Vegetating Buildings

Most of the inhabitable regions of the Earth were originally covered by forests, grasslands and wetlands. These carbon-grabbing, biodiverse, spongy landscapes have been largely replaced by agriculture and urban development, which is drier, which is releasing carbon, which is losing its soils, and which has lost most of its wildlife. Indeed, biodiversity declines continue.

apace.

Cities, and buildings in particular, are designed and maintained in ways where vegetation is omitted, removed or simplified so that the benefits of having vegetation close by are limited or lost. Concrete, glass and other impervious surfaces that

shed water, kills migrating birds and exacerbate the urban heat island effect, have been the essence of architecture for decades now.

There is now a huge and growing body of evidence that green infrastructure or green-blue infrastructure, that is soil, vegetation and water, that provides the setting for our cities, provides us with a range of benefits (also described as ecosystem services), including reduction in flooding, purification of air and water, summer shade and cooling, better health and wellbeing, places to relax and mingle, food and habitat for wildlife.

Having begun to appreciate the benefits of putting green infrastructure onto buildings, architects, engineers, horticulturalists and others have…