7 Green city: the persistence of urban gardens

7Green city

The persistence of urban gardens

It was a hot, muggy August afternoon. As I emerged from the subway there was little to help me orientate myself, apart from an overhead bridge, traffic lights, a large crossroads and a very busy, long road. I took my chances, turned left and embarked along a dusty and neglected sidewalk, pitted with potholes. To my right many lanes of traffic, trucks and cars roared past. To my left were a series of small businesses showing little sign of prosperity; abandoned forecourts and the ubiquitous used car lots. I looked up at the buildings ahead and found no sign of the roof-top farm my New York guidebook had promised I would find. Exhausted after 20 minutes of shadeless walking, I asked a woman waiting at a bus stop where it might be. After some thought she suggested I try the café. Suspending disbelief, I found it close by, inserted into the ground floor of an old, but very substantial, industrial building, seven storeys high. I went in and asked. The man behind the counter directed me to the back of the café. From there I was to turn left, pass the cloakrooms and continue until I reached a set of lift doors in the lobby of a different company. I followed the instructions, went along a dark winding corridor, which eventually ended up at the back of a very smart entrance lobby, found the lift, entered and pressed the button for floor eight. Eight floors later the doors opened and I was instantly expelled into brilliant sunlight. As soon as my eyes had adjusted I realised I was standing in the middle of Brooklyn Grange Farm. It stretched the length of the roof, full of colourful rows of fruit and vegetables, tended by a team of gardeners. Coupled with this was the most spectacular view across to Manhattan, lying beyond the parapet wall that hides all traces of the farm from below.

There is indisputable evidence that the more we become urbanised, the more we crave not just open spaces, but places where we can access, respect and nurture the natural world. Gardens in the city inevitably have a sense of enclosure, provided by the buildings that surround them. Pressure to build on the land has reduced the possibilities for creating spacious gardens, but surprisingly this has had the effect of causing much inventiveness in creating new types of garden spaces. Many examples in this book have emphasised space, form and the aesthetic quality of enclosed gardens. In the twenty-first century new criteria are emerging. With an acceptance of a very high percentage of people living in urban conditions, our attitude to nature is fragile and is being questioned. The growing understanding and acceptance of the broader issues of sustainability – encouraging as much biodiversity as possible, reducing pollution, accommodating climate change – is filtering through to architects and landscape architects, driving many new garden designs in a different direction to the purely decorative or symbolic approach. Gardens appear in unlikely places: on roofs, along walls, left-over spaces, even in the pavement. On a grand scale, the concept of ‘landscape as urbanism’,1 where landscape design is not seen as a secondary add-on, is being applied to many cities. Redundant sites of industry and infrastructure are being re-purposed. Decline in one area provides possibilities for a new life; ‘. . . prompting a variety of opportunities for naturalism’.2 Possibilities arise to create environments where re-integration with the natural world can be absorbed into the daily life of the city. The popularity of these spaces is undeniable. The well-established and popular Parc Citroën in Paris lies on the old Citroën factory site. The Highline in New York, a remarkable and amazing linear park3 created out of a disused railway line, has become the victim of its own success and is now one of New York’s main tourist attractions. It is so popular that your experience is tempered by the groups of people in front and behind you as you promenade (Figure 7.1). The Brutalist architecture of the mid-twentieth century has been softened through incorporating enclosed gardens. The roof of public buildings, like the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s Southbank, is brimming over with a garden started and run by volunteers(Figure 7.2). Biophilic4 design, respecting our innate biological connection with nature and the natural world, has become increasingly important in architectural and landscape design.5 It complements the need to address climate change and to achieve more sustainable city growth, which is slowly being acknowledged in many countries. Tree planting and greenery is known to substantially offset rising temperatures in heat waves and reduce the heat-related stress to humans.6

Figure 7.1

The Highline, New York, is busy throughout the year.

Figure 7.2

Looking across the Thames from the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

Exploitingthe ground

As the restless city expands, space on the ground is scarce. There are occasional opportunities to plan gardens on an urban scale, such as the enclosed garden at Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, but many evolve from left-over spaces, pockets of land where a building collapsed, or there has been a change of land ownership, or the building is no longer fit for purpose. Neglected, left-over spaces can be converted to magical gardens, some hidden and some squeezed between buildings on the street. Finding an unexpected, quiet garden between the hard surfaces and cacophony of city sounds is always special. Sometimes the spaces are so difficult to develop commercially they become the reserve of communities where the residents with no gardens of their own are prepared to make the effort to create beautiful, well caredfor, even productive, gardens (Figure 7. 3). Guerrilla gardening, although not always wisely considered, is a sure sign of people’s desire for ‘greening’ our towns and cities and can be a catalyst for creating garden areas. In developing countries, such as Cuba, food is grown anywhere there is space available. Havanna has exploited every inch of the city to produce food in order to survive and inventive colourful gardens have developed out of necessity. When the Brunswick Centre7 in London, a mixed use and housing scheme, was designed in the early 1960s, it had a ruthlessly rectangular geometry that fitted into a non-rectangular plot. The left-over space was

Figure 7.3

Pavement garden, New York, cared for by residents of the street.

Figure 7.4

Cut through, converted into a garden space, London.

neglectedfor at least 40 years until the residents rebelled and took control. It is now a much-used garden and has opened up to become a pedestrian short cut through the city (Figure 7.4).

Urban forest

The Forest Garden within the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris8 was completed in 1995 as part of a large scale redevelopment on the rive gauche. It lies at the heart of the building complex, six floors below the entrylevel plinth, from where the four main book-stack towers rise at each corner. The bulk of the library has been buried underground, with four towers marking the extent of the subterranean building. The space for the garden has been excavated approximately three metres down into the ground rock, backfilled with earth and finished with an undulating surface to resemble the forest floor. The model for the scheme was the forest at Fontainebleau, just outside Paris.9 The dominant species is Scots Pine. Some mature trees were imported from Normandy and they have been interspersed with a wide variety of other species, such as silver birch, oak and sorbus. To mimic the forest floor, ferns, anemones, hyacinths, heather, geraniums and wild strawberries have been introduced.

When you arrive from the west you pass a few caged bushes and some planting alongside the street that try to soften the edge of the site. You come to a vast, windswept, hardwood-covered plinth set at ground level. To the east the land falls away towards the Seine. A wide flight of steps has been constructed to accommodate the level change and provides an ‘urban auditorium’, a place to pause and sit on a step and look across the Seine to the ever changing profile of the Parisian landscape. If you approach the library from the west the experience is very different. Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald’s protagonist in the novel of the same name, arrives from below.10

. . . you find yourself at the foot of a flight of steps which, made out of countless grooved boards and measuring three hundred by a hundred and fifty metres, surrounds the entire complex on two sides facing the streets like the lower storey of a ziggurat. Once you have climbed the steps, at least four dozen in number and closely set as they are steep, a venture not entirely without its dangers even for younger visitors, said Austerlitz, you are standing on an esplanade which positively overwhelms the eye, built of the same grooved wood as the

Figure 7.5

Paris, surrounded by the hardwood deck and towers.

Figure 7.6

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Forest-Garden, seen from the viewing platform.

Figure 7.7

Diagrammatic section through the Bibliothèque Nationale, showing change of ground level down to the Seine. steps and extending over an area about the size of nine football pitches between the four corner towers of the library which thrust their way through twenty four floors up into the air. You might think, especially on days when the wind drives rain over this totally exposed platform, as it quite often does, said Austerlitz, that by some mistake you have found your way to the deck of the Berengaria or one of the other ocean-going giants, and you would not in the least be surprised if, to the sound of a wailing foghorn, the horizon of the city of Paris suddenly began rising and falling against the gauge of the towers as the great steamer pounded onwards . . .

Entry into the building is a bewildering experience for the first-time visitor. The tops of the trees can be seen, paradoxically, at eye level. Once you have found the entrance and start the descent into the depths below, the only views out from this section of the library are across into the ‘forest’. The external world is blocked out and even the sky is hard to see. The lower levels are for researchers only, understandable for the scholars but frustrating for the visitor of a major public building, who is denied a view of the forest floor (Figures 7.5, 7.6 and 7.7).

The absence of human presence is deliberate, to encourage flora and fauna to survive without interruption in this sunken environment. Scholars see the garden through the reading room windows.11 Visitors, however, are restricted to looking at the garden through the windows of the exhibition space at entry level and one small balcony. Your experi ence has to be enhanced by ‘multi sensory’ interfaces,12 provided as part of the garden exhibition at the entrance level, where you can touch and feel a range of objects in order to grasp what it might be like inside the forest garden. The play of artificiality and naturalness has been described by Mateusz Salwa as ‘uncanny’.13 Behind this striking scheme lies the poetic idea of bringing the forest – ‘Raw Nature’ – into the city, preserved and wrapped by books and learning; the ‘sacred wood within the temple of knowledge’.14 The symbolism is played out at many levels. We can read it as the protected oasis in the desert of urban landscape, a reflection on the old Islamic seats of learning such as the Medersa Ben Youssef (see Chapter 3) or as the cloister garden of a monastery for monks to contemplate as they ponder the scriptures. The idea of a managed ‘re-wilding’ of the city15 in this way is both attractive and problematic. It was decided from the start that the ‘forest’ should be ecologically managed, letting nature run its course as far as possible, with no pesticides or herbicides. This has proved to require finetuning. Now, after 20 years, a diverse habitat has built up, with many more species than were originally planted, together with insects, butterflies and birds. But it has not been without complications. After some years, it became a popular roosting spot for starlings. Rather than netting the whole area, nesting boxes for hawks were introduced. Peregrine falcons have dispersed the starlings and are still breeding in one of the towers. The experiment was so ‘successful’ that birds would, from time to time, crash into the windows at high speed, scaring the meditative scholars, as well as wounding themselves. Anti-collision silhouettes have now been placed on the glazing, which has reduced the problem. The garden has also been susceptible to invasive plant species such as brambles and ivy. The problem that faces the custodians of this special ‘forest within the city’ is how much, and when, to intervene with nature within such a confined space. Despite the teething problems it is a remarkable achievement to realise such an ambition. In a situation where any organised planting is a construct of an idea, the trees have grown gracefully up through to the light from the subterranean ‘valley’ to form an elegant and delicate canopy for this reminder of wild landscape, although the tallest trees still need to be restrained. It has, however, been at the expense of the visitor and a great shame that the more visceral, direct experience of the forest can only be appreciated from the viewing balcony.

Figure 7.8

Skyscrapers around Paley Park.

Filling in the gap: Paley Park

Paley Park, designed by landscape architects Zion and Breen in the mid1960s, is a well-established jewel set in the midst of one of the busiest parts of New York. Its strength lies in its simplicity – a narrow regular slot between the towering skyscrapers of mid-town Manhattan (Figures 7.8 and 7.9). The garden design is subtly layered from the entry back to an avalanche of water: A cluster of trees on the street invites you in, you cross the threshold of a few wide, but shallow, steps and leave the city, felt first through your feet. You pass groups of planters and through into another simply laid out ‘forest’. The city sounds recede only to be replaced by the tumultuous crashing of a waterfall that stretches the width of the back wall. It is white noise of the purist kind, creating an unexpected calm. The waterfall is so powerful and elemental you feel it has the capacity to wash

away all the sorrows of the city. The energy can be felt through your entire body.

Zion and Breen had a radically new vision for this park. They had already worked out an idea for a new type of park when they prepared details for an exhibition,16 before the site was acquired and commissioned by Samuel Paley. It would be small and its purpose was just for a resting place for adults. Park benches were to be replaced by light transportable chairs. It was to be a ‘room’ with walls – the walls being those of the adjacent buildings, planted with vines, with a floor that would be richly patterned and textured. It was to have a ‘ceiling’ canopy of trees planted in such a way as to provide shade and allow filtered light through to the ground. Kiosks or vending machines would be provided for light refreshments. Water would be a major constituent. 17 The raised, granite-set floor separates you from pavement level without the need of a visual barrier (Figure 7.10).The sense of separateness is reinforced by the small, built-in kiosks each side of the opening. Planters are positioned adjacent to them, the only location where colour is permitted.

Figure 7.9

Paley Park, plan of slot between hi-rise buildings.

Figure 7.10

Looking into Paley Park from the street.

Figure 7.11

Lunchtime at Paley Park.

The well-maintained, lightweight metal chairs and tables allow for flexible seating arrangements (Figure 7.11). The, now very tall, desciduous honey locust trees filter out the burning sun of the long New York summer and let light in through the winter months. They form a delicate patterned ceiling with its own light show, with the constantly changing effects of the clouds above and the movement of leaves caught in the breeze. The sound level of the six-metre high waterfall allows people to talk and not to be overheard. Despite its loudness it does not drown out conversations. The thick layers of ivy on each of the side walls not only provide greenery throughout the year, but also act as a sound baffle, taking the edge off the sound of the pounding water. When interviewed, people said that they liked it as they could be comfortably ‘alone’.18 Paley Park provides a place of intimacy in the most public of places in a hectic city by its clear use of proportions and

contradictory qualities that make it both public and private. As well as fulfilling the above list of essentials laid down by Zion and Breen, Paley Park is far more than the sum of its parts. Its success lies in having a few wellchosen elements that match the given proportions of the plot. As you enter the park, for example, the dark twisted shapes of the trees elegantly silhouetted against the whiteness of water seem to dance in front of your eyes. Its simplicity and compactness makes it stand out from others.

Lesrestes: Pocket Parks in Paris

Paris is a world meant to be seen by the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail. The loiterer, the flâneur, has a long and distinguished pedigree in France.19

Edmund White, The Flaneur, 2001

The following two parks in the heart of Paris can only be found if you are travelling through them on foot. They don’t trumpet their presence – just the reverse, unlike the grand gestures of the Tuilleries or Luxembourg. Rather than the grand gesture of having a geometry imposed on a particular location, they have made use of the histories of their locations and what traces have been left.

Jardin Anne Frank

It’s easy to miss the Jardin Anne Frank,20 even though it is in the heart of the now-fashionable Marais area and lies a mere block away from the Pompidou Centre. The pathway from the street looks like any other passage21 in the city. The route is curved, blocking any visual clue to a destination at the other end – just more buildings with nothing to arouse your curiosity. Only if you decide to walk along the passage and follow it round the corner can you see the entrance (Figure 7.12).You open the gate into an odd-shaped plot, a transitional space bounded by walls and buildings, the first of three leftover parcels of land. A wide footpath paved with granite setts in a contemporary layout, which includes planting either side, dominates it. You are ushered along a pathway past a chestnut tree. Anne Frank was able to spy this very tree as a sapling from her attic window in Berlin and she notes that the tree gave her hope. As you turn your view is dominated by an archway in an unprepossessing wall, beckoning you to walk through and find out what lies ahead. As you look more carefully you see that it takes you to a garden, and at the back of that, two archways in the boundary wall lead you to yet another garden beyond (Figure 7.13).

Figure 7.12

Jardin Anne Frank, Paris, plan showing its hidden location.

Figure 7.13

Jardin Anne Frank, looking through to the third garden.

A sense of French formality is unmistakable as you enter the second garden. Only when you cross the threshold and walk through can you appre ciate its underlying geometries. With homage to Versailles, the designers have installed a semi-circular latticework tunnel, a ‘cabinet de treillage’, that comes into view to the left as you walk in. Roses, honeysuckle, jasmine and clematis are intertwined and threaded through the open trelliswork. It is a delicious place to stroll through in spring and summer, with the dappled sunlight intermittently falling on your body as you walk.Benches are placed opposite its openings inviting you to sit down, absorb the atmosphere and drink in the view of the garden. This central area is part of the old garden of the seventeenth-century Hotel Saint-Aignan (now the Museum of Art and History of Judaism) and is responsible for holding the three lots together. The design refers back to the garden devised by Le Notre.22 The central opening of the trellis tunnel opens up and faces the museum, on axis, through a grand archway. Parts of the old formal garden have been traced on the ground. The outline of the old pool, for example, is made visible through the paving layout. This section of the gardens is bounded on each side by high walls positioned along the old boundary walls of the city. There are two entrances to the third garden, the Jardin Lecompte. Most of the garden is reminiscent of an orchard, designed as a safe, shady place for young children, with enough lawn to kick a ball about. If you keep walking to the right, you will find another small garden, a ‘potager’ for local residents, called the ‘jardin de vie’ 23 (Figure 7.14). As well as vegetable and fruit crops, the little potager has plants to encourage birds and butterflies.

Figure 7.14

Jardin Anne Frank. springtime in the third garden.

Figure 7.15

Jardin Anne Frank. The Pompidou Centre can be seen as you leave the garden.

Although each area has a character of its own, but the connection is felt through the act of seeing and walking through the archways. Wherever you are you always see another garden beyond. The historical symmetry imposed on the centre garden unifies the asymmetry and irregularities of the left-over plots. The high walls, not beautiful in themselves, provide both the connection and the spatial separation between the three gardens. The design has evolved through an understanding of the cityscape, which has largely dictated the rationale behind the scheme. Its history has been acknowledged and what’s left has been enhanced to create the new enclosed gardens(Figure 7.15).

SquareRoger Stéphane

. . . A dark corridor connected two little rooms; I maintained that this hallway was lit by a gentle light. The bedroom was furnished with a bookcase, a harp, a piano, a portrait of Madame de Staël, and a view of Coppet by moonlight. On the window sills were pots of flowers. When, breathless after climbing three flights of stairs, I entered this little cell as dusk was falling, I was entranced. The windows looked out over the Abbaye garden, around the green enclosure of which the nuns made circuits, and in which the schoolgirls ran about. The summit of an acacia tree reached to eye-level and the hills of Sèvres could be seen on the horizon. The setting sun gilded the picture and entered through the open windows. François-René de Chateaubriand, book 29, chapter 1: ‘Madame Récamier’, section 4. Translatedby A. S. Kline24

Beneath the surface of this garden lies a long history. Created in 1933 and named after the writer Roger Stéphane, it sits over a section of the remains of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, which had been a teaching monastery run by nuns. In the nineteenth century part of it had been converted into apartments, one of which was inhabited by the celebrated Madame Juliette Récamier, well known for her ‘salons’,25 where she entertained her close friend, the writer Chateaubriand, on many occasions. By 1904, the abbey’s fate was sealed when education became separated from religious institutions in France. By 1907 the abbey was pulled down to make way for the expansion of the Rue de Sèvres on which it was located. A new street, rue Récamier, was created on the grounds and houses were built on either side. The street is now pedestrianised and leads directly to the garden that sits on a section of the old abbey and its cloister. Despite the straight approach to the garden, it is hidden from the main street. There are obstacles all along the way: tables, chairs and awnings of the restaurants that flag each side of a pleasant, but unremarkable, side street, together with large, centrally-placed planters overflowing with mature shrubs. Only when you are nearly at the end does the entrance gate appear and a sunken garden is revealed. By the time you have descended a flight of steps, the hard surfaces of the city can no longer be seen and you are surrounded by greenery. A fig tree and a weeping beech filter the sun as soon as you arrive. You are confronted with several possibilities as you discover paths leading off in different directions and levels. Curved steps entice you to discover what lies around the corner. A series of small, intimate spaces is revealed. The designers have made use of the varied

Figure 7.16

Jardin Roger-Stéphane. The visitor is confronted with a choice of small paths.

Figure 7.17

Jardin Roger-Stéphane. Looking up to an almost hidden kiosk.

levels left from the old building site by creating abundantly planted terraces. Small pools connect with miniature waterfalls. The sound of trickling water and birdsong provide the background music for romantic trysts even today (Figures 7.16 and 7.17). It is very inward looking. The backs of the buildings that surround it seem to melt into the background. The overhead canopies of mature trees provide a ceiling for these interconnected outdoor rooms. Many people have described it as a small, intimate hide-away, possibly influenced by the knowledge of Chateaubriand’s trips to visit Madame Récamier. It could also be described as being ‘busy’, with a new landscape trick around every corner and little attempt at cohesion. However, it is very successful in squeezing in a great richness and variety within a very small space.

The two gardens, hidden away from the crowded streets, are expressions of the cultural history of Paris. The Jardin Anne Frank, by the Pompidou Centre, acknowledges the contemporary city. The central garden has reference both to Versailles and the original seventeenth century axial planning of the garden the Hotel Saint-Aignan Museum of Art and the grand designs of Parisianhotels. Square Roger Stéphane with its complicated levels and secretive nature articulates the complexity of its own history.

Nothing wasted: community gardens

If you take a walk around the East Village in New York you will find it full of surprises. There is no getting away from the blocks and relentless grid of the city, nor the relative poverty of the neighbourhood, but your spirits will be lifted as you come across small pockets of open spaces, usually sandwiched between two flank walls of a row of houses that have been converted into gardens. Your first indication will most likely be a stretch of vine-covered chain-link fence at the back of the pavement. If you stop and look through, you will spy a garden full of trees, bushes and flowering plants with shady seats, maybe a pond or a sculpture and a winding path inviting you to push open the gate, cross the threshold and wander in. Each is influenced by the diverse immigrant background of the neighbourhood, its unique history and what the space itself has to offer. Most have benches scattered throughout, small clearings where a group of people can gather and enjoy a meal ‘al fresco’. Some have built-in barbeques, others have raised beds for growing a few food crops and others still are rich in artworks. A common theme is that your experience of them is defiantly different to walking along the rigid grid of the streets. Curving paths with intricate patterning flow around very restricted ground areas. They are true escapes from the city, each a small paradise. The feeling of them being ‘rooms’ is brought out by there rarely being any sky to see, and no depth to

Figure 7.18

Albert’s Garden. Deep shade on a hot day. People gathering at the weekend. the view as you look upward. They survive against the odds through the work of dedicated volunteers. Most gardens cross the boundaries between public and private to a lesser or greater degree, being specific to the neighbourhood, but having their gates open at certain times during the week. They all have their stories.

Albert’s Garden

Albert’s Garden sits quietly within a city block, enclosed by high walls on two sides. A canopy of tall trees provides shade throughout the summer. Small pockets of sunlight provide light for the plants below and for sitting out in the sunshine on cooler days. As you enter, you have a choice of winding paths to follow. They take you on a journey past individual benches slightly set back from the route, a pond and on to a more sociable opening with seating for a small group of people (Figure 7.18). The garden has had a chequered history. It came into existence when two houses burnt down in the 1960s and the owners abandoned them. The site was back-filled with the rubble, paved and used by a couple of artists for many years, later to be joined by Albert O. Eisenlau Jr. who helped transform it into a garden. The district, in those days, was described by one of the current gardeners, a long-term resident, as ‘rolling hell’. The punk band, the Ramones, brought publicity to it when they used one of the garden walls for the backdrop of their 1976 album. By the late 1990s, with many other vacant lots in New York, the garden went up for auction. Trusts were set up to purchase some of this public land in different neighbourhoods with the sole purpose of preserving them as gardens.

Apart from the continuing budget problems there have been social issues too, periods when Albert’s Garden unwittingly provided homes for the homeless. This was so incompatible with its purpose as a garden the residents raised enough money to build a set of elegant railings so that the garden could be locked and kept safe at night. The garden survives with 10–12 regular volunteers who resourcefully keep it in excellent condition on a very low budget. Albert’s Garden, like the others, is an anchor for the community. Although rooms are now provided in many of the surrounding apartment blocks for events, the gardens have proved to be more popular venues, especially in the summer months. It enjoyed its first wedding in 2015.26 The garden has presence, not because it wins prizes for its beauty, but stands as a ‘lieu de mémoire’, 27 a place resonant with memories that lie deep within this small haven of human resilience.

Le Petit Versailles

Le Petit Versailles is a narrow slot of a garden that straddles between two streets, further to the east of Manhattan. It has a bias towards the visual and performing arts. As the name implies, there is more of a formal layout

Figure 7.19

Petit Versailles. The ‘arbor’ that doubles up as a props store.

of beds than some of the other gardens. A collection of ‘found’ mirrors that lines the outside walls is a tongue-in-cheek reminder of the somewhat grander house and garden in France. The original building on this plot succumbed to abandonment in similar circumstances to Albert’s Garden. In the mid-1990s, its upkeep was also taken over by two artists who had moved in next door. Jack Waters and Peter Cramer, together with a team of dedicated gardeners, were prime movers in transforming an empty lot into an open public garden and arts venue, which has thrived ever since. It too is an anchor of the community through its twin function of being both garden and cultural space. It has developed as a venue for visual artists, film makers, musicians and performers from across the city, housing a wide range of events. The formality of the layout suits its dual purpose. Unlike most gardens, it has two entrances, one each side of the block. The gates are rarely closed. If you approach it from one side you pass through an arbour (Figure 7.19). It also doubles up to provide sheltered seating and storage. You walk toward the centre and take one of the symmetrically curving paths to the left or right that circumnavigate an octagonal stage (Figure 7.20). A winding path, off axis, takes you past an oven and food preparation area to the entrance on the other street. Your journey will be slowed down

Figure 7.20

Petit Versailles. Looking towards the stage.

Figure 7.21

Petit Versailles. Artwork in the garden.

by a changingexhibition of artworks as well as the enjoyment of a rich variety of plants (Figure 7.21). There is enough room in the garden around the stage to have performances in the round, or for the audience to be facing one direction. Economy of means is much in evidence for the ambitions of this small space. For example, a continuous line of thin wooden boards raised 900 mm from the ground is placed to one side of the paths through the planting between the stage and boundary walls. The boards act as handrails, they deter people from walking into the flower beds and act as a support for the audience to lean against during performances.

Where Albert’s Garden provides an ‘oasis’ or retreat, Le Petit Versailles opens up to the community at large. These, and the many other gardens, have contributed to the transformation of a deprived neigh bourhood. They are proof that through the power of community action, some thing life enhancing can come from a patch of rubble. These interludes in the rigid street pattern, defined and shaped by their surrounding walls, are, again, demonstrations of our strong desire and inner need to be in touch with the natural world.

Figure 7.22

The wall takes over the ground.

Vertical gardens

In 2003 some hoarding was required along the perimeter of the site for a large development in Tokyo, designed by Tadao Ando.28 It needed to be very substantial to last for the duration of the project – three years. Taking the idea from the name of the developer, Mori (meaning forest in Japanese), the architects, Klein Dytham, designed a framework that could accommodate planting instead of the usual flimsy plywood finish, the Green, Green Screen. A steel frame was constructed to hold together three layers of felt, full of pockets to contain earth for planting. To keep the plants watered, a hosepipe ran along the top and a hidden gutter lay at pavement level to collect any excess. The planting was interspersed with panels of coloured pattern designs29 to blend with the foliage as well as provide information about retail outlets nearby. The project proved to be so successful that it paid for itself and allowed for a constant turnover of flowering plants to complement the evergreens. The wall was a pleasure to look at and people were observed running their hands along it to feel the softness of the planting and smell the fragrance. Others would steal herbs for their cooking. Although it no longer exists, the Tokyo hoarding is an excellent example of the success of a ‘living wall’ or vertical garden. Not only does it work as a barrier for an enclosure, but provides a positive contribution to the quality of the lives of pedestrians walking in one of the most polluted cities in the world. We talk about green walls, living walls and vertical gardens as interchangeable, but each conjures up a very different image. Green wall is so generic it is almost meaningless, living wall infers biology and new technology, but a vertical garden conjures up a place, a place that has something to offer. Vertical gardens demand to be looked at as if they are murals, extended to be absorbed through our senses, smell and touch in particular, as well as the moisture and oxygen they give off being good for our wellbeing. Technological innovation has contributed to their viability over the last few decades. A wide range of small plants can survive in these locations, although ground conditions have to be re-imagined and replicated

Figure 7.23

Oasis d’Aboukir, Paris. The greenery is beginning to consume the architecture.

for a vertical location. As we have seen with the Tokyo screen, vertical gardens need sunlight, water, a suitable environment for their roots and nutrients to make them prosper. They have proliferated, not just where there is little ground space for a garden, but in their own right, on external walls and in interiors. There have been some outstanding results. Biologist and artist Patrick Blanc has been a pioneer in vertical garden design and has done much to promote them for many years. His designs have transcended into artworks (Figure 7.23). Vertical gardens have brought a new dimension into the design of small, restricted spaces, particularly within enclosures where there is no room for a conventional garden. Their success often relies on a hi-tech proprietary framework for fixing to a wall, combined with a bespoke system for housing the plants, feeding and watering them. They need continuous maintenance to avoid holes appearing in the tapestry where plants have not survived. As all the plants are on the vertical plane, any flaws in the design are instantly visible, but as the technology advances for their maintenance and our desire for greening the city grows, they are becoming more viable.

Greeningthe gallery

The living wall in the new extension to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, designed by David Brenner, is one of the building’s prominent features. Snøhetta architects were commissioned to design a substantial extension to the 1988 post-modern gallery designed by Mario Botta. The building was opened in 2016 and sits beside the original. By slightly pulling back part of the east façade of the new design from the adjacent building, the architects were able to create a gap that not only provided more light for that elevation, but enough room to create a very tall outdoor slot, sufficiently wide enough to create a sculpture court. The newly exposed wall of the adjacent building, over three storeys high, provided the oppor tunity for a substantial vertical garden to be constructed. At 400 square metres it was the largest in the United States.30 If you go into the building from the original entrance, you make a visual connection to the foyer of the new wing. You walk through a spatially confined entrance into the original atrium. A stairway angles you up to the next level, single storey in height and then along into the main double height foyer that now serves the entire gallery. As you climb, you are aware of clerestory light pouring down into the space ahead of you, into what is, in effect, the heart of the building. The vertical garden is immediately visible through this glazed wall. It is striking to look at, vivid green against the stark whiteness of the gallery (Figures 7.24 and 7.25). This newly created courtyard not only offers more of an opportunity to show off new sculptures, but also provides a visual link with three levels of the extension and can be seen from a further three floors, making it

Figure 7.24

SFMOMA living wall seen from the new foyer.

Figure 7.25

SFMOMA sculpture court with living wall.

a key referencepoint for people to orient themselves throughout their visit to the gallery. A stairway leads you directly up to it from the new foyer. The vertical garden is as much a respite for the visitor as a café. Its visceral quality invites you to touch and to smell it as well as observe the movement of the foliage that intermittently ripples in the breeze. Its patterning has been designed in great detail. The beautifully crafted installation provides a relief for the eyes after long observation of the exhibits in the white gallery spaces. As the plants grow and the seasons change, so does this living artwork, predominantly green, well known for its calming effects. Brenner has tried to capture the essential qualities of the Californian woodland: ‘the essence of an understory plant community in a California woodland, so amorphous planting swathes reflect the composition of a regional forest floor. Filled with many different textures, it is lush, diverse and monochromatic’.31 Many of the plants can be found in the Californian National Parks and Brenner hopes that they may evoke memories for some people. The changing sunlight exposure on the walls creates four different microclimates and the positioning of plants has been chosen accordingly. Some plants are specific to the canyons naturally occurring in the West Coast landscape, and indeed Brenner sees this location as an urban canyon.

This can be seen as a twentieth century interpretation of an enclosed garden and serves a similar purpose to those on the ground in many ways. It sits within the bounds of the building, but with the pressure on urban space, a garden that could have taken up 400 square metres of land has been up-ended and placed on its side beside a horizontal floor area that is probably less than a quarter of the surface area of the wall. Creating this courtyard has resolved several design issues in one go. There is space for some outdoor sculpture to be displayed, natural light can penetrate down to the new foyer and the vertical garden provides a point of orientation for the visitor within such a large complex. It is restful to the eye, introduces the natural world into the otherwise white spaces of the gallery and is a living work of art in its own right.

Respitein the city

The David Rubenstein Atrium in New York is a hybrid – privately owned, but designed and designated as public space.32 It is no more than a ribbon of land, no wider than a passageway that cuts through a block between two streets, just across the road from the Lincoln Centre, New York’s cultural hub. It opens its doors to the public all through the year. This leftover space that used to house a café and climbing wall was originally conceived by the owners as a ‘lively gathering space’33 for residents, tourists and athletes, but it had been neglected and fallen into disrepair. It became a (much needed) gathering space for homeless people and only a few athletes and was in need an overhaul.34 In 2009, architects Todd Williams and Billie Tsein were commissioned to renovate it with Plant Wall Design35 and textile artist Claudy Jongstra. They transformed it into the lively gathering space that was first envisaged, changing its name from the Harmony Atrium to David Rubenstein Atrium. This tall, narrow space provides for many activities throughout the day and evening and there is a constant flow of people coming through. The designers wished to include a representation of the natural world as an important contribution to the atmosphere. As there is no room on the floor, they have made best use of the walls through large-scale artwork sym pathetic to organic patterning,36 together with two vertical gardens at each end.

Wide canopies at each street entrance cantilever out to alert you (Figure 7.26). You are greeted immediately with a large panel of planting. Once inside it is easy to find your way around. Free Wi-Fi attracts many daytime visitors, but there are other aspects of this interior that entice people in. There are only two fixed functional areas – a theatre ticket collection point and a drinks bar, providing enough left-over space for other activities. There

Figure 7.26

David Rubenstein Atrium. Street entrance showing slot between buildings.

Figure 7.27

David Rubenstein Atrium. Sitting by wall.

Figure 7.28

David Rubenstein Atrium. Section through the building showing natural lighting from above. is somefixed seating – green marble benches that line the wall at one end. Elsewhere there are moveable tables and chairs. The flexible seating arrange ment provides adequate space for people stopping for a drink individually and in small groups, or for being placed more formally for performances (Figure 7.27). A pool with short bubbling fountains creates a calming background noise and the reflection of the water in motion contributes to the lively atmosphere. The lighting is directional. Pools of natural light fall into the interior from cones piercing through the warm, gold-painted ceiling. The glazed walls to the façades bring light in at each end. It enjoys air con di tioning in the summer and heating in winter, entirely powered by renewable energy sources (Figure 7.28). In the centre, the walls are covered with bold textile murals created out of felt. Not only are the murals very arresting to look at, their textured surface absorbs much of the reflected everyday noise that is generated from everyone who uses the atrium. A large media screen sits in the middle of the mural providing information about the Lincoln Centre and is a resource for video screening and performances. The warm colours of the murals and ceiling seem to glow, and are complemented by the rich green of the surrounding vertical gardens. The nine-metre high living walls of ferns, bromeliads, moss and flowering vines are more than adequate substitutes for a more conventional garden space. Their surfaces are even more textured. They animate the wall, provide a riotous, richly coloured display as well as absorbing carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen to improve the air quality in a space that can be very crowded at certain times of the day and night. The gardens benefit from natural light passing through the overhead cones and glazed facades at each end, with the shade from the external canopies preventing most direct sunlight. As you sit and enjoy a coffee you are enclosed within two green ‘garden’ walls at either end. The view to each exit is past an abundance of richlypatterned greenery. In terms of garden design this popular venue is pure

artifice, successfully reinventing what a garden can achieve for our wellbeing, but indoors. With its open ends there is never a sense of being trapped or cut off from the world outside. This transitional space is a place for the contemporary ‘flaneur’ to wander into, a place to pause in the endless encounters of the city. 37 Since it was opened it has become a magnet for people who live and work in the area, as well as for the continual stream of tourists who wish to pause and have a cup of coffee or glass of wine. The combination of the pool, textiles and greenery play a large part in creating an atmosphere where people of all ages can have a conversation without having to shout and at other times turn into a venue for arts performances. But it is the vertical gardens that hold it in place. Williams and Tsien quote William H. Whyte who wrote, ‘I end then in praise of small spaces’. This is a much-loved space, in constant use and one of the few truly public interiors that opens up our city spaces in the face of privatisation. The vertical gardens play a vital role: you appreciate one of them through being able to walk very close to it; the other is the backdrop to a very popular seating area where you can almost be lost in the greenery. Unlike many well-intentioned green walls, they thrive through out the year where others have failed. Well chosen indoor vertical gardens, providing there is enough light, are often more easily regulated and main tained than equivalent outdoor ones that have greater climatic challenges.38

Office Green

At the busiest road junctions of New York City the architects COOKFOX have designed an office complex, 300 La Fayette, a modest five-storey block that respects the architecture and the underlying grid of its location. They have given the idea of the vertical garden depth by proposing a ‘garden façade’. The inspiration and rationale for the design starts with a detailed analysis of the character of much of the architecture of the neighbourhood. The structural framework of the buildings from the cast-iron era provided the opportunity for large glazed openings on the façades. These were overlaid with richly decorated organic motifs, integral to the design that give these buildings their character within the cityscape (Figure 7.29). COOKFOX have taken the organic motifs a stage further through translating them into small gardens that sit between each section of the structural grid. From the second floor upward each office space will have a small garden set in a deep reveal, a transitional zone between the working environment and the street. A new frontage will emerge that both links and separates the office users and the city, bridging between the interior and exterior. Large glazed openings with minimal frames have been designed for a picturesque, twenty-first century sight of the city. Plants will provide

Figure 7.29

Detail of the street façade of the Singer Building, New York, designed by Ernest Flagg, 1908.

Figure 7.30

300 Lafayette. Proposed new offices designed by COOKFOX.

a natural filter, softening the glare from the sun and offering a view of the city through a garden where the planting changes throughout the year, keeping office workers in touch with the natural world. This will be followed through to the design of the interior through acknowledging biomimetic39 patterns, their proportion and decoration being the starting point for their design (Figure 7.30). The creation of these gardens allows more floor space to be given over to planting than the original footprint of the building. The argument for this – that by generating a biomimetic environment that will enhance people’s health, well-being and ultimately their productivity – has been so strong that the developer has warmly endorsed the idea. The addition of garden spaces is also encouraged through the possibility of tax breaks if the design complies with green standards such as those laid down by the LEED40 in the United States. This has been so successful that garden spaces included in building design have become fashionable extras and rents of properties with garden facilities are let at a premium. A roof garden is also proposed to cover the whole of 300 La Fayette. This will, in effect, become the sixth floor, providing ‘. . . a fifth façade of restorative green space rarely available in workplace environments’.41 An open framework of timber and steel will provide structure for the garden and provide a sense of enclosure. It will provide an extra amenity for the people who use the building, as well as the possibility for growing food. This design, in line with many other proposed projects concerned with our environmental conditions, is taking urban green issues seriously. The vertically stacked gardens and a planted roof terrace go a long way to redress the balance between the ‘natural’ and the ‘manufactured’ in this part of the city. As long as the gardens are loved and maintained, this innovative use of space could set a precedent for future sustainable urban living. The research that COOKFOX and their partners in this field are carrying out is aimed particularly at designers of our urban environment. By creating biophilic designs that bring us back in touch with the natural world, they are adding an important ingredient to sustainability issues, where the science behind the biophilic hypothesis can be applied creatively in our daily lives.

Roof gardens

Rooftop gardens are not enclosed gardens in the purest sense. They are, however, defined by the buildings on which they sit, and, in many cases, replace enclosed gardens on the ground that has been built over. There are many, very persuasive, arguments for designing and constructing rooftop gardens or ‘green’ roofs. As rooftop gardens are not on the ground, they

Figure 7.31 Up on the roof.

Figure 7.32

New York. Panoramic view of the growing use of flat roofs for gardens. have less shelter from the weather so they need to be managed differently. Parapet walls, for example, play an important role both for protecting plants (and people) against adverse weather conditions, as well as giving a sense of enclosure when you are several storeys high. Pergolas provide shade from overhead sun. Access may not always be easy in existing buildings, but with newbuilds, this can be designed into a scheme. From the ‘fifth façade’42 of a building you often have spectacular views. The city enfolds and encloses you, but unlike enclosed gardens on the ground, where the view is likely to be framed through an opening, it is panoramic, giving a new dimension to the city (Figure 7.32).

Rooftop locations have many benefits. Roofs planted as meadows, especially those that are inaccessible, attract a range of wildlife, they provide safe habitats for re-colonising flora and fauna long since departed from our towns and cities. Studies have also shown that there is an increase of migratory birds passing through New York, for example, to feast on the insect population that now inhabit planted roofs, attracted to the flowers.43 There is also a range of bird species recorded that are unique to the roof tops.44 Colonies of honeybees have been successfully introduced to rooftops. Well-constructed green roofs rank high on the sustainability agenda. They are favoured for creating sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS). A planted roof can absorb a significant amount of water in heavy rain, slowing down the speed of run-off and greatly reducing the risk of flash flooding. A green roof has the potential for energy saving through its insulation value, keeping the internal environment more stable, reducing heating and cooling requirements. A thick earth layer is relatively stable compared with many building materials that will age and crack quickly in extreme weather conditions. The solar energy beaming down on a green roof is absorbed by the plants, converting it into sugars (energy). The moisture they emit can have a cooling effect on the building below. As green roofs are likely to be heavy and water retentive, the design has to be considered carefully. Like green walls, there have been many failures. The strength of the roof will determine the type of garden that can be created. Sedums require little depth of earth, but mature trees will require up to a metre. The building structures on which they sit have to be adequate to carry the additional load. Waterproofing is essential.

Rooftopresearch

Where ground space is at a premium, the pressure to exploit every scrap is immense, and New York has a reputation for converting it directly into profit.

How this is achieved, still maintaining the integrity of design and for the greater good, is the question facing any architect today. As we have seen in the section on vertical gardens, COOKFOX believe that this can be done through acknowledging the importance of our enduring connection with the natural world and maintaining those ties through the inclusion of landscape and proportions derived from the natural world within their architectural design. Their office is on top of an eight-storey building in the centre of New York, in the high-ceilinged dining rooms of an old department store, but it does not take up the whole area. The extra space has been filled with an expansive rooftop garden. The parapet wall at the edge has

Figure 7.33

COOKFOX office has a panoramic view.

beenextended with railings high enough to provide a sense of security when you walk outside and low enough for you to enjoy the view when sitting at a desk or table indoors. Foreground and background are provided for us to participate in the theatre of the city. The firm sees their office and rooftop garden as evolving from their belief in biophilic45 design principles, enhancing our ‘innate biological connection with nature’. The office’s high ceilings, for example, together with full height glazing, provide plenty of natural light. The constantly changing luminosity is less tiring than artificial light. Natural ventilation provides fresh air and a slight breeze. Everyone has a view of the garden, allowing for a change in focal length of their gaze, which again is beneficial, contributing to effective working habits (Figure 7.33). The garden is designed around the load-bearing capacity of the roof. After a structural survey it was established that only a certain weight of soil could be laid. This, in turn, determined and gave constraints to the planting scheme. Another constraint was its non-rectangular shape. A small nylon system of soil sacks was used to provide sufficient flexibility of layout. Eight types of drought-tolerant sedum with talinum have been planted inter spersed with grasses such as Schizachyrium scoparium, all chosen for their changing in colour and height throughout the seasons as well as their durability. An area to the side of the roof is given over to the staff to grow their own vegetables. These are mainly salad crops for lunches. The ‘Three Sisters’ symbiotic46 farming techniques have been employed to ensure sustainable continuity and a balance of nutrients in the soil. They keep bees and have trained members of staff to attend to them and gather the honey (Figure 7.34).

Figure 7.34

COOKFOX office. Employees gathering honey.

The garden fulfils three functions: first, it adds a pleasure garden for all who work there; second, it is a display for potential clients and con tractors; third, it is a ‘laboratory’ for testing ideas. There is a continuous reassessment of the planting, which provides the firm with information for new planting schemes. In collaboration with the Gaia Institute,47 they monitor soil content of the sacks and the growth rates and water retention capacity of the plants with a view to the reduction of storm water run-off and the cooling effect of a green roof on top of the building. Data is being collected for the promotion of more rooftop schemes. The system of soil sacks is versatile and can be moved to other locations. When the office moves they will be able to pack up their garden as well as the furniture and install it on another roof.

Regaining a sense of place

Visiting Crossrail Place Garden,in the middle of London’s financial district, is a very twenty-first century experience. It appears to be floating in a dock like a futuristic cruise-ship, covered by a huge canopy, waiting to disembark. It is located on one of the old docks that would have been teeming with imports and exports in the nineteenth century and sits on top of a seven-storey building designed by Foster and Partners, completed in 2015.48 Most of the building is submerged and reaches down through a band of floors devoted to retail, connecting down to the new underground station below. Although the access bridges are visible, it is not always easy to find their points of entry (Figure 7.35).Once inside the building, you are quickly

Figure 7.35

Crossrail rooftop garden as seen from the street.

Figure 7.36

Cross rail rooftop garden. Open panels to part of the roof intentionally let the weather in. taken upescalators, through darkened spaces lined with glistening marble, to the top level. At last you are thrown into the light. The city sounds are soft and muffled and surprisingly, there is birdsong, loud and clear. The plants look intensely green after the monochrome of the high-rise city you have just left. You are enticed to walk around the garden along sensuously curving paths that promise more than you can see. Benches are placed along the paths at intervals that allow a degree of privacy for conversation, or just for sitting on (Figures 7.36 and 7.37). The garden is partly glazed over and partly open. The roof structure, a timber latticework construction, forms a 30-metre arch over the whole of the garden. The framework at each end is filled with a covering of highly

Figure 7.37

Cross rail rooftop garden. Detail of bench design.

Source: Author.

insulating ETFE49 transparent cushion panels. This covering contributes towards creating a microclimate where species from warmer climates can survive, protecting them from turbulence from adjacent high-rise buildings, which are visible through the roof, towering up to 40 storeys above. Many panels in the centre have been left out providing a zone where the garden is open to the sky. The garden here survives under more ‘normal’ conditions, with full exposure to natural light, is watered naturally through rainfall and provides a habitat for birds and insects. The landscape and planting, designed by Gillespies, with specialist consultant Growth Industry, has an interesting story behind it. The geo graphical location of the site happens to sit almost on top of the Prime Meridian that divides the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the globe. This generated an idea for the initial positioning of the plants – from the East, on one side and from the West, on the other.50, 51 The more detailed palette of planting was inspired by the discoveries of the plant collectors, Joseph Hooker and David Douglas, in the nineteenth century when the docks were thriving. A further layer of the design strategy was to choose plants or their produce and products that had been specifically imported into the docks themselves. On a more pragmatic level, species selection was also limited by plants that can tolerate the depth of the substrata and will not exceed the height of the over-arching roof canopy. The plants give an exotic feel in this haven set in the hard-edged financial heart of London. The experience is much like walking through

a well-established glasshouse, bamboo from India and China, maple from Japan, tree ferns from New Zealand and Antarctica, Sweet Gum from Mexico, the scarlet-fruited strawberry tree from Europe. As you walk through and linger, you may be able to catch the songs of blackbirds, robins and finches. The scent of the flowering plants rests heavily in the air under the canopy where the air is more humid. It is a designated public space with access until 9.00 pm, or sun down in the summer, and has already been used as a venue for community events. The performance space in the centre has become a popular venue. With the use of historical precedent, this is an imaginative way of looking at site specificity in a location where the cityscape is all new and often has little context, depth of meaning or grace in its overall design, where moneymaking is the only driving force.

Feeding the city

Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farms

I have already introduced Brooklyn Grange at the start of the chapter. Brooklyn Grange Farms are well established on two sites in New York. The

Figure 7.38

Brooklyn Bridge Farm overview.

original farm is on top of the old Standard Motor Products Building, covering the equivalent space of two city blocks. The building was constructed in 1919 with a concrete frame capable of withstanding very heavy loads (Figure 7.38). In 2009 the company sold up. The new owners were looking for new companies to rent the space. A group of dedicated, young ‘urban farmers’ approached them with a plan to rent out their roof, and for it to be converted into a commercial farm. This would involve bringing in many tons of soil, which the building, because of its original purpose, was capable of withstanding. In effect, this venture could provide the owners with an extra floor level of rentable space. It was agreed that the deal could be beneficial for both parties. ‘Little did we realise, these guys were probably pinching themselves, too: we were offering a small amount of capital in rent but the cultural capital we brought to the table was our real value’52 (Figure 7.39). The roof was checked for waterproofing and the existing lift extended for pedestrian access. Earth was brought to the site in sacks and laboriously craned up seven storeys over a period of six days. It was then raked in rows suitable for maintaining a wide range of vegetables and fruit. This was a complicated process involving the circumnavigation of a range of outlets and air-conditioning plants connected to the floors below that had to be kept in place (Figure 7.40). The project has been so successful that the roof of

Figure 7.39

Brooklyn Grange Farm. Gathering kale.

Figure 7.40

Brooklyn Bridge Farm. The farm negotiates all the vents and tanks from the floors below.

another nearby site – one of the buildings in the old Navy Yard in Brooklyn – has been converted in a similar way. With the two farms running successfully, the co-operative has been able to expand to include egg-laying hens and a commercial apiary with beehives located on rooftops all over New York for their honey enterprise. None of this could have been accomplished without the belief and passion held by all the co-founders that cities, New York in particular, should be more sustainable. Their contribution is not only to promote high quality, fresh organic food, but to promote the need for composting of food waste, promote producing food close to home, reduce the time taken from gathering to table and to cut out refrigeration during delivery that avoids fuel emission and transport costs. Their mission is, ‘to create a fiscally sustainable model for urban agriculture and to produce healthy, delicious vegetables for our local com munity . . .’53 Through massive acreage, 2.5 acres in total (0.8 hectares) the roofs absorb storm water that eases the run-off after a downpour, greatly reducing the risk of flash flooding. This has been recognised and grants have been procured for the initial financing of the Navy Yard rooftop. They have a full events calendar that stretches beyond agriculture: education days are regularly organised; yoga classes take place in the summer months. The collective has started a design service based on the experience of creating a rooftop farm. The views are spectacular and the farms have become popular venues for weddings and music events. They are even in guide books and on the tourist trail. A measure of their success is that they have to limit times for visitors and are continually reassessing their aims to ensure they maintain the high standards they have achieved.

Small scale success

Many buildings do not have the capability to retrofit a garden on their roof. This was the case when the owner of a restaurant in the basement of an apartment block in New York had a dream of harvesting fresh vegetables throughout the year and producing seasonal vegetables on the table every day for his customers. The roof, eight storeys above the restaurant, enclosed with a short parapet wall, provided the perfect location, high enough to have plenty of sun all year and sheltered enough for plants to germinate and flourish. The foundations were never built to carry an extra load of earth and greenery on top of them. Even if alterations could have been made, all parties who lived in the block would have had to have been prepared to invest in the upgrade. There was a further problem – no elevator access. The restaurateur, John Mooney, worked out an ingenious plan to overcome these problems; he chose a proprietary system for growing fruit and vegetables using the technique of aeroponics, a hydroponic method of farming that requires only water and nutrients, with no growing medium. Although this method of farming is increasingly used commercially within large-scale agriculture, it is not so often attempted on a small scale in the city. Lightweight growing towers occupy the roof, weighing a fraction of

Figure 7.41

The futuristic garden of the restaurant Bell Book and Candle, New York.

Figure 7.42

Bell Book and Candle. Low tech solution for transporting vegetables to the kitchen.

the equivalent growing capacity of earth. The farming is very intense with over 30 different vegetable crops grown throughout the year, cropped, and then consumed in the restaurant below. Water is gravity fed into purpose-made towers and pumped through them with energy provided by solar power. This allows the added nutrients to continuously trickle down past pockets where the plants grow freely, with long roots trailing in the trickling water (Figure 7.41). As Mooney says ‘Just like the city it (the garden) grows vertically’. He has been able to cut down all travel costs and any associated preservatives required for keeping food ‘fresh’ over time. He is able to have a higher yield than conventional vegetable growing as plants tend to grow faster hydroponically. Disease is reduced and it is claimed that there is no difference to the flavour through using this method. The problem of access was solved through some cunning lateral thinking, resulting in a very low-tech proposition: to create an external lift.

In the corner of the roof garden there is a pulley and rope with a large bucket tied to it (Figure 7.42). The bucket is filled with plants for the evening’s meal and lowered, by hand, down to the chef in the backyard. It does require there to be someone on the roof, but climbing up the eight storeys is considered good exercise for Mooney and his employees. The method he has adopted takes up less ground space than a con ventional garden layout. It has the potential for small-scale cultivation in the city with very little outlay and is an inspiration for those who cannot afford farmers market prices. This very functional layout has the side effect of producing an extraordinary, aesthetically engaging, futuristic garden, no less enjoyable to walk around than other roof gardens. You wander through a vertical garden that seems so appropriate to the ever-rising vertical city. It has perhaps the same lure that other gardens have whose shape is also driven by its functionality (Figure 7.43).

Figure 7.43

Bell Book and Candle. Detail of aquaponic/ hydroponic system.

Figure 7.44

Roof protection.

Figure 7.45

Co-op rooftop pergola.

Living and learning

Rooftop co-op

When the landlord of a handsome 1920s apartment block in New York54decided to sell up, the residents bought it as a co-operative. One of the changes they made was to create a small garden on part of the roof. About 20 years later, when the roof was in need of repair, there were sufficient funds for both the repair and an extension to the garden. Landscape architects RKLA had the challenge of redesigning it. As you arrive on the roof, from either of the two access points, the paths invite you along a sequence of varied spaces. You come across a series of ‘rooms’ as you wander through, each with their own character. You can decide whether to sit down and have lunch in a quiet shady corner beside a rambling rose, lie on a lounger and catch the sun, or walk along and up a few steps to a raised deck framed with a pergola covered with wisteria. If you happen to be there in the evening and look at the view as the sun falls behind the skyline of the city and the scent from the wisteria is slowly released, you feel that you own the whole of Manhattan. This small space, exceptional in itself, alludes to the timeless quality of Italian renaissance arbors set in the hills above Florence or Rome, where their location is tuned to the broader geographical location as well as the garden (Figure 7.45). The garden caters for occupancy during the day and into the

night. As the sun goes down it is transformed into another world. Robin Kay and her team have designed subtle lighting that gracefully illuminates the plants and indicates the way to places where you can catch the coolness of the evening and gaze out across to the glittering city and the night sky. Only a lightweight steel floor structure could be laid over the old roof, limiting the load that could be added on top without endangering the integrity of the structure of the original building. This provided a limitation on the possibilities for the garden. Paving stones were chosen as a lighter option to several layers of earth. Containers of varying depths and proportions have been used for the plants. The larger ones have been placed where the structure can best accommodate the load. This has led to the arrangement of connected outdoor rooms. Plants have been chosen for their hardiness and an automated watering system has been installed to reduce maintenance. Most of the existing plants were able to be re-used as a starting point to the new design, which has given it a sense of maturity. The larger trees give height and provide accents to the scheme between the smaller shrubs and herbaceous plants. They also help break up the spaces for shade and privacy. The mix of deciduous and evergreens provide change throughout the seasons. Each end of the garden is punctuated with a more structured ‘room’ than the intermediate spaces. Elegant steel and timber structures have been constructed to provide degrees of shade and privacy. Slats of timber line the ‘ceiling’ and a canvas sail can be brought out in the heat of the day. There is a sparrow’s nest in one of the trees at head-height along the walk that is easy to peer into (Figure 7.46). What you see is a thoroughly urban creation, more colourful than most, woven together not only with

Figure 7.46

Co-op rooftop. A sparrow’s nest made from urban constituents.

twigs and grasses, but scraps of blue, grey and white thread and tape all scavenged from the detritus of the city. This rooftop garden reveals the possibilities for retrofitting buildings with gardens in urban areas where there is little private garden space to be found. Although the garden is shared by all the residents there is adequate space for several individual groups of people to use it at the same time.

St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s

Many of the children who attend St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s elementary school in New York, spend their lives in a vertical world of apartment blocks. The school has had a long-term vision and commitment over the last decade to provide the children with a learning environment where they have as much first-hand access to the natural world as possible, and through this promote an understanding of its importance for their own health and spiritual wellbeing. This mission has not been an easy task to carry out in a 1960s ‘brutalist’, purpose-built building. There is no outdoor space left for a garden at ground level, but the roof, seven storeys above, has plenty of space to exploit in many imaginative ways. The process started with the construction of a greenhouse on a flat roof, designed as a learning environment. By 2012, with landscape Architects RKLA and Murphy Burnham & Buttrick Architects, a plan was developed to convert much of the rest of the lower flat roofs into ‘green’ play-spaces. They comprise an area furnished with permanent play equipment, a large ball game deck and a small teaching and chill-out space beyond it. Each is an enclosed garden and each has a particular programme. The greenhouse, a light and airy, glazed indoor/outdoor room is full of plants that the children handle, getting involved with the messy process of gardening as well as learning about plants, watching them grow and eating the produce if salad crops have been planted (Figure 7.47). In another part of the building a door opens out from the classrooms into another spacious roofscape. You first encounter a long and narrow area with fixed play equipment. It is surrounded by foliage as if it were a clearing in a park. A row of silver birch screens it from a capacious ball-game area for team games and letting off steam. Its high sides have necessarily been covered with chain-link fencing. Laid over the fence are large shade screens, scrims of canvas printed with images of trees and sky (Figures 7.48 and 7.49).They hide the dull urban background of the backs of apartment blocks. It not only keeps track of highflying balls, but gives a feeling of enclosure and even provides a sense of theatre, an illusory backdrop of trees and the open sky on a grand scale. Beyond the big playdeck lies another outdoor room, hidden this time with an open slatted fence. This is a small teaching area and a place for children to ‘zone out’ away from the bustle of school life. It is enclosed at

Figure 7.47

St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s greenhouse.

one end by a living wall, located to attract their gaze and planted low enough for the children to touch and smell it. The theme of greenery and the importance of plants and ecology are taken through to the classrooms as well. Each one has its own terrarium that the children help maintain and watch the plants grow. St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s commitment to a ‘green’ environment is admirable. It is prepared to have a proportionally high budget set aside for their gardens. The very successful innovation of the large canvas shade screens that are exposed to high winds and hard winters for example, have a short life and are

Figure 7.48

St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s run-about space. Large canvas sails uplift a dull cityscape.

Figure 7.49

St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s detail of canvas screen.

replacedevery few years, each time with a new design. The amount ofgreen space they have been able to squeeze out of a built-over plot is exemplary. Through listening to the client and having a thorough under standing of the site, the designers have been able to imaginatively expand the children’s outdoor experience very positively.

As we have seen in the case studies, there is an irrepressible desire for gardens, justified by a genuine need for our well-being. If ground space is in short supply, walls, roofs and any other left-over abandoned places come into play. Urban gardens are enclosed by default, woven into its fabric. The size and location of the architecture imposes constraints on garden design and this will influence the sense of enclosure whether it is planned or has evolved over time. The overlaying of building materials and the pollution we produce to keep living in cities provide huge challenges. With growing awareness of climate change, we need to manage and nurture our garden spaces, being attentive to the detail – aspect and particular climatic conditions of each location –in order to get the best out of them to make a positive contribution to the sustainable city. As we have seen in the case studies there is more space than one might think that can be used to increase our green footprint. More than that, gardens such as the rooftop farms help the floors below keep a stable temperature and are capable of absorbing a large volume of water, preventing flash-flooding after sudden storms. Specific planting helps break down polluted, post-industrial residue. The research carried out on biophilic design, with the hypothesis that we have an innate biological desire to connect with nature, with a resultant sense of well-being, is overwhelmingly borne out by the popularity of architectural schemes that include gardens within them, places to rest one’s gaze, to dwell in, where our senses are sharpened away from the exposed bluntness of city life. Our agrarian past might seem far away in the middle of London or New York, but bringing back farms close to where we live, providing fresh food, is a reminder of it, re-invented for city life. Rising temperatures and shade from surrounding buildings at ground level in cities are issues to be taken seriously, both for what planting can survive these conditions and for the particular purpose the garden has been designed for, such as Paley Park. The developing city also provides opportunities for reconsidering what we mean by an urban garden. The Forest Garden of the Bibliothèque Nationale has taken an old theme of bringing the ‘natural landscape’ into the city but has re-invented it in a relatively small space instead of a park. Left-over spaces can offer the surprise and delight of discovering a hidden and secret garden, such as

the JardinAnne Frank. Gardens require long-term maintenance and their success will often depend on people who have a vested interest in their upkeep, which we see in the community gardens in New York. With cities becoming increasingly three-dimensional one cannot rely on the ground to provide the only gardens. This has prompted much ingenuity in inventing alternatives as ground space disappears. The vertical garden located on a wall is one of the alternatives that has become more viable with technological breakthroughs. With the manufacture of proprietary brands of planters with new methods for supplying water and nutrients they are developing with their own aesthetic. Given that for most plants a wall is not a natural habitat, their microclimatic conditions need to be acknow ledged. Maintenance is a necessity in these artificial conditions, and access too if a wall is high. With more understanding of the technical requirements for vertical gardens they offer a range of alternatives and challenges to our idea of enclosed gardens, such as the wall in SFMOMA or the internal one at David Rubenstein Atrium. Roof tops have no shortage of light, but are more exposed to other climatic conditions – continuous sunlight, wind and extreme temperature change. Their enclosing parapet walls are often integral to their success. As we have seen, the opportunities are there and are slowly being taken up, for pleasure (Upper West side), education (St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s) and sustainability and food production (Brooklyn Grange Farm). With growing consciousness of the need for cities to be sustainable, it is essential that gardens are incorporated into new developments. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the great landscape garden designers of the West provided places for us to be both actor and audience as we walked through the grounds of a large estate, where we could appreciate a constructed ‘natural world’. In a democratised, twentyfirst-century city, architecture provides the backdrop for the theatre of our outdoor living, but buildings on their own are not enough. Gardens not only keep the memory of the natural world and our agrarian past alive, but are vital for our ecological survival, health and welfare.

Notes

1 A term discussed and defined by Charles Waldheim in Landscape as Urbanism (2016). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2 Nikil Saval, New York Times, 13/11/2016. 3 Designed by James Corner Field Operations with Diller Scofidio + Renfroand planting designer Piet Oudolf, opened in 2009. 4 Biophilia is a term originating from Eric Fromm and popularised by Edward Wilson (Biophila, 1984).

5 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design: Improving Health and Well-being in the Built Environment, William Browning, Catherine Ryan, Joseph Clancy & Terrapin Bright Green (2014). www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/report/14-patterns/ Retrieved 10/10/2016. 6 Air Temperature Regulation by urban tree and green infrastructure www. forestry.gov.uk/PDF/FCRN012.pdf/$FILE/FCRN012.pdf. Retrieved 30/05/2017. 7 Designed by Patrick Hodgkinson. 8 Designed by Dominic Perrault. 9 The forest garden of François-Mitterrand Library, www.bnf.fr/en/bnf/anx_site_ fm_eng/a.forest_garden.html. Rretrieved 25/01/2017. 10 W. G. Sebald, Austelitz Penguin Group, 2002. Description of library pages 386–393. 11 The forest garden of François-Mitterrand Library, www.bnf.fr/en/bnf/anx_site_ fm_eng/a.forest_garden.html. Retrieved 13/11/2016. 12 Bibliothèque Francois-Mitterrand Forest Garden in Paris, www.eutouring.com/ bibliotheque_francois-mitterrand_forest_garden.html. Retrieved 01/02/2017. 13 Salwa, Mateusz (2015). The Uncanny Garden. Jardin-forêt at Bibliothèque National de France, Aesthetic Investigations, 1(1): 113–119. Retrieved 24/03/ 2017. 14 Floriane de RivazBibliothéques et jardins: quelles alliances possibles?www. enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/documents/65107-bibliotheques-et-jardinsquelles-alliances-possibles.pdf. Retrieved 18/03/2017. 15 Promoted by George Mombiot, various articles and Feral, Rewilding the Land, the Sea and Human Life (2014). Penguin Group. 16 Exhibition for the Architectural League of New York and the Park Association of New York Inc. 1963 ‘New Parks for New York’. 17 Stanley Abercrombie, Article Architecture magazine, December 1985. 18 Project for Public Spaces: Paley Park, www.placemaking.pps.org/great_public_ spaces/one?public_place_id=69. Retrieved 04/10/2016. 19 White, Edmund (2001). The Flâneur. New York: Bloomsbury. 20 Opened in 2007 to celebrate the re-opening of the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan. 21 A passage, as the name suggests, is a narrow pedestrian way that cuts through the large Parisian city blocks. 22 The landscape designer Le Notre, responsible for the design of the gardens at Versailles. 23 Jardin Anne-Frank. Les Parcs et Jardins, www.equipement.paris.fr/jardin-annefrank-2737. Retrieved 08/06/2016. 24 www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Chateaubriand/ChateaubriandMemoirs BookXXIX.htm. 25 Abbaye-aux bois, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbaye-aux-Bois. Retrieved 07/ 06/2016. 26 Historical information provided by volunteers, Connie Barrett and John Sutcliffe. 27 Pierre Nora popularised this phrase in his book of the same name, Les Lieux de mémoire in 1989. 28 Sarah Gaventa, New Public Spaces. Mitchell Beazley: London, March 2006. 29 Designed by Namaiki Graphic Design Co.

30 SFMOMA, www.sfmoma.org/watch/the-living-wall/A Breath of Fresh Air. Retrieved 09/02/2017. 31 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art – Habitat Horticulture, www.habitat horticulture.com/projects/sfmoma. Retrieved 09/02/2017. 32 It is a designated Privately Owned Public Space (POPS) (2007) initiative to create incentives to provide more publically accessible space, www1.nyc. gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/plans/pops-inventory/pops-inventory. pdf. Retrieved 17/12/2016. 33 About the Atrium, David Rubenstein. Atrium at the Lincoln Centre, www. atrium.lincolncenter.org/index.php/about-the-atrium. Retrieved 17/12/2016. 34 Lincoln Center to transform Harmony Atrium into vibrant, Twenty-first-century public space for the arts,. www.businesswire.com/news/home/20060607006 096/en/Lincoln-Center-Transform-Harmony-Atrium-Vibrant-21st. 35 Plant Wall Design is a company that specialises in creating and designing customised live vertical gardens using a patented hydroponic technology. 36 See biophilic design COOKFOX, p. 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design Improving Health and Wellbeing in the Built Environment, www.terrapinbrightgreen. com/reports/14-patterns/. 37 The stroller in the city. The term was first used by Walter Benjamin when discussing the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. 38 Information from the following sources, www.atrium.lincolncenter.org/index. php/about-the-atrium. Retrieved 17/12/2016; www.twbta.com/work/davidrubenstein-atrium-at-lincoln-center; www.arcspace.com/features/tod-williamsbillie-tsien/visitor-center-at-lincoln-center/. 39 Biomimetic design – creating sustainable designs through an understanding of natural forms, rather than replicating them. 40 LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The US Green Building Council has set up a green building rating system for sustainable design. 41 Richard Cook and Jared Gilbert, The Fifth Façade: Designing Nature into the City, CTBUH research paper 2015 ctbuh.org/papers. www.global.ctbuh. org/resources/papers/download/2472-the-fifth-facade-designing-nature-into-thecity.pdf. 42 www.global.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/download/2472-the-fifth-facadedesigning-nature-into-the-city.pdf. CTBUH Research Paper ctbuh.org/papers 2015. As discussed by Cook and Gilbert , the term 5th façade, commonly used in the mid-twentieth century with the design of flat roofs has now been re-purposed by landscape architect Diane Balmori to describe the potential of landscaping on roofscapes. 43 Dustin Partridgegarnered notice in the Jan. 27 issue of National Wildlife. 44 Research carried out at Fordham University by Dustin Partridge, 2014. Fordham Notes, www.fordhamnotes.blogspot.com/2014/02/partriges-study-of-migrating- birds-on.html. Retrieved 17/10/2106. 45 The term biophilia was first used by psychologist Erich Fromm to describe the attraction of humans to other living things. Biologist E. O. Wilson, author of The Biophilia Hypothesis, popularised the term describing the innate human affinity for nature and natural processes.

46 A farming method derived from the story of the Three Sisters, as related by Sheila Wilson from the Native American Sappony tribe, a system for growing three very different types of crop together that have a beneficial effect on each other and ensure the continuous fertility of the soil. NCpedia, www.ncpedia. org/legends-three-sisters. Retrieved 25/10/2016. 47 The Gaia Institute is a non-profit research corporation specialising in ‘ecological engineering and restoration with the integration of human communities in natural systems’. www.thegaiainstitute.org/. Retrieved 13/12/2016. 48 Foster + Partners, www.fosterandpartners.com/projects/crossrail-place-canarywharf/. Retrieved 10/06/2016. 49 ETFE Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, a fluoride-based plastic. 50 LAA Landscape Architects Associates. Crossrail Place, London by Gillespies. www.landscapearchitecture.org.uk/crossrail-place-roof-garden-londongillespies/. Retrieved 24/01/2017. 51 Gillespies, www.gillespies.co.uk/#/showcase/transportation/crossrail-stationcanary-wharf/. Retrieved 10/06/2016. 52 Cole Plakas;(2016). The Farm on the Roof: What Brookly Grange Taught Us. New York: Avery press . 53 Brooklyn Grange, www.brooklyngrangefarm.com/mission/. Retrieved 20/10/ 2016. 54 Designed by Emery Roth, 1924.