Gardens crowning the buildings give the whole project such a completeness and poetics capable of sealing the entire architecture.
Architectural Roof Gardens are never banal and conclude in the most surprising way entire project ideas: green or concrete, intimate or public gardens, growing on several floors, are eclectic interpretations of an entire building. These and the many others are the facets of a component that tends more and more to be an integral part of contemporary buildings. We are presenting you ten of the most incredible roof gardens.
La Muralla Roja
In Alicante, Bofill’s Muralla Roja embodies the essence of the Arab Mediterranean and breaks the mold of the division between public and private, standing like a red fortress to the sky and interpreting the maze of the casbah. The project responds to a precise geometric plan based on the use of the classic Greek cross merged with the constructivist theories. This merger has created a set of interconnected courtyards overlooked by fifty flats of various sizes. On the terraces there are a solarium, a sauna and a swimming pool. The clear and distinct range of colors responds to different functional requirements marking out in a unique way the entire building. The ranges of the warm tones of red are in contrast with the appurtenances of the stairs that communicate with the sky through the use of the blue color. Everything has been studied in function of light, illusion and plastic expressiveness evoked by the Mediterranean environments. It is a project that leaves you breathless.
Tolo House
Alvaro Leite Siza’s project in Lugar das Carvalhinhas is a skilful mediation between architecture and landscape; an act that resulted in a surprising composing movement able to interest the whole architecture. The entire project is a set of fragments which are connected and interconnected and that follow through the marked difference in altitude of the lot where this small architecture lies. In this way, the roof performs the dual function of cover and landscape. It is a space totally viable and thought in every movement, in order to connect through internal and external spaces. The communication between the settings is continuous and the whole house creates a new landscape; a prom entirely to live and discover. The Tolo House is not only a clear answer to a project idea, but also a complete proposal of modus vivendi of the house.
Studio Bofill
We already met Ricardo Bofill dealing with the project of the Muralla Roja and we cannot but recognize his genius and his importance as the exponent of post-modern architecture. He is a genius who acts especially in his living space. The headquarters of the study Bofill is worldwide famous for its intrinsic historical
and structural peculiarities. This space is, in fact, the result of the recovery of an abandoned and partially in ruins former cement factory. The factory included more than thirty silos, underground galleries and huge engine rooms. This set of rooms has been totally transformed into a unique complex that includes offices, laboratories, archives, a library, a screening room and finally the Cathedral, an exhibition space for conferences, concerts and a wide range of cultural activities related to the professional life of the architect. Bofill’s recovery is a real class of architecture in every detail and it is clearly completed by the interpenetration of gardens that savagely characterize the building until its cover; it is a space in which is staged the struggle between life and concrete.
House for trees
Under increasing urbanization in Vietnam, the built is taking over the nature and the air is more polluted. Vo Trong Nghia Architects’ response was the design of the project “Tree House”, a prototype house that could respond to a limited budget and a growing need. The aim of the project is to bring the green in the city, hosting large tropical trees within a system of high-density homes. The proposed project includes five concrete buildings-box, each housing a different program and designed as vases within which to plant vegetation. Thanks to the roof garden, these vases serve as catchment areas for water and help to reduce the risk of floods, which is common in Vietnamese cities. The idea is to multiply this package homes indefinitely, to recreate entire cityscapes, an ambitious proposal that fortunately has already begun to see light in some experimental neighborhoods.
One Central Park
Jean Nouvel’s One Central is the first stage of the redevelopment project of Australian cities. It is situated in the area adjacent to Sydney’s central station. The strong green character of the building is not just a quirk aesthetic: it is a complex system km0 powered, flanked by efficient systems for water recovery and energy exploitation. Every technological and climate aspect was acquitted to demonstrate the feasibility of a large-green scale project and its effectiveness compared to the single roof garden, which is often made inefficiently. The project has two key technological features: hydroponics and heliostats. Hydroponic technology allows you to use recycled water from the treatment of wastewater to irrigate plants and green walls, while the heliostats allow you to bring programmable amou
nt of solar energy in the shadow zones of the project by distributing light and heat. The masterplan of the area is to set up a urban park; Jean Nouvel decided to vertically direct the park of his project and let it sink in his building, expressing flawlessly in every corner and terrace.
Guthrie House
Felipe Assadi’s project is the answer to the request for a real estate company that wanted a replicable house, ideally situated on a slope with a gradient of 25% and facing a standard consumer of a family of four in 140 sqm. The pilot project stands as a viewpoint towards the valley of Chicureo, a suburb of Santiago, in growing urban development that primarily focuses its attention to the aesthetics of housing construction. In contrast to the concept of context, Assadi proposed a house with no facade, denying the importance of the aesthetic surface established by society. The building grows from the street level, preserving the natural viewpoint of the valley, the true beauty of the area. Opposing the commercialization of fashion, the Guthrie House lives in harmony with the space and creates a different one, articulated and harmonious, leading to its cover: a conclusion that embraces the landscape.
NY-Chicago High Line
The happiest Roof Garden sample on a large scale is the High Line, Diller Scofidio’s intervention on former railway linking New York to Chicago. This abandoned structure was the subject of a redevelopment that changed the conception of abandoned structures in the world and that has especially changed the whole urban structure and the lifestyle of the Big Apple, from Lower Manhattan to Chelsea. Inspired by the green corridor of Paris, the High Line extends over 2.3 kilometers and is mounted on the original tracks of the railroad. The public walk, car-free, has over 300 species of plants, grasses, shrubs and trees carefully maintained and it is a total urban scenario as it moves through the concrete jungle of the city.
Casa Bahia Azúl
The project stands out as a pure material on the cliffs of Los Vilos, Chile, and it is the outcome of collaboration between Pulido and Araya. Playing with its defined orientation and with its dual structure, this house is based on the complementarity of the rooms and their penetration through a game of illusions and paths. The relationship with nature comes from the dialogue of simple shapes and materials that lead first on dry ground through concrete tiers, creating an authentic outdoor landscape, and then lead to the sky thanks to the space outside-inside that is created in the terraces, a real space that communicates with the sea. The absence of the cover and filters on the openings dematerializes the outdoor-rooms and creates an intimate concrete garden that is in a continuous dialogue with the space.
Arnhem Roof Garden
Inspired by the Dalston Roof Park in London, the Arnhem Roof Garden is a different concept of chill out that was born in 2011 with the project of three Dutch, Willem Hofstede, Yossen Dekker and Maarten van der Wolf. The key of the project was the issue about the exploitation of famous non-places in the city. The architectural response was the creation of a urban space on the roof of a garage that over the time consolidated its figure and is now a real public place in the Dutch city and a pole of culture, creativity and fun. The key word is sustainability. The establishment of the area took place with the help of volunteers who made a real garden on the concrete structure, equipped with a solar plant that produces the electricity needed for the management, and furnished with furniture made from old pallets. To complete the offer there is the gastronomic space.This project is a successful example of collective reappropriation capable of changing the way of living the public space and the interaction among its members, which are active participants in its realization.
Awaji Yumebutai
Tadao Ando’s Awaji Yumebutai is a conference center in Hyogo, a city built after the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. This multifunctional complex lays where it was removed the land used to build the artificial islands in Osaka bay, like for the Kansai International Airport. Then, the concept of the project is the desire to restore the natural order and to make sure that the space once destroyed by man was reconstituted to its original state in a place where there could coexist different animals and plants. While acting through its essential, brutal and clean language, Ando has been able to build a complex landscape of concrete, completely integrated with the nature that welcomes and homes it. The entire structure is the basis for real terrace-gardens that articulate the space and enrich it with architectural experiences and an incredible vastness of natural species, becoming the basis of the meeting of two realities that talk to each other.
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