Tag Archives: Biodiversity

Historical Buddhist site master plan looks like a fantasy biodiversity space

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Most people probably think of religious sites as churches, temples, or even buildings, but there are plenty of locations regarded as “holy” or even historical places that are sometimes nothing more than a mound and a tree. Buddhism, for example, has one such sacred space that holds relics of its past, an unadorned mount covered by grass and topped by a simple yet distinctive tree. Given both its religious and historical significance, there is a strong interest in preserving such a site while also promoting its spirit in tangible yet subtle ways. One such plan transforms this key piece of Buddhist religion and history into a biodiversity garden that almost looks like a landscape straight out of a fantasy film.

Designer: Stefano Boeri Architetti

Located in western Nepal, the Stupa or “heap” of Ramagrama is one of the most important locations in Buddhism, combining religious, historical, and cultural heritage in a single place. A centuries-old Bodhi tree sits on top of a green hill that has formed over an intact dirt burial mound that contains portions of the relics of Buddha. That landscape has remained unchanged, protected by both nature and man, yet there is no assurance that it will be that way forever. A master plan is needed to help preserve the natural beauty of this site while also encouraging both believers as well as tourists to immerse themselves in the environment in a safe manner.

The solution presented in this beautiful design creates a wide space around the stupa and the Bodhi tree that maintains a respectful distance in order to preserve historical landmarks and objects for future generations. Covered walkways encircle the hill while dozens of pathways draw a beautiful and mesmerizing mandala that can only be seen from the skies. Four portals in each direction break up the area into four quadrants, with large access roads that lead to the central hill.

This open space for contemplation or “Prato della Pace” is surrounded by the Garden of Biodiversity, a slope that is conceived to hold 80,000 plants of 70 different local species selected from the Terai plain considered to be the Buddha’s birthplace. A shaded path covered with trees separates these two circular areas and provides a convenient location to view and appreciate the Ramagrama Stupa from a distance.

The master plan for the Ramagrama Stupa is an ambitious project that combines the many elements that represent Buddhism into a harmonious piece of architectural design and landscaping. The structures and circular paths embrace minimalism and mysticism, allowing visitors to both pray and marvel, whatever the purpose of their visit may be. The high biodiversity pays homage to the Bodhi tree, itself a symbol of biodiversity, and ensures that the botanical legacy of Buddhism will also be preserved for years or even centuries. It’s a design that generates an air of mysticism and wonder, creating a space that is literally rooted to the earth yet looks like it exists on a higher plane.

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Drone designed to collect DNA on tall tree branches has a suprising style to increase biodiversity

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Drones have become ubiquitous in recent years when it comes to wide video shots that encompasses a huge amount of space, whether it’s concert festivals, a beautiful landscape, or if you just want to have video of kids playing around in your backyard. But there are also a lot of other uses for drones rather than just documenting a place, an event, or whatever it is you want to capture. It can now even be used for research and studies about various things, including a forest biodiversity.

Designer: ETH Zurich

The Zurich-based roboticists have come up with a drone that can collect “external DNA” from birds, insects, and other organisms that leave them on the branches of really tall trees that climbers may not be able to reach. These include dead skin, feathers, waste, fluids, and other sources of DNA. These things are important in understanding how to do understand the biodiversity that exists in an area and therefore plans how to conserve and restore it.

The drone they developed looks more like your typical drone except it has several fixtures attached to it which makes it look like a lamp or something. It has a crafted wooden frame and plastic shielding to protect the drone inside. It has something called “humidified cotton” which is pretty similar to strips of adhesive tape which is able to press onto the branches of trees and then collect the materials on the surface. Researchers will be able to extract the needed DNA from these strips once they’re back in the lab.

Hopefully there’s also something in the drone’s structure that will be able to protect the materials that it was able to gather. The are still working further on developing the drone so that it can get higher up than what it currently can. They’re also planning to “teach” it to collect materials in other conditions and circumstances. It would be interesting to see how robotic biodiversity explorers can help various researchers in this sphere.

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This sustainable forest complex absorbs CO2 and produces oxygen to mitigate the effects of urbanization!

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Easyhome Huanggang Vertical Forest City Complex, comprised of five sustainable green towers, was built to mitigate the effects of urbanization and fight for the environmental survival of our cities.

As our cities become increasingly popular destinations for younger generations, the need to introduce sustainable and biophilic architecture has never felt more urgent. As we face urban expansion and densification, architects are taking initiative to ensure the environmental survival of our contemporary cities. Italian architect Stefano Boeri has found promise in vertical city forest complexes, a form of biophilic architecture that incorporates teeming greenery into the very structure of residential buildings. Easyhome Huanggang Vertical Forest City Complex is Boeri’s latest sustainable undertaking, a forest complex in Huanggang, Hubei, China “intended to create a completely innovative green space for the city.”

Bounded by three streets, Easyhome covers 4.54 hectares and comprises five towers, each of which connects with an open, public space. 404 different trees fill out the layout of Easyhome, absorbing 22 tons of carbon dioxide and producing 11 tons of oxygen over the span of a year. Helping to mitigate smog and produce oxygen, the trees incorporated into Easyhome also increase biodiversity by attracting new bird and insect species. 4,620 shrubs and 2,408 square meters of grass, flowers, and climbing plants are also spread throughout Easyhome’s structure in addition to the complex’s tree species.

Easyhome’s rhythmic, modular facade also lends itself to increased biodiversity by mimicking the incongruent, wild look of nature. Rising 80 meters in height, two of the five towers are residential buildings, while the other towers remain in use as hotels and large commercial spaces. As Boeri is no stranger to vertical green complexes, he has worked on many urban forestry projects. Everywhere, from Milan to Cairo, Boeri has designed forest complexes to help mitigate the harmful effects of urbanization. However, Easyhome is a new type of vertical forest.

Describing the building’s difference in his own words, Boeri writes, “the floors have cantilevered elements that interrupt the regularity of the building and create a continuous ever-changing movement, accentuated by the presence of trees and shrubs selected from local species.” In addition to the building’s undulating facades and rugged appeal, Easyhome implements a combination of open-air balconies and closed-off terraces to blue the transitional boundary between nature and human-centered environments. This incongruent configuartion of the building’s exterior also allows the greenery to grow freely in height and foliage, the way it would in natural forests.

Designer: Stefano Boeri Architetti

The post This sustainable forest complex absorbs CO2 and produces oxygen to mitigate the effects of urbanization! first appeared on Yanko Design.

These bee-friendly living roofs on the Leicester city bus stops is part of their goal to become carbon-neutral by 2030!

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Everything from honey bee colonies to honey production is on the decline. Even walking down the street, the bees crawling on the sidewalks seem to look weaker and weaker as the days get hotter and pollution only increases. Air pollution, drought, pesticides, and global warming all contribute to the overall decline in bee populations across the world. Doing something about it, city officials of Leicester, United Kingdom have installed green roofs on top of their bus stops called Living Roofs or Bee Bus Stops to attract pollinators like bees and to make the city a little greener.

The bee roofs will cover thirty bus stops around the city of Leicester with a mix of wildflowers and sedum plants, luring in pollinators like butterflies and honey bees. Conceived as a mode of climate resilience, the Bee Bus Stops will help bring in more biodiversity into an otherwise declining cityscape and absorb rainwater that falls on the roof to produce a natural, blooming garden atop each roof. In cities across the globe, concrete can get monotonous. Integrating natural gardens into the city fabric will help break up that monotony with some greenery, birds, and insects. Introducing Bee Bus Stops to the city of Leicester will also help mitigate the effects of urban heat islands by absorbing some of the heat during the summer months, collecting air pollutants in the process.

Built on a ten-year contract with Leicester’s city council and Clear Channel UK, the Bee Bus Stops will feature solar panels once the city has the means to attach them to every bus stop for green energy and smart lighting. Leicester’s deputy city mayor councilor Adam Clarke leads the city’s environment and transportation initiatives. On the city’s future goals of reaching carbon neutrality by 2030, Clarke explains the potential of the Living Roofs to bring them there,

“The new, modern shelters will be great for passengers and the mix of solar power and living roofs is another step forward for our ambition to be a carbon-neutral and climate-adapted city by 2030. The new shelters will also be a perfect complement to our work to deliver a new, carbon-neutral bus station at St. Margaret’s.”

Designer: Leicester City Council

Thirty bus stops across the city of Leicester have tacked on wooden boxes to their roofs, attracting pollinators like butterflies and honey bees.

Leicester’s Living Roofs mark the beginning of the city’s green initiative to become carbon-neutral by 2030.

This botanical garden’s petal-inspired, hexagonal-laced glass roof brings biodiversity to the city!

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Botanical gardens in big cities always seem to help take us out of the monotonous droll of city living, weaving us through walks of native plant life and educational tours that teach us about plant cultivation and preservation. Bringing a touch of green to Magok, South Korea, Seoul Botanic Garden was designed and built to create an educational and public space that harbors flora and cultural insight from twelve tropic and Mediterranean cities across the globe.

Positioned on the southwestern side of the Han River in the Magok neighborhood of Seoul, the new botanic garden’s location was chosen partly due to the region’s pastoral history. Blossoming a safe distance away from the surrounding marshlands, Seoul Botanic Garden’s rippled, concave roof emulates the formation of a flower’s petals, particularly mimicking the shape of a Rose of Sharon’s petal bed. The 100-m wide concave dish acts as the structure’s roof, shelters the park’s guests, and by resembling the structure of a plant’s petal bed, offers a visually enhanced experience alongside the blooming plant life indoors.

Typically, the roof of a greenhouse takes the form of a convex dome, the roof’s pitch being the highest point inside the structure. However, the delicate rim of Seoul Botanic Garden’s hexagon-laced glass roof remains higher than its indented central point. Inside the greenhouse, plant life from 12 major cities across the globe, including Athens, Greece, and São Paulo, Brazil burst from every sunspot inside the disc-shaped indoor garden. Celebrated as South Korea’s first botanic park built inside a city, Seoul Botanic Garden traverses 500,000 square meters of land, comprising a greenhouse, forest, lake, and wetland.

Designer: Samoo Architects & Engineers

Garbed with a concave roof that mimics a flower’s petal bed, Seoul Botanic Garden uses the roof’s resemblance with nature to evoke a 3D experience for the garden’s guests.

A diamond-dotted skirt wraps the sides of Seoul Botanic Garden to reference the traditional facades found on greenhouses.

Inside, plant life busts at the greenhouse’s seams, covering flora from twelve major cities across the globe, primarily taken from tropical and Mediterranean climates.

Pools of water punctuate the floors of Seoul Botanic Garden, expanding the center’s overall biodiversity.

Inside, sinuous interior design harkens back to the structure of plants.

From an aerial perspective, Seoul Botanic Garden holds an impressive, closed roof that echos the shape of hibiscus flowers native to the country.

This sustainable office building uses passive energy practices and promotes biodiversity with their green roof!

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CABI is an international nonprofit committed to solving problems related to agriculture and the environment through fact-based scientific expertise, improving the lives of people across the globe– those who work for CABI needed an office that reflected their mission. Taking on the project, Scott Brownrigg designed a sustainable headquarters based in the UK that features a rolling green roof and encourages biodiversity through highly energy-efficient building practices.

CABI’s new headquarters in Wallingford hones in on passive sustainability as its main focus. The building’s location and orientation were specifically chosen to minimize solar gains, allowing for shade in the warmer months and plenty of sunshine during the colder months. To achieve natural air ventilation, the building dons a perforated facade, allowing cool air to flow throughout the interior day and night, and then heat recovery ventilation pre-warms fresh air during the winter months. While this means for maintaining natural airflow is energy-efficient and passively sustainable, it also works to keep office workers comfortable in the age of COVID-19, allowing for fresh air to enter the building throughout the day. While all the energy-efficient practices take place inside the building, CABI headquarters’s exterior promotes biodiversity through a living roof, attracting insects and birds to its sprawling green hills.

Scott Brownrigg firm director Ed Hayden describes a sort of symbiotic relationship between the building and its occupants that was achieved through, “A traffic light system [which] alerts users when the building gets too hot or doesn’t have enough fresh air. It will prompt occupants to open their windows and increase the levels of fresh air in the building.” CABI has come a long way since its conception in 1910, hosting close to 180 members inside its new, sustainable headquarters.

Designer: Scott Brownrigg

From the outside, CABI’s new headquarters appear as two rolling hills.

CABI HQ is filled out with floor-to-ceiling windows that dissolve the barrier between the outside and inside, bringing its occupants even closer to the environment.

Inside, office workers enjoy natural air ventilation through the building’s perforated facades.

Scott Brownrigg designed CABI’s new headquarters to merge seamlessly with its surrounding environment.

Situated in the middle of a manicured lawn, CABI’s location was specifically chosen to minimize solar gains.

A perforated facade allows fresh air to flow into the building throughout the day.

A traffic light system was put in place to indicate when the office could use some fresh air, signaling workers to open their windows.

Microsoft hopes its ‘Planetary Computer’ will preserve biodiversity

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Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it plans to be carbon negative by 2030. The company hopes to help other organizations, researchers and governments improve the environment as well, with its “Planetary Computer” project. The initiative is m...

Google AI tool helps conservationists (and the public) track wildlife

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Google is quickly putting its wildlife-spotting AI to good use. The internet giant has launched a Wildlife Insights tool that helps conservationists track wildlife by not only parsing their photos, but sharing them in a searchable public website. T...

Researchers are using drones to study the Amazon rainforest’s health

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Researchers from Harvard University are using drones to better understand the Amazon rainforest. With drone-based sensors, the researchers hope to determine the unique "fingerprint" of different rainforest ecosystems. That could help them monitor the...