Rose Garden

Rose garden

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Garden room.

Green Architect

Green architecture is an approach to building that minimizes the harmful effects on human health and the environment. The “green” architect attempts to safeguard air, water and earth by choosing eco friendly building materials and construction practices. These buildings reduce the energy bills and also provide a healthy environment to live in.

Tiny concrete jungles

In New York City, urban gardeners have to make the most of a small amount of space. Marie Viljoen only has 66 square feet of space for her tiny concrete jungle. Learn how Ms. Viljoen and other gardeners make every leaf count:

SIXTY-SIX square feet is certainly bigger than a window box, but it is, perhaps, smaller than some fire escapes.

Yet the dimensions of this narrow outdoor room, which sits outside a garret-like apartment on top of a Brooklyn brownstone, are ample enough to support a tangle of roses, lilies and anemones, along with clematis, heliotrope and creeping jenny, strawberries, figs and herbs, mint and echinacea, two lanky humans and a large, irritable black cat. Also, a table for two and a brazier for cooking.

One hot, bright evening recently, Marie Viljoen and Vincent Mounier sidled this way and that on their terrace (she is 5-foot-11 and he is 6-foot-2), offering gin infused with red currants and topped off with beach-plum liqueur or water with basil, mint and lemon. And what about a loquat?

On the table, there were roses in a jelly jar and Estorbo, the cat. Like the riot of plants outside, Ms. Viljoen, 42, and Mr. Mounier, 48, would appear to be thriving in their tiny habitat (their two-room apartment is just under 400 square feet). Eight years ago, when she was single, and hankering for a garden, Ms. Viljoen, an opera singer turned garden designer, moved into this apartment (rent, $1,900) because she knew what she could make of its outdoor room, which was then an empty, leaky masonry box.

As the micro-pad continues to work its way through the news cycle, following Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s challenge to developers to design 300-square-foot micro-units for a city-owned plot on East 27th Street, it is worth noting that in New York City, tiny apartments have been a housing staple for at least a century, their constraints and quirks part of the price of admission here.

And living well in them has long been celebrated, in a literary tradition that includes the essays of the late Laurie Colwin, the domestic miniaturist, who elegized her one-room Greenwich Village apartment, just “a little larger than the Columbia Encyclopedia,” and the meals she made there on a hot plate. (Ms. Colwin would recognize a kindred spirit in Ms. Viljoen, whose literate, lovely blog, 66 Square Feet, is a memoir told in meals. What Ms. Colwin might have made What Ms. Colwin might have made of the Internet is another story entirely.)

Many New Yorkers continue to endure their cramped spaces because they come with another prize: outdoor space. As the photographer Alex MacLean showed in “Up on the Roof: New York’s Hidden Skyline Spaces,” a new book with images shot from the bubble of a helicopter, that urban greenery takes multifarious forms. The bright patches of green — proof of life, aloft! — that fleck the gray aerial grid will take your breath away.

What follows are tales of two of the city’s tiny gardens, and how they grew.

THE ACCIDENTAL GARDENER

Alejandro Aguilar has developed a 12-step program for those who dwell in micro-pads. The first step: “Admit you live in a small space. Deal with it.”

Mr. Aguilar, a 48-year-old designer from Honduras, has been dealing with tiny spaces for more than a decade, ever since he moved into a 184-square-foot apartment on the Lower East Side and carved out a specialty as a wrangler of tiny homes after having puzzled out his own.

He has taught classes in small-space living at the continuing-education school at Hunter College. He is an expert at excision, exhorting students and clients to prune unwieldy, unused possessions and bad habits. (Mr. Aguilar allows himself no more than six pairs of shoes, one jacket, one change of sheets and four towels.) He eschews free-standing furniture for built-ins.

But in 2006, when the rent on his own micro-pad rose to $1,200 from $800 and the landlord began charging for electricity, which averaged an alarming $250 a month, Mr. Aguilar left Manhattan and became the third roommate in a three-bedroom apartment in a rowhouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. (Before that, there was an unhappy rental in the South Bronx, but that is another story.) Since he was the third and most recent roommate, he drew the smallest, worst room, next to the kitchen. It looked out on a grubby tar roof walled in on three sides by his own building and the two that flanked it.

In his 10-by-12-foot room, which he rents for $1,000, Mr. Aguilar constructed a storage and living system of built-ins, curtains, mirrors and lighting, drastically altering the feeling and functionality of the space. Then he tackled the roof.

In May 2010, he laid down a deck with timber he cut in varying lengths to make a pattern like a Mondrian painting. He built one raised bed, then another. He hung containers up the wall, proceeding vertically, as he had in his bedroom. He worked instinctively, making assemblages that pleased him visually, buying plants for their color and shape, and learning the names as he went along.

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He planted a dogwood, a plum tree and lilac bushes. He put begonias in tiny containers that fit together like a puzzle, so the begonias wouldn’t grow any bigger. He planted vines like moonflower and grapes, roses and clematis. And as they began to climb, he built a ladder for them out of metal sign holders (in the winter when the leaves are gone, the grid they form looks like a Mondrian painting as well).

When the vines reached an upstairs neighbor’s window, he wove a net of twine and threw it down from the roof, so the vines could latch onto it and skirt the windows above.

All in, he has planted more than 300 plants (and spent about $8,000), a tally that does not include the seeds from a wildflower mix he tipped into a planter last May, the progeny of which is now waist high.

As a child, Mr. Aguilar said, he learned early on to fit in, to take up as little space as possible, to be nearly invisible. He came to this country at age 9 to be treated for a brain tumor and lived on Long Island with a series of aunts and their families, whom he barely knew. He grew estranged from his parents.

In six years, he moved six times and attended six schools, graduating early to study biochemistry at the University at Buffalo, though he eventually dropped out. His professional life as a designer can be summed up by the manifesto “do more with less.”

But his garden, as abundant as a tropical jungle, is in opposition to these principles, a corrective to a lifetime of restraint

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A BIG ENOUGH PATCH OF HAPPINESS

“Ask for what you want. Then stick around.” That is one of the posts on the blog Ms. Viljoen began in May 2007 as a place to stretch out as a writer and photographer.

The blog form was just right for recording her enthusiasms, as she put it, for the minute changes that occur in a garden, like the opening of a rose. It also gave her a way to communicate with her mother back home in Cape Town, over their shared interest in gardening.

But that particular post was no floral reference. It was the epigraph to her first meeting with Mr. Mounier, with whom she had been corresponding for a few months, blog to blog, as it were. He was a photographer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and she was interested in a photographic technique that he practiced. Googling it, she came upon his blog, which had an inscrutable name, Coriolistic Anachronisms, but lucid essays about his craft.

After a month or so of trading increasingly epic comments and e-mails with Ms. Viljoen, Mr. Mounier wrote that if she lived in his city, he would love to take her out for a cup of coffee. She challenged him to do so. In September of that year, he flew in for their first date, a cup of coffee at the Newark airport. Ms. Viljoen’s post that day was pictorial, a photograph of fireworks.

By January, they were married at her parents’ house in Cape Town. “We had rather a good day on Thursday,” she wrote with typical economy.Ms. Viljoen’s first career was onstage. She had been an opera singer, living in Washington and New York City, and singing in Europe, when she contracted whooping cough in 2000, ending her career. (At 16, when her high school classmates were receiving their pertussis boosters, she hid in the bathroom.)

Looking for another way to pay the rent, she walked into the Chelsea Garden Center and asked for a job. She grew up gardening, so she knew a lot about plants, but not much, she said, about those in this hardiness zone.

Before long, though, she was designing gardens, including a multilevel extravaganza for Anderson Cooper. She also adopted Estorbo, the shop cat, because his jaw was broken and he needed care. Eventually she graduated to a job as the head designer of a company called Holly, Wood & Vine, but in 2009, during the first wallop of the recession, she was let go, a traumatic event that nonetheless jump-started another career, as a garden writer.

With lush photographs and spare prose, Ms. Viljoen has used 66 Square Feet to record her life as a gardener, a cook and an urban forager, harvesting mushrooms from Green-Wood Cemetery, beach plums from Jamaica Bay and century-old glass bottles from the dump at Dead Horse Bay, as well as plucking condoms from Prospect Park, a group endeavor she called the Prospect Park Litter Mob, and built a blog around, before throwing out her rubber gloves last spring (that blog’s mandate: carpe condom).

Meanwhile, 66 Square Feet has slowly gained an avid following, which resulted in an article in Martha Stewart Living and, later, a book deal. Out in 2013, “66 Square Feet” is a diary in recipes that progresses seasonally, the sum of which Ms. Viljoen describes as “an edible love letter to living in a tiny space in an enormous city.” Though truth be told, she and Mr. Mounier hope they will not be living in such a small space forever.

Out on the terrace last week, the light was honey-colored and horizontal. As Estorbo tried halfheartedly to scratch one visitor, Ms. Viljoen ducked under a door jamb to offer another visitor a second glass of red currant gin.

“I think two people can live well no matter what and no matter where,” she said. “The idea is to take pleasure in life, and be willing to be pleased

Green Designs - First Vertical Skyscaper.

 

Several years ago a Swedish-American company called Plantagon unveiled plans for a series of massive skyscraper  houses that stood to transform urban farming in large cities. While the spiraling vertical farms seemed too good to be true at the time, Plantagon just broke ground on its very first vertical farm this week in Linkoping, Sweden! The “Plantscraper” will grow and supply fresh vegetables while creating solutions to some of the most vexing city pollution issues.

 

 

Plantagon seems to have traded in its initial geodesic dome design for a sheer tower that both contains and showcases the plants growing inside. This prototype building will be called the International Centre of Excellence for Urban Agriculture, and it will be a place for scientists to test new technologies aimed at improving urban farming.
Inside the massive glass walls, vegetables will be grown in pots and then transitioned to trays positioned around a giant central helix. The plants grow as the trays slowly migrate down the central core and are ready to be harvested once they reach the bottom. Plant residue and manure will be collected along the way and transformed into biogas to run the heating and cooling systems of the greenhouse. Scientists want the vertical farm to not only grow food but also help in developing sustainable solutions for energy, heat, waste, and water issues of daily city life.


 

Eco Offices ~ Sign of the Times

When an old technology office needed a makeover from its minimalist soviet modernism decor, they decided to go big -- and green! The wonder workers at TSEH Architectural Group in Kyiv, Ukraine have recently revitalized a hard, cold industrial office space into a luscious indoor garden. With green walls, trees, even grassy knolls to sit upon, employees can stop and smell the flowers without even leaving the building.

Upon entering the technology office space, guests are greeted with two vertical green columns at the reception area. The indoor greenery does not stop there, as a grassy wall fence leads back to the open offices. An amazing lawn-like cube is cut out of the center of the the main office, while trees and plants sprout out of the concrete floor throughout the rooms and hallways. Even a grassy hill sits under the stairs of one area, making for the most relaxing conference room ever! And what is any green office without a terrace? Employees can sit outside on breaks and take in the panoramic treetop views on their metal landing surrounded with shrubbery.
While greenery certainly brightens up a room, it is nothing without the right environment. The new office layout is open and light, with only glass partitions separating each room. Floor to ceiling windows create a fresh and bright space for air to flow freely and plants to thrive.

This eco-takeover incorporates a ton of green and grassy features, but it also preserves most of the original outlines of the industrial loft. The design was not to destroy the past of the space, but to build upon it, to give it a bright and fresh future. Many parts of the ceiling remain unfinished, exposing wires and pipes, while the original concrete walls and floors remain intact. This is definitely an office we’d love to work in!


 

The Dhankhar Initiative

Let's introduce you to Dhankhar, the once stunningly beautiful capital of Spiti, perched at a 1000-feet and overlooking the confluence of the Spiti & Pin rivers. Dhankhar is an important Buddhism monastic centres in Himachal Pradesh and a prime tourist destination. However, Dhankhar monastery in its state of disrepair has been listed among the World’s Hundred Most Endangered Sites. The Dhankhar Initiative is an attempt at restoration, Ecotourism & livelihood generation for the Dhankhar community. ~

The Garden of cosmic speculation. Scotland.

One of the best landscaped gardens in the world.

If only other govts would follow this example.

KOLKATA: The state government has made owners of heritage buildings an offer they cannot refuse. The state will reimburse 50% of the cost if they get their buildings renovated. If it works out, it will change the cityscape.

For now, the scheme is for Grade-I heritage structures. "We may extend it beyond government buildings. Grade-I private heritage buildings will be covered under the Great Kolkata Tourism project. The city's heritage is a major focal point of the scheme jointly implemented by the tourism department and ministry of culture," said principal secretary, tourism, Raghavendra Singh.

PARADISE GARDENS 
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Gardens aren't just a form of landscaping. To some, they're a refuge and a retreat from the hassles of everyday life, a physical embodiment of beauty, relaxation and abundance. This sentiment is echoed by the form of garden known as a paradise garden, an embodiment and reminder of heaven on earth.

Functionally, a paradise garden is an enclosed garden. The word “paradise” is derived from a Persian word meaning “walled garden.” The enclosure keeps out unwanted plants and blocks the outside world from view. Strong geometric motifs, specifically rectangles and squares, are common stylistic features of paradise gardens. Many paradise gardens showcase water with pools, fountains, ponds or streams. Fragrance and fruit trees and shrubs are often planted to attract birds.

The Moghuls adapted the Persian form of Charbagh garden since it was well suited for the climatic conditions of India. A Charbagh is a style of garden that originated in ancient Persia. This type of garden is generally very regular in design and layout, and is often split into geometrically identical portions, as evidenced by the fact that the term charbagh roughly translates as "a garden in four parts."

A Charbagh is typified by a careful and meticulously ordered layout. In a Charbagh, the space is typically divided evenly into four parts, with pathways or water used to divide up the garden. Any formal structures included in the Charbagh are usually located at the center of this organizational pattern or on the periphery. In larger examples of this type of garden, each quadrant may be further divided, yielding sixteen smaller gardens of identical size.

Normally these gardens are laid out at a lower level and have a Pavillion at a higher level from where the entire garden can be seen. An example of this is the Brindavan Garden of Mysore. This garden is laid on a North South axis and has three levels descending from the South to a large lake, and three ascending levels towards the North.

Green Architecture is an approach to sustainable building, which has become progressively more prevalent in the last three decades. Also known as sustainable design, Green Architecture is a method of simpler design that minimizes the impact of building on the environment. Green Architecture is not only designed for present use, consideration is also given to future uses as well. The materials used in its construction are designed to facilitate ease of recycling and reprocessing of materials at end-of-useful-life.

Buildings consume a variety of materials in their construction. Green design reduces the dependence on resource intensive products and materials. There are an increasing number of products available made from efficient,earth-friendly or recycled materials. In a green building, consideration is also given to the construction process itself. Materials that minimize waste or can be recycled, help contribute to an efficient and environmentally sensitive construction process. Attached are photos of the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University. Singapore. It’s covered with a green roof that blends with the environment and serves as a gathering place.The unique form of the roof sweeps down to the ground.

It also serves to insulate the building, cools the surrounding air and collects rainwater to irrigate itself and the surrounding landscape.The curved building is embracing a courtyard with water features and plants. The reflection of the trees and nature can been seen on the all-glass exterior.

Eco Resorts

An eco resort is a picturesque resort where nature is unsullied and inviolate and uses nature friendly resources for everything from construction to cleaning products. These resorts also re-use many items and try to maximise their ecological impact as much as possible. Eco resorts typically have a focus on learning new ways to live, a green way which is normal to the environment and appreciating of their natural surroundings. Eco resorts not only implement an environmentally-conscious approach to running their business, some also offer guests volunteer opportunities against the environment and local community as well as a variety of eco-acts, such as nature tours.

We, at Archtech Solutions are totally committed to environment conservation. And it shows in everything we do from maintaining the ecological balance, helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity, We at Archtech Solutions believe in making optimal use of environmental resources. In keeping with this philosophy, we have adopted this in the way the resorts have been designed, conceived and the materials that have gone into its construction and the countless little things we advocate to the clients to do each day while running it.

Eco Resorts designed by Archtech Solutions have been built in accordance with environment-sensitive technology, minimising the dependence on cement, and using mud and other locally available materials instead. Recycled wood is used for much of the woodwork. The designing of an eco-resort itself contributes to passive energy conservation.

"The environment matters" ~ That is the mantra of Archtech Solutions. The projects undertaken reflect a marriage of eco friendly designs with stunningly beautiful structures and landscapes that harness the sustainability factor.

Heritage Conservation

"Historic preservation" has been described by Wikepedia, as an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. Other names for the discipline or sub-disciplines include urban conservation, landscape preservation, built environment conservation, built heritage conservation, object conservation, and immovable object conservation. "Historic preservation" is also generally used to refer to what is known as "heritage conservation" or "heritage preservation". In most growing cities, heritage structures, are under serious threat. Building activity, expansion of cities to accommodate a growing population, pressures for increasing FSI and general apathy towards our heritage has led to neglect, damage and destruction of many structures possessing architectural, historical, social and artistic qualities. One area of our specialization is Heritage conservation and restoration.

Green Architecture and Landscaping

Green Architecture and Landscaping

Green architecture, or green design, is an approach to building that minimizes harmful effects on human health and the environment. The "green" architect or designer attempts to safeguard air, water, and earth by choosing eco-friendly building materials and construction practices. Also known as "sustainable development", it is framed by the larger discussion of sustainability and the pressing economic and political issues of our world. In the broad context, sustainable architecture seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, and development space. Most simply, the idea of sustainability or ecological design is to ensure that our actions and decisions today do not inhibit the opportunities of future generations. This term can be used to describe a ecologically conscious approach to the design of the built environment ~ or simply put an eco-friendly architecture or earth-friendly architecture that has now become a global responsibility.

Hyderabad-based firm Archtech Solutions has always been drawn to green architecture because of "serendipity, a new challenge, and just the excitement of working with hitherto not used materials as well as design demands". Where work is concerned, Abbas Razvi is led by his heart, and not his head. This designer of environment-friendly or 'green' buildings ensures there are adequate environment-friendly practices incorporated in his landscape and architectural projects.

"The environment matters" ~ That is the mantra Archtech Solutions. The projects undertaken by the firm reflect a marriage of eco friendly designs with stunningly beautiful structures and landscapes that harness the sustainability factor. They are totally committed to environment conservation and preservation.

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