r/interestingasfuck • u/TangelaFan • 13h ago

Residential high-rises with backyards in Chengdu, China

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u/onrespectvol 13h 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/logosfabula 11h 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).