⭐ — Green cities 2030 : exploration and development of an innovative idea
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Concept (August 2023)
What is Singular Green ?
A — General considerations
B — Ease of living considerations
C — Structural constraint considerations
D — About how to finance the idea
E — Consideration about communication
F — Security and safety considerations
G — Scientific considerations
H — War time considerations
I — Going further
Note
Our idea : green and vegetalized streets above the roads, like a walk-able superposed city.
➠ Concept (August 2023)
➠ Concept (August 2023)
The concept is aimed at using nets placed above roads to build special spaces and a lot more at the lowest cost and fastest efficiency. The goals are to fulfill climate objectives, ensure freshness and biodiversity preservation, entertainment, feasibility, possible marketization, space optimization, cities needs and good looking, furthermore cost optimization for the targeted objectives.
To get the core idea faster, you can take a look at Singular Green work. This will be our ground reference for development.
➠ What is Singular Green ?
➠ What is Singular Green ?
Like others, Singular Green is working to put nature at the core of the city while using innovative and climate-friendly structures. The idea of juxtaposing a green layer above streets, parking or roads, comply with the 2050 Paris Agreement objectives — but this could go further : making these space useful too, with walks path, beehives or kid gardens.
Here are several nets ornamented with plants and flowers to meet cities' ecological needs as we move into the Anthropocene area. You can see a hydroponic tube. Source : from the official website.
Our idea : green and vegetalized streets above the roads, like a walk-able superposed city.
A — General considerations
A — General considerations
By developing this idea, it may be possible to :
1. Revegetalize streets and roads by placing nets above it and growing plants (like ivy).
2. Through the shadow offered by these installations, this could ensure to keep concrete fresh during hot periods. As cities may reach 52° due to heated concrete and heated car thermal radiation, this solution may possibly ensure a more safe environment. And :
In winter, there might be a slight "greenhouse effect" or heat retention under the nets (as for greenhouses).
In summer, the phenomena of evaporation would push the creation of a "cool cushion" above the streets, thus maintaining humidity and freshness at correct living standards. Furthermore, this would have an effect on the thermal insulation of the first floors of buildings in summer and winter. Which saves costs both For consumer and the provider.
Also there might be a mitigation effect of hot and cold winds during summer and winter.
Also there might be a mitigation effect of air-pollution linked to vehicle exhausts.
3. As shown by the scientific literature, a plant layer could help filtrate rains from impurities and diminish the risk of floods.
4. Through some artistic holes in the nets designs, or more flared ones like what Singular Green offer, it could be possible to conserve daylight or offer birds and animals a way to pass through, which would help and preserve biodiversity.
5. Moreover, this would be good for pollinators insects such as bees, butterflies or even ants but also for birds to build nests — or cats maybe ?
6. If the previous solution is chosen (or not), overall net design could be done by artists to create vegetal art.
7. From a structural point of view, street lights, building walls or trees might be used as attachment points. In some part solution may involve a simple or more complex rope knot if the weight constraint can be managed.
8. Soft LEDs lights could be hung to create beautiful lighting effects with different colors all along the streets and roads. To reduce light pollution, these lighting systems could use light bands in subdued red hues (see why here).
9. A walks path might be installed above the vegeralized covering structures.
10. Flying taxi landing zones may be built on reinforced points of the vegetalized nets around and above important places (Place de la Nation, Place de la Catalogne).
11. Height and volume effects around monuments or historical buildings can be envisioned. For example, with vines and falling lights, or urban jungle effect. This could be good for temporary concert stages with lightning and nature around.
12. With this project you could create a lot of jobs to build and maintain the whole structure.
13. Rainwater could nourish plants and be collected to be reused depending on the installation (see Singular Green above).
14. In terms of prevention regarding our future — in case of "doom event" — urban cultures could be installed above the vegetalized nets with space, weight and hydroponics systems.
16. As the sea level is meant to rise, these structure may bring another solution to walk over flooded roads between building (see here). This means having walks path between buildings above the road for :
Instead of investing endlessly in dikes, we could move along with the sea, and build venetians-like coasts.
B — Ease of living considerations
B — Ease of living considerations
1. In terms of noise pollution there will be a notorious gain (even minimal for local residents) : see wave propagation in an environment with no disturbances and an environment with disturbances (this goes for police sirens and other one, as well as reducing visual annoyance above thanks the to vegetalized nets).
2. In terms of urban comfort for the view, it is much more pleasant and would produce obvious psychological gain (relief, appeasement, joy). A significant psychosocial gain would surely be observed through data-metrics thanks to the installation : suicide rate lowering, depression and anxiety relieving or even effects on criminality (see studies on the positive effects of nature).
3. Pedestrian walks path could be installed over the structure, or even bicycle roads.
4. This project could break down the generational barrier on climate risk management, showing concrete results.
5. Depending on the vegetalized net placement around facade and if it is a pedestrian zone, delivery could be done through the elevated pedestrian walk — who wouldn't want to open the window to receive a package ?
6. From the point of view of green spaces access, this brings vegetalization close to the elderly or persons having mobility difficulties.
7. The same way, this could be great for school or after-school activities : club time and psychological or disabled people support groups.
8. For cultural events, it potentially allows you to give a new approach to the event (viewing angle, etc.) — for example, doubling the number of people or reducing the density of the crowd.
9. There might be hidden gains visible in terms of traffic rage mitigation (klaxon and motor roaming) thanks to a new and fresh urban environment.
C — Structural constraint considerations
C — Structural constraint considerations
1. For the minimal height question, the answer lies inside the height of tallest vehicles.
2. Suspended LEDs may be placed with plants on elevated walks paths and streets, for that weight constraints must be patiently studied to guarantee safe structures.
3. For the more sun exposed net areas, solar panels may be of great help (with a metallic frame built to handle the weight). However, to let light pass through, panel disposition may be done with spaces in the overall shape.
4. For firefighters, police, urgency or place moving, the height of the vegetalized nets must be designed to allow the deployment of a firefighter ladder (even with the weight of what they carries) — this means having hollowed surfaces in the nets near facades. To be safe, the best option is to ensure a complete curvature of deployment in each point for a median building height for the highest ladder — which also resolve the issue of scaffolding. For that tree attachment solution may be used (A — 7). In low building town or city, this may not pose any issues, but on large cities places with high buildings, this have to be acknowledged.
5. If trees have to be cut down (urban planning or caused by a disease) — there are other possibilities to maintain a distribution of mass flows with other tensors (if they were chosen as pillars), like street lamps or facades.
6. The builders of this vegetalized covering above the streets need to be careful about possible mass increase due to frost in winter.
7. Using recycled materials from the country of origin, if France, should be done as much as possible to ensure the economic influence of French know-how as well as showing advancements in favor of Paris Agreements.
8. For pedestrians and tourists elevated walking path on the vegetalized nets, heavy load-bearing structure must be envisioned, it could be discret or either mixed up with light load-bearing structures (see Singular Green pictures).
9. To build these structures, it must be considered :
Seismic constraints.
Fire risks, propagation, coming from the buildings near or from the vegetalized nets.
Storms, hail, falling trees and building collapse. The tensors must be adapted as much as possible to each area and building.
The risks of humans and material fall from and over the covering nets.
10. Also, there would be maintenance gains over underground flow pipes in urban or peri-urban areas, as they would break less often thanks to the preserved freshness provided by the vegetalized nets. See more here.
D — About how to finance the idea
D — About how to finance the idea
1. Part of the funding could be taken over Christmas light decorations' budgets for these streets and roads space would be then used by the installation.
2. Tourism organizations may help finance several parts in the hope of a high investment return.
3. If built, firms harnessing the power from solar panels may fund the project too.
4. As above, special installations built on the vegetalized nets may attract investors like for the flying taxi landing zones (A — 10).
5. Groups or organizations pushing for a green renewal or a green soft power may participate too.
6. Furthermore, in some places of the vegetalized installations, publicity signs may be hanged with innovative format (low consumption LEDs), which could help the municipality and community to finance the whole project. Below to be seen by drivers, above for pedestrians of walks. Even if the project is ecologic, we have to think in terms of systemic change and integrate all the actors to provoke these changes. Thus publicity contractors may be involved in the things by placing ad in some points of the vegetalized structure — this adds a profitability to cover the project cost (building, maintaining, etc).
7. To completely or partially cover an entire city, the overall building costs may be lower than a huge re-urbanization plan to grant the city a 2050 climate resiliency with all the diversified income sources listed above.
E — Consideration about communication
E — Consideration about communication
1. From a communication perspective, the changes induced by the project would clearly be visible (atmosphere, shadow, freshness, vegetalization, biodiversity). Thus attracting the public's curiosity.
2. Soft power : international image abroad would attract and propagate this idea. You can postulate that this will have a strong impact in the international press and the cultural world (cinema, content creator, influencer). From a filming perspective, aerial shots could be filmed by flying over the vegetalized nets with drones and passing through the hollowed cells (built for animals and insects, etc.).
3. Politically, people would have a feeling of satisfaction from literally seeing that things are moving inside their city. The polls are clear, the population wants action. All age groups combined. In terms of coverage, influence would show real moves toward the Paris Agreement, and it's important regarding all the beneficial effects for the population and the biodiversity. Gains would be explicit in times of heatwaves and that would show the scientific, human and financial viability and utility of this project. Citizens could literally see why and where their money was invested.
4. Lastly, for international relationships (IR). If this is built in France this could help showing that the whole country is moving towards Paris Agreements and restoring the image of the country.
Initial project cover.
F — Security and safety considerations
F — Security and safety considerations
1. In the case of riots, the vegetalized net structures' integrity and safety may be at risk. Which have to be anticipated (a test zone may be useful). Inflammable parts may pose serious issues. Furthermore, for pedestrians accessible parts, protests may take place there too.
2. About old camera networks (owned by police and intelligence), new spending may indeed be involved, however, with new technological advancements, this could be approached as a technical challenge.
3. Hovering cities with a light drone would become way more complicated, which could be good both for civil liberties and security (no police nor civilian drones flying above).
P. Lamy, Place du Capitol, Toulouse, 2024
4. Risks of burglaries on nearby facade must be assessed, as well as overall walks path security, thus raising patrol costs and surveillance ones — or foreseeing risks of squatting vegetalized nets walk path at night.
5. Assessing maintenance and cleaning problems if public utilities cannot drive on it. Accessibility must be ensured for interventions or injuries and illnesses (firefighters, ambulances or police). There must be many access points for these sur-elevated areas.
6. The question of night lighting on the accessible part of the structure to avoid criminality (rapes and bullying) must be addressed too. New generation lighting (low consumption LEDs) might be useful for this purpose.
7. Water point as well as public toilets must be planned too, for optimization, merging water point and water hydrants into one piece is possible.
G — Scientific considerations
G — Scientific considerations
1. The whole building and planning is of scientific relevancy to experiment on multiple domains, such as preserving biodiversity and keeping the city fresh and habitable.
2. The upcoming results from this project could feed the research to optimize the idea, fulfill climate obligations, ensure biodiversity preservation and integration in urban spaces, all while preparing cities for hard heatwaves or raising sea water level, like what is envisioned for 2100.
H — War time considerations
H — War time considerations
1. If the whole structure is weightless and made of soft material, it may be burned to let heavier tanks and vehicles pass through streets and roads, although ;
2. In an urban conflict configuration, the possible camouflage for ground troops offered by the nets may be useful, and ;
3. Streets and roads covered by vegetalized nets may offer a GEOINT camouflage. Meaning that all competitors and opponents would become blind while doing satellite and drone spying (or reconnaissance and surveillance) — which could be useful for capital cities.
4. In case of conflictuality, this layered urban environment may be to the advantage of the defender (below and above the vegetal nets) — intruder will fall into an urban labyrinth whereas the defender would have a perfect knowledge of the place, and ;
5. The vegetalized cover can be used to hide war vehicles below (EW, radars, missile systems, etc.).
6. With what was said above, in the case of guerrillas, the advantage is to the guerrillos.
I — Going further
I — Going further
1. This project could be a powerful social laboratory. For example, you could choose to install an automated freight network above the vegetalized cover to the exclusive use of post offices — thus having no more troubles getting through traffic for delivery and it would give them a monetizable advantage over giants like Amazon Prime.
2. This is a new space to exploit and explore. The possibilities are almost endless :
For example, building an elevated kid garden above the vegetalized net.
Build an exotic plant garden or museum on several suspended layers. Or the same for art.
Use walks on the vegetalized net to pass above big urban places that are hard to crosswalk.
Building temporary or permanent markets above the streets on the laced nets.
3. Place bee hives in some city point on the covering nets and open collaborative gardens for people to make compost and take care of plants.
4. Layers of vegetalized nets may be placed above one another in some part of the city.
➠ Note
➠ Note
This model is adaptable and adjustable to highways. The market is huge and numerous initiatives already exist, like this one with solar panels (Marseille 2023). For these contractors, gains are in driving comfort for users (psycho-social effects of the vegetalized nets), and in the reduction of interventions for mechanical and engine breakdowns due to heatwaves. In addition, this would obviously reduce infrastructure maintenance costs — moreover if you produce electricty — for example by mitigating concrete degradation due to heat. You can see more here.
Artistic view of Marseille's project to cover a part of the A7 highway with solar panels. Credits : FTV
➠ Press
➠ Press
November 2024, a similar idea is presented in Lyon, France, by the artist Romain Frequot from the Tristan Architecture agency. The initiative is aimed at reducing the temperature up to 4°C said the mayor Gregory Doucet, read more here.
C — 10 : From shadow and heat dissipation, there would be maintenance gains over underground flow pipes in urban or peri-urban areas, as they would break less often thanks to the preserved freshness provided by the vegetalized nets. See more here.
Or, what about doing it above the Seine ?
#Key:GenAI #Key:Starred
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