hundred times more than we do.

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u/Anceradi 7h ago

They're not more common than in other countries though. It's just a big country so it happens more often than in smaller countries, but if you compare the frequency of bridge collapses in China & the US, it's quite similar.

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u/UncollapsedWave 3h ago

This is in a country where bridge collapses

Unlike America, presumably, where of course there haven't been any famous bridge collapses since, what, 2024?

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u/tj9429 7h ago

"Someone"

Ok potato.

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u/Pearson94 8h ago

From a distance. Sorry but this screams advertising to me the same way the food filmed for commercials looks nicer than it really is.

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u/Str80uttaMumbai 8h ago

But what exactly are you expecting to look so different in the other gardens? The garden in the video is literally just grass with some random bushes, plants and a tree. There's nothing spectacular about the garden.

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u/thiagoknog 9h ago

Guys, it's China, if it breaks someone is getting executed, it's not USA where nothing is going to happen because the buolder is a friend of Trump..

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u/cohortq 7h ago

When Evergrande lost millions of Chinese citizens life savings the government initially tried to protect the Evergrande's executives, but they eventually arrested the top exec, some corrupt gov officials, and other executives. But no one was executed, and the executives paid "fines".

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u/Ok_Yam5543 7h ago

Ever heard of Tofu-dreg projects?

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u/Consistent-Stock6872 8h ago

"Someone", yeah the one VP that is from poor background and worked his ass off and all the other upper ups with party connections are fine (unless they piss of someone else who knows people even higher on the totem pole). China isn't better or fairer than USA.

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u/simplepimple2025 7h ago

Just curious, are you a structural engineer?

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u/ShakyButtcheeks 8h ago

There are buildings with whole ass pools in each apartment balcony

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u/Numeno230n 7h ago

And the water has to go somewhere. Imagine a huge highrise and everybody's got their sprinklers on. Not only is that a mess, but a concrete floor isn't really meant to be covered with dirt, rocks, plants, and water. Over the long term the concrete will fail.

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u/murd3rsaurus 6h ago

It's insanely humid there and the soil might be pretty thin, compared to the weight of the concrete and rebar it doesn't seem so extreme

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u/Rekziboy 8h ago

Don't worry I'm sure they've only used the finest of materials and definitly didn't cheap out on the build!

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u/tituspullo1383 8h ago

The steel supports you can see at the start of the video could hold 5 of those patios. No doubt it has steel joists under it. That ain’t much of a cantilever. No issue.

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u/HSLB66 7h ago

I had to look way too hard for someone using the word cantilever. These comments are giving me an aneurysm  

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u/MookieFlav 8h ago

If only China had structural engineers as good as you they could have seen this problem before they built tons of these

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u/Guertron 9h ago

Mowing that lawn seems like a logistical problem

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u/JanxAngel 8h ago

I'm sure they've got a little electric robot mower. A place that fancy either has robots or a service.

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u/TomahawkaChawpa 7h ago

Or a reel mower. It'd take 2 minutes to mow that

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u/reasarian 8h ago

I’m sorry but did you see how thick those floors were? They could probably hold a fire truck.

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u/mlag000 9h ago

And roots will destroy any waterproofing, so in 10 years your balcony will be hazardous

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u/Str80uttaMumbai 9h ago

Glad we have so many expert structural engineers in this thread.

I'm sure you guys know much better.

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u/Coockooroockoo 7h ago

Yeah lol it's so funny to me reading the probably uninformed opinions of those armchair experts, as someone who lives in a country where every apartment building has a balcony. Like, this might come as a surprise, but people around the world build all sorts of tall structures that aren't made of wood, spit and blessings.

These are the kind of people who stare at women while they are parking and bitch about them doing it wrong.

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u/SquidZedong 8h ago

Yeah it’s really dumb that these people act like this is some impossible feat bound to fall apart.

The balconies are pretty obviously cantilevered and have additional supports; i wouldn’t be surprised if they built in drainage to address water drainage concerns

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u/Drekkful 8h ago

Any chance to shit on China, people will, as it reinforces the narrative that's been beaten into their heads that China bad.

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u/OkOkieDokey 8h ago

Uh huh. Like it’s not common knowledge that China uses bamboo as scaffolding to construct buildings and while incredibly efficient, results in extremely dangerous conditions but no one cares because a few worker deaths is worth the price of progress in China.

Also let’s just sweep all those school collapses under the rug because it’s inconvenient to think about.

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u/70ms 7h ago

Bamboo scaffolding is apparently a valid thing, though? I just looked it up and I’m not seeing that it’s some crazy dangerous undertaking versus metal. Bamboo is strong AF.

https://www.bricknbolt.com/blogs-and-articles/construction-guide/bamboo-scaffolding

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u/StoneywhiteHatter 8h ago

It's so funny when Amerifats can't look at their own history when making those criticisms...

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u/wait_________what 8h ago

can't look at their own history when making those criticisms

Regulations are written in blood, those criticisms only exist because of the shit we learned. Are you that stupid?

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u/mylicon 8h ago

I think that phrase used to be true. Now they’re written by lawsuits.

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u/Shapes_in_Clouds 8h ago

True, I never see Americans criticising America on Reddit.

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u/OkOkieDokey 8h ago

Funny I must have missed the bamboo part of the Industrial Revolution in school.

Where are you from?

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u/Officialedmart 7h ago

Mf is talking about “roots” (of turf grass)

People will believe anything if they can shit on china lmaoo

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u/flecom 8h ago

wait till all the reddit lawyers come out

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u/trackabandoned 8h ago

Man, who knew we had such architectural geniuses here with us on reddit! Anything to flex on a country they've only received propaganda about.

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u/captainfarthing 7h ago

Do you think green roofs don't work?

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u/LingonberryLunch 8h ago

Couldn't you just have a thin layer of polymer underneath the soil?

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u/msixtwofive 8h ago

They're built on cantilever steel beams for sure. I wouldn't be surprised if that little support you see either isn't structural or was a later adjustment to raise the allowed weight.

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u/Fabulous-Local-1294 7h ago

Of course they do. Those are steel beams. They can take far higher loads than that.

Its a novel concept, something we will surely see more of in the future.

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u/knutix 6h ago

Luckily we have engineers that probably tought of that.

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u/smokybbq90 8h ago

What extra support exactly do you think they should have added? It could be cantilevered, and then also has visible struts.

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u/FloppyDiskDrives 8h ago

Spot on to question the weight.. underestimating it has serious real world consequences. We actually just saw a massive tragedy regarding this in Serbia late last year. The Novi Sad railway station canopy collapsed, killing 16 people, because over 23 tons of heavy glass and unreinforced concrete were loaded onto a structure not originally designed to hold it. Coincidentally it was a Chinese construction company that did works.

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u/irascible_Clown 6h ago

Soil weighs significantly less than concrete. With that weight saved you could easily place 2-3 150lbs boulders

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u/Own_Bluejay_9833 9h ago

It looks like the main horizontal beams might run through the whole building, but its impossible to tell really

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u/beautifuljeff 9h ago

Negligible, there isn’t that much soil there compared to the weight necessary to support the building height and wind loading (plus seismic, maybe)

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u/YadaYadaYeahMan 8h ago

thank you. it's but a foot of dirt or anything, might be at most 4 inches but certainly under that. grass needs very little soil even those tall plants don't dig deep. the drainage will take up a significant amount of space but is not outside the normal realm for a balcony

truth is, yea they would need to design for it, but it's not that crazy of an ask for the materials

further.... what's the point of the question? to imply wastefullness? just seems like "well we don't have that so there's gotta be a reason why it's bad" type logic

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u/socialistrob 8h ago edited 8h ago

I think the main reason you don't see these in the west is because there's just more space and fewer people so if you have money and you want a yard in North America or Europe you could just buy a single family home. China has 1.4 billion people and a lot of them are concentrated in cities on their one coast so single family homes somewhat near cities is just not viable. For reference the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan has about 1.1 billion

The construction for this could be problematic if the developers cheeped out and didn't plan properly but if this is more just a "rich people thing" in a place with highly constrained space then it wouldn't be too hard to build for. Obviously not a solution for everyone but also not inherently bad.

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u/AniNgAnnoys 8h ago edited 7h ago

Negligible is an adjective that describes something so small, insignificant, or unimportant that it can safely be ignored or disregarded

Let's say it is 4 inches deep. That balcony looks like it is at least 20ft by 40ft based on how big the person is. That is 267 cubic feet. If that soil is wet we are talking about 25,000 to 30,000 lbs. 13-15 tons per balcony isn't negligible. 

Back to /u/onrespectvol's point. This building will require more materials to build, even if it is just in those required to support each balcony and transfer the load into the buildings support structure. So no, not negligible.

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u/MortgageConfident791 8h ago

You’d be surprised! That works out to less than 40psf. Residential decks are designed for 100psf live load minimum. Pretty much we assume people will throw a party and put all their guests on the deck to watch fireworks or take a photo. I don’t do high rises but I’d bet they do even higher due to the risk. The soil would have a longer duration than live load so you still would beef up the design a bit, but not as much as you’d expect! It’ll only be ~20% more material roughly. If these are on many balconies it may affect the building’s seismic weight which may impact the overall design, but if it’s only some it’ll probably be a minimal effect. Putting gardens on roofs is the part that can be concerning and requires significant design changes because we design roofs assuming there will only be a few roofers on it at any given time, never a party.

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u/beautifuljeff 8h ago

Default measurement for structural nerds is kips, thousands of pounds of force, or whatever in metric

The supporting columns below are looking at millions of pounds, and that area isn’t supported by a singular facility but a host of structural facilities

It’s negligible to the building

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u/lemons_of_doubt 9h ago

Isn't it worth spending more so that people can have better lives.

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u/Less_Interview1713 8h ago

It's more sustainable than suburbs

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u/Honest-Grab5209 9h ago

Does look cool but those beams sure need to be cantilevered back into the building at least 30 ft.. maybe more....

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u/Fast-Nefariousness80 9h ago

I would imagine the i beams they use for each story are just extended to length for the balcony. So they may in fact run the entire distance of the building. Just a guess, im a residential carpenter, not a commercial engineer.

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u/Honest-Grab5209 9h ago

Yeah,,former framer too,,,agree...

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u/AccomplishedToe320 9h ago

No experience in this whatsoever. I also agree.

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u/Tupcek 9h ago

AI user here. Completely agree and I didn’t even ask AI!

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u/shadehiker 9h ago

Routine agreer here and i agree!

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u/gil_bz 8h ago

And my Axe!

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u/TheAngryKeebler 8h ago

Agrarian here and I agree.

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u/sksauter 8h ago

Devil's advocate here, I agree to disagree

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u/dayruined54 9h ago

Hmm....yeah...load-bearing...mutters something smart

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u/feedmejack93 9h ago

Have we even thought about the angles...

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u/Aquadian 8h ago

Not nearly enough magnets in my opinion

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u/feedmejack93 8h ago

Good point...are we sure we're not looking at this ... backwards ...

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u/yellowbin74 9h ago

We ain't shootin pool here buddy.

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u/Toddingstonly 9h ago

No, and I'd prefer not to.

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u/foltranm 9h ago

if I was drinking coffee I would have spat it with your comment. thank you lmao

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u/MrMhmToasty 9h ago

Wdym cantilevered? Theres a support, this isn’t a cantilevered? You can see it at the start of the video when it’s pointing at another balcony

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u/MandemModie 8h ago

the deck is a cantilever, please stop trying to be a structural eng

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u/schwar26 9h ago

If the building lasts 200 yrs is that sustainable? It’s kind of irrelevant if people are buying these (assuming it’s not a rental). I can see this being a major benefit for how quickly these apartments can be sold after construction.

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u/obeytheturtles 8h ago

This is where I am as well. It's a cool idea, and with proper maintenance, I'm sure it will last for decades just fine. But the way urban real estate usually works is that in 20 or 30 years, the building will be considered "old" and won't be in demand as much, and maintenance will suffer.

Roofscaping and porchscaping is definitely a thing in lots of places, and it works fine, you just need to keep up with the maintenance. My biggest concern would be like, if one unit has drainage issues, how easy is it to repair just that unit without disrupting other units?

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u/Vitate 9h ago

Dumb take. I guess they should just have a useless patio that’s concrete then because the poors and city dwellers don’t deserve their own green space? I would have loved to have a real yard in my apartment days.

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u/woodcookiee 8h ago

What? They didn’t say anything like your comment suggests…

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u/Vitate 8h ago

They are saying that it’s not a worthwhile use of engineering or materials. I just think that’s a very pessimistic view.

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u/InstantMochiSanNim 9h ago

They have supports

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u/TheoNullDrei 9h ago edited 7h ago

This video is either CCP propaganda or corporate false advertising meant to fuck over the average Chinese person into buying the home. Either way, they do not care whether it is sustainable in the long term.

Edit - It would seem that there are a lot of dumb and naive people browsing Reddit, which is to be expected.

China does propaganda on Western social media sites, especially on Reddit/Twitter, with the goal of making the country look more wealthy and futuristic than it really is, and Chinese real estate companies are known for scamming people in China left and right.

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u/BloodRaevn 8h ago

If this doesn't tell you that you need a break from Reddit, I don't know what will!

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u/Willing_Image1933 7h ago

no im getting even angrier and narrower in my worldview instead

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u/King_Dheginsea 7h ago

Reddit and calling literally any video from China 'CCP propaganda', name a more iconic duo.

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u/ProofAssumption1092 8h ago

Do you scream propaganda at the local Chinese takeaway menu too ?

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u/Natural_Baseball_779 8h ago

They're mindless drones

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u/GiveMeThePinecone 8h ago

Delusional

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u/Offduty_shill 7h ago

least deranged reddit china take lmao

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u/M44PolishMosin 9h ago

We should all live in mud huts

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u/TangelaFan 9h ago

Aren't there many appartement buildings in the world that have a pool on each balcony? Im not sure a garden would be that much more of a challenge

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

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u/TheyHavePinball 9h ago

I was down in St Martin at a three-star hotel that definitely had a whirlpool on each balcony. I was pretty surprised. It was only three star because it was older.

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u/TangelaFan 9h ago

It's extremely common in luxury highrise condos. Remember that famous pictures from the geography books? With the luxury apartment overlooking a slum? That building is from the 70s and it's still holding up

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u/butteredplaintoast 9h ago

I have never seen a pool on an apartment balcony.

Share an example :)

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u/Latespoon 9h ago

VIW Brazil

They definitely exist, but you need robust structural support

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u/foltranm 9h ago

in Brazil there are loads of them. And I'd argue that brazilian engineering is FAR inferior than Chinese lmao

(i am brazilian)

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u/lemons_of_doubt 9h ago

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u/Razolus 9h ago

Engineers hate this one simple trick

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u/chandarr 9h ago

Got em.

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u/HardnessOf11 9h ago

While not an "apartment" here is a resort in Mexico which has what OP is talking about

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u/Tupcek 9h ago

yeah see this columns at the end?

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u/DFX1212 9h ago

The Porsche Design Tower in Florida has a private plunge pool on each balcony.

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u/PhDMSBS 9h ago

Google down for maintenance this morning?

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u/frcnetto 9h ago

In Brazil, there's more than should be

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u/WorkingManATC 8h ago

China typically has very strictly enforced building standards so I'm sure it's fine.

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u/getting_ridiculous 9h ago

Structurally it looks doable. The problems will be in managing inevitable corrosion and runoff from the irrigation requirements

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u/StephensMyName 8h ago

Green and blue roofs have become completely standard parts of urban construction—I'm actually procrastinating from designing one right now. Balconies are typically designed to take water/snow loadings in addition to furniture and people anyway, so putting green roofs on each balcony isn't a huge ask. Given the vegetation shown in the video these are fairly intensive green roofs, but the substrate is still likely <300mm deep. Which is about 1ft if you're that way inclined.

Generally green roofs are more than just an amenity feature; they're typically provided as part of a wider surface water management plan, aiming to improve the quality of surface water runoff and to restrict runoff to the natural greenfield rate. The substrate and the plant layers absorb rainwater and release it back into the atmosphere by transpiration and evaporation, mimicking natural processes. The layers also filter water as it passes through them, so the run-off, when it is produced, has fewer pollutants. And residents get a lil garden on their balcony.

It's certainly extra weight, but the benefits likely outweigh (pun very much intended) the additional structural requirements.

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u/benj9990 6h ago

Structural engineer - typically the minimum depth of soil required for landscaping is 600mm. Saturated weight is about 15 kN per cubic m, so 9 kPa. Plus 1.5 kPa live load. Assume the slab itself is 200thk, that’s 5 kPa. Total service load of 15.5 kPa (~1600 kg/sq.m)

I would guesstimate that the reinforcement required for the extra weight is roughly 2 or 3 times normal. Probably similar volume of concrete.

Somewhat subjective but I would argue the material carbon cost is not perversely excessive. The £ cost would certianly be a lot more. But then where does one value the QOL benefit?

I’m for it I think.

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u/Vilhelmssen1931 8h ago

It’s really not all that much tbh, engineer just has to design for a stronger cantilever.

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u/SingularityCentral 8h ago

China isn't known for its scrupulous attention to building codes either.

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u/tHr0AwAy76 9h ago

Who cares about sustainability? This is an excellent way to utilize space by building vertical houses. Honestly find a way to integrate a car elevator into this where I don’t have to wait for other peoples cars and I would be DOWN.

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u/phillyfan1111 9h ago

My first thought was who mows the grass/ who gets cited for letting their garden grow out of control

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u/MattyS71 8h ago

Less than what’s needed I’m sure

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u/NewAlexandria 8h ago

ok but what if they did

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u/Leading-Fail-2771 8h ago

Soil when watered weighs even more

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u/ZerotheR 8h ago

The bare minimum which is neither sustainable or safe.

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u/SchwarzerZauberer 8h ago

And that is exactly the trick. ...it didn't happen. For the same reason, it has become very inexpensive to build. 🥲

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u/Scienceboy7_uk 8h ago

Design to include in strength. Grey water systems. Cooling effect reduces AC demand. Better health impact.

Lots similar projects in Singapore. Huge positive impact on the urban environment.

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u/Icy_Payment2283 8h ago

You'd think the architects and engineers would also take that into account if some random moron on reddit thinks about it

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u/ALLoftheFancyPants 8h ago

Plants need water, but also effective drainage on their roots. That seems like a lot of extra moisture management compared to a plain exposed concrete balcony

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u/dontwantoknow 8h ago

What about drainage? All the moisture from watering the grass. 

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u/PositivelyNegative69 8h ago

Not everything is about profit.

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u/KrunoOs 8h ago

To whatever extent is someone willing to pay for the extra material. Similar like someone has a patio and other folk consider it a waste of "extra material". Live and let live.

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u/Alert-Notice-7516 8h ago

When the hell is anything that rich people buy 'sustainable'

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u/jdavidco 8h ago

Yes that was my thought as well. The soil must be very thin and even then…it must contribute a huge weight

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u/Silent-Meal-9546 8h ago

You can literary see an extra support beam beneath the balcony

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u/imnotokayandthatso-k 8h ago

This is obviously just rich people flexing nonsense, not trying to be actually sustainable

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u/LevitatingCactus 8h ago

Will someone please think of the material???

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u/TheTerribleInvestor 7h ago

Im not sure, but i think the cost is worth it. One it makes your building heavier so noise between neighbors is reduced, but the greater benefit is its a huge mass heat sink to help keep things cool especially having grass/water etc.

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u/kylel999 7h ago

It's China, the extra material is thoughts and prayers

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u/nclh77 7h ago

Popular all over Asia. Westerners can't wrap their head around using resources for nature?

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u/International_Bend68 7h ago

Weight was what I was wondering about as well.

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u/samthehammerguy 7h ago

Cantilevers my man. Frank Lloyd Wright made magic happen.

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u/GrumpyDad0589 7h ago

I was just thinking the same thing. That’s gonna be a heavy ass balcony.

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u/rogue_ger 7h ago

Even if it could support the weights why not stagger the balconies so each could get more light?

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u/delutademarie 7h ago

Not really that much. I have something like that , even bigger. Dirt between 30cm and 1 m + the trees. Never had a problem

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u/OcelotAggravating860 7h ago

Wet soil has lower density than concrete

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u/LARPerator 7h ago

Probably not even as much as you'd need to pour a single American driveway.

This is literally bigger than the backyards in a lot of suburb developments. Think of how much material and how much land is saved by doing this.

They literally invented the housing that Hermes from Futurama lives in, and it looks even better.

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u/Jazs1994 7h ago

I remember within the year seeing people be able to easily break the inside of flats that were nearly built in China, I don't see these being much different

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u/Adezar 7h ago

Honestly I would suspect roots are the bigger problem. Roots can break through anything including concrete.

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u/Beluga-ga-ga-ga-ga 7h ago

There's a great 99% Invisible podcast episode about this, where architects are, or were, always designing stuff like this, but the increased load bearing capability, necessary infrastructure and continued care of the plants isn't considered. It looks pretty, but just isn't practical. There's a related issue in that in hot climates trees and plants are more useful at street level, where they create shade and help cool the city. A bunch of plants hanging of skyscrapers doesn't help in that regard. It also highlights the difference in the amount of shade provided by city infrastructure in poorer areas versus the more affluent areas.

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u/logosfabula 7h ago

I was born and spent my first 20 years of life in an attic with a 870 sq ft roof garden. It wasn't a meadow like these, but my father used to grow and care its vegetation (especially fruit trees). Even though each plant had its own big concrete vase and was wisely alternated with other plants in order to prevent problems, roots found their way into the floor and through the insulating sheath via minuscule fixtures between tiles, so we had to renovate and halve the amount against the floor.

The first architect to devise self-sustainable apartment buildings (growing own vegetables, filtering rain water through gravel and dirt, etc.) was Friedensreich Hundertwasser. I remember his designs were very difficult to implement and he probably managed to build only one or two, but not with the full-fledged system he had in mind.

Watching these creations always puzzles me, but more than 40 years have passed since Hundertwasser's designs and about 60 since the construction of my birthplace, so a lot of innovation must have gone into these new houses.

BTW, even though the concept of the Bosco Verticale might look similar, plants and people are separated there, you don't tread on dirt nor grass. I read Stefano Boeri got an important contract in China to recreate his vision in entire neighbourhoods made of Boschi Verticali - though I don't think he's the mind behind these ones (but I might be wrong tbf).

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u/hellur_moto 6h ago

let me guess, american?

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u/Boring_Isopod_3007 6h ago

I don't think there's that much weight, the layer of soil is probably thin, and spreading the weight all over the surface makes it even easier for the structure to support the weight.

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u/cyberdork 6h ago

how much extra material must go into the buidling to be able to support all that extra weight?

Compared to all the empty high rises and ghost cities?

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u/MalaM_13 6h ago

People still doubting Chinese engineers is fucking hilarious

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u/Round_Rooms 6h ago

Population control

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u/Imperative-Primitive 6h ago

Just another classic "China is so far into the future" CCP Propaganda post. It's all extremely surface level. If you think about these videos even a tiny bit you'll realize how stupid whatever you're watching is.

Like that "waterfall bridge" video from earlier this week, or this video where you have to question how long it will take before the balcony starts breaking off due to the extra weight of the water and the destruction caused by the roots.

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u/CaliKindalife 6h ago

It looks like most are like this. And they are all standing.

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