Pennsylvania to Unveil Largest Green Wall in North America

Tomorrow, Pennsylvania is scheduled to unveil North America's largest green wall installation. The building, designed by Kim Wilkie, is a public restroom facility at the Longwood Garden's new East Conservatory Plaza. The bermed, arching pod-like complex is open to one side and supports a natural outdoor amphitheater on the other. The interior green wall is a total of 4,072 square feet, which is almost twice the size of the second largest green wall in North America.

The majority of the astonishing 47,000 plants are ferns, which are embedded in a non-soil growth medium. Remote operated drip line irrigation and an array of sensors maintain the plants to help ensure quality control and longevity of the plants. The wall essentially acts like a filter and lung for the complex. An estimated 15,500 lbs of dust and toxins will be removed from the air each year, and the more visitors, the more CO2 for the plants to metabolize and exchange for O2.

Amsterdam's Alligator-Shaped Mixed Use Development Offers Unique Public and Private Spaces

The Albino Alligator is mixed-use project composed of five buildings that is designed to regenerate the Buiksloterham region in Amsterdam North. Rotterdam-based Maxwan architects designed each branch of the office to house a different part of the building's program, which resulted in an alligator-shaped building.Each building is used for a different purpose and forms a part of the alligator’s body. A series of public spaces including retail and offices forms the head, a strip of row houses forms the body, a residential tower serves as one of the legs, a tower of live-work studios serves as the second leg, and a fitness club makes up the tail. Each building is shaped by its structural and programmatic needs.

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LA Cleantech Corridor & Green District Competition Award Ceremony Saturday October 9th

The Cleantech Corridor, located just East of downtown. Imagining an innovative urban vision for the recently designated Los Angeles Cleantech district in downtown Los Angeles is the current focus of SCI-Arc's Future Initiatives program. Under the direction of faculty member Peter Zellner and David Bergman, the post-professional degree program has once again partnered with The Architect's Newspaper to sponsor its latest open ideas competition, Los Angeles Cleantech Corridor & Green District Competition.

The competition asked architects, landscape architects, designers, engineers, urban planners, students and environmental professionals to create an innovative urban vision for Los Angeles' Cleantech Corridor, a several-mile-long development zone on the eastern edge of downtown LA. It asked entrants to move beyond industrial uses—creating an integrated economic, residential, clean energy, and cultural engine for the city through architectural and urban strategies.

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