4.4 SUMMARY

CHAPTER 4.4

SUMMARY

Roof gardens are essentially the future of green spaces with retrospect to London’s current urbanisation crisis. As such, existing roof gardens similar to the examples mentioned in this chapter are inaugural for the future as they should set examples for the hereafter, so it is imperative that these roof gardens place biophilia at the forefront of the users’ experience. All three examples successfully adopt biophilia in different ways, for example in the case of the Stockwell Street building, nature is introduced both inside and outside the building to inspire its students to get in touch with nature and utilise those spaces for serenity and reflection.

Furthermore, the Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden opens its doors to new volunteers to experience gardening as a new hobby, and whilst partaking in this exercise they would become infatuated with the greenery. In favourable cases, biophilia indirectly turns lives around and nature could

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become the forefront of the gardener’s life. Furthermore, additional greenery during the summer means the roof gardens can be enjoyed by the public all year round and by utilising the garden, users are spreading awareness of the existence and multi-purposeful benefits these roofs bring. Such common spaces may only potentially come into existence only when users actively shape it and are shaped by it, and only when they continue to create sharing practices in it and through it.

Finally, with the example of the Crossrail Place roof garden, the unique selling point is the contemporary closed-roof garden to allow different rare species of plants to thrive under controlled conditions. The miracle to how this miniature ‘park’ supports small scale plants as well as trees proves how ingenious architecture and engineering can support such delicate plant species on the building’s roof. Another good example of a mixed-use modern building is the 61,000m2 8House in Copenhagen, showcasing residential, retail and offices on the lower levels, followed by a roof terrace on the 10th floor76 to introduce biophilic assets into the community. Public and private life are coalesced into one building in which journalist Kelly Minner describes as a “three-dimensional urban neighbourhood rather than an architectural object… where suburban life merges with the energy of a city”77 .

Through the aforesaid case studies, we have studied the significance of the roof gardens’ capability of supporting many species of plants, and similarly how roof gardens are adapted to and attract different commoners to the gardens. Active participation is imperative whilst engaging in the roof gardens for nature to flourish along with constant architectural trans-

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formation and appropriation through use. Commoning is an inventive process, a process that involves creation, a process that produces new forms of social life, even though it appears as the result of adaptive processes. Commoning even offers the opportunity for new ‘forms-of-life’ to emerge78 .

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RE-IMAGINING BANK (ORIGINAL IMAGE BY MILSTEIN, N.D., EDITED BY AUTHOR)