Built to Breathe

Visually stunning, functionally efficient and a futuristic design concept is The School of Art, Design and Media, in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU-ADM).Blending into the landscape of a vegetated corner of the campus it has been described as ‘a vegetated form that blends landscape, structure, nature, high-technology, and symbolizes the creativity it houses’. Not too far in Seoul a green structure stands out in an otherwise stark, modern landscape— Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester’s flagship store in Seoul, Korea. A step ahead of NTU-ADM, this structure has green walls too. The trend is certainly interesting.

Green roofs and green walls are precisely that—green living structures. They are usually created with perennials planted on a membrane which is then attached to the structure. In these days of sustainable and environment friendly architecture, living walls or botanical architecture are popular for their climate control and freshness of aesthetic values.

School of Art, Design and Media, Singapore: A stunningly modern building, it blends into the surroundings, with a grass roof that gives it a warmth it would otherwise lack. Allowing the landscape to play a critical role in molding the building, the NTU-ADM is the creation of a “non-building”, allowing the original greenery of the site to creep and colonize. The architect was required to work to preserve the wooded valley as a green lung. Designed by the CPG Consultants Pte Ltd for the Nanyang Technological University, the 18,000 m2project was completed in 2006 at a cost of Singapore $35.39 million.

The curving green roof gives the building its own distinctive personality on the campus. A five-storey facility, with an all-glass facade to provide a high performance building envelope that reduces solar gain and heat load, while allowing the benefits of natural views and daylight into creative spaces. The roofs create open space, insulate the building, cool the surrounding air and harvest rainwater for landscaping irrigation. Inside different spaces are created—from the formal auditorium seating to the more informal studios, lobbies, passageways and breakout lounges. There are also cozy outdoor corners, a sunken plaza formed by the embracing arms of the building and the turf-top roofs.

The glass façade with its transparency and connectivity is maintained throughout the exterior and interiors. The sense of continuity is carried through the interior, from the entrance to the main foyer to various spaces inside and right into the turfed roofs. Internal glass walls enhance this visual connectivity and flow, allowing one to see beyond rooms to develop the interaction and creative exchange. There are full exterior views providing visual connectivity with the lush landscape. At night, the lighting reverses the connectivity allowing the activities of the school to be observed from the outside adding an angle of dynamism with the changing character.

Anne Demeulemeester Shop, Seoul: A multi-level green marvel appears to be growing up from underneath the greenery in an alley near Seoul’s fast upgrading Gangnam district. Anne Demeulemeester flagship store of Korea stands three floors tall. This project takes living with nature to another level with green walls and green roof. Just a year old, the building appears to rise up underneath the greenery—a glorious merging of ornamentation and structure. Foliage covers both the internal and external wall surfaces. The designers worked to incorporate as much nature as possible into the building within the constraints of a low-elevation, high density urban setting. They strived to smoothly flow the natural and the artificial, as well as interior and exterior to present an amalgamation,rather than a confrontation.

Designed over three-four months by architects Minsuk Cho and Kisu Park of Mass Studies and effectively constructed in five-six months, the colors and size are impressive. The parking is at the center of the site, the entrance to the Ann Demeulemeester Shop is on the western side of the courtyard and the stairs for the multi shop and the restaurant are on the eastern side.

The herbaceous perennials Pachysandra terminals are planted into “geo-textile” which is a “woven, non-woven or knitted permeable sheet, usually but not exclusively, non-biodegradable.” The living walls in the form of replaceable tiles are covered with this evergreen ground cover. The plants as natural air-purifiers literally offer that fresh breath of air to the mind and body. They cool the building naturally and absorb rainwater.

Botanical architecture is certainly becoming —”a synthetic organism of nature and artifice.”