Why Green Skyscrapers are a Terrible Idea

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In the Netherlands we have the 3-30-300 rule that the government strongly encourages developers to adhere. It means if you look out of a window, you must see 3 trees, 30% of a neighborhood needs to be in shade of leaves, and within 300 meters there needs to be a cooling place like a park or green space.
I'm lucky to live in a neighborhood that is greener with a small pond and ducks🌳🦆

[Jazzcat]

Theres one major issue not touched on here and it makes green skyscrapers even worse. Plants and the substrate needed to sustain them are heavy AF. This requires the building to be specially reinforced and that is pretty damn expensive.

Green rooves that use plants with drought tolerance and shallow rooting then this can work. Trees and shrubs largely do not fall under this category.

[atmamaonline]

I have to say im disappointed in you, Adam. Not once did you suggest turning the skyscraper into a train.

[ImWriiight]

Singapore can kinda pull off the green building thing because it is tropical, rains constantly, and they are mainly planting bromeliads which are native, have minimal roots, and aren’t that heavy. As I understand it, even with those nearly ideal conditions, it’s still a pain to maintain.

[BrutalOddball]

Fire engineer here. Another massive issue is that if or when the trees become somewhat dried out (winter anyone?), a fire can spread very quickly up the facade of this type of building, proving devastating for the people inside. See Grenfell Tower in London for how this can look.

[slowmanatwork]

Cities continuing to be designed with this mentality of "highway first and we'll fit everything around it" baffles me.

[elenazarkovic]

I do see the point, but a big reason for places like for example Singapore to put lots of greenery on the streets and on buildings is heat management. In urban areas in those climates it can get ridiculously hot, and while all the plants make the air much more humid, it's totally worth it so as not to feel like you're living in a concrete oven.

[ivcjwsl]

I feel youre being a bit unfair to nanjing, it has a metro system with 227 stations and a daily ridership of around 3 million, which is pretty good for a city of 9 million. At any rate not comparable to the level of urbanism in Dubai. Otherwise, good video

[calvin]

From my experience as a property manager, the plants on higher floors need more care, they need significantly more pesticide, fertilizers and water than the ones on ground. The fallen leaves needed to be clear twice per day to maintain cleanliness, and trimmed once per week. Whilist normal plants on the ground still grows with minimal care (mostly down to trimming).

The carbon footprint alone from all the pesticide and fertilizer alone do not justify the carbon those plants captured from the atmosphere. Not to mention additional cost needed to maintain all of them.

[nomaeevilo]

I've worked for a contractor with a specialty in green roofs and its amazing how many architects throw together these sorts of designs with no understanding of how plants work. The basic principles that all these designs violate. You need large continuous sections of green, otherwise it will die and become a hazard. Everyone wants to design these tiny little sections that dry out no matter how much maintenance you have. (and if we ever get to the point of the maintenance costs they want to weasel out of that anyway) We don't see it very frequently either, but trees just don't work on buildings for exactly the reasons you outline.

[shuanggao]

As a person born and grew up in Nanjing, I don’t disagree with your opinions on the green skyscraper. But if you have ever been to Nanjing, it has great public transport and superb bike network. Even in the render you showed 3:56, there is a light rail station in front of the building, and I guess that’s a protected bike lane between the rail and the 6 lanes road. Don’t be surprised at how wide those bike lanes are in China.

[qckdbkh]

I used to live in an apartment covered in plants and greenery a bit similar to this. It meant that every time I opened a window, every little creature that lived in those plants came crawling into my apartment in droves. Spiders, ants, centipedes, you name it. Some people might not be bothered by that, but I wouldn't live in a building covered in plants again.

[Nala-Artist]

Don't underestimate potted plants on balconies. My husband was a balcony gardener before he moved in with me, and he could have serious tomato and pepper crops, enough for several meals or pickle jars. If you want to be really efficient, just do herbs and never go to the store for the incredibly expensive little herbal spice jars again. Oregano, mint, thyme, lavender, rosemary, sage, savory, all very easy to grow and dry-store. Basil, too, if you like a challenge. You do like four of those and you can save 20$ a year if you were only buying dried herbs and 100$ a year if you were buying fresh herbs from the store.

[Basement_crusader]

The dead tree and rat thing is extremely accurate, I lived in a place with a green roof and despite being built less than 2 years ago, there were rats and centipedes on the 12th floor.

[tayntp]

I would blame the media and design journalists during 2010s that pushed the idea and hyped up the public about these trees covered skyscrapers.

[armandodemiguel]

A co-worker lives in one of this buildings in Madrid.
Every 3 months plants have to be cut plus there are a dozen regulations on how to cut them in order to not be dangerous.
He pays a lot of comunity.

[Geark]

Don't forget the spiders. Thanks to plenty of cover, warmth and lights attracting insects, plants on the sides of buildings are FULL of spiders. Want to open a window for 5 mins? Say hello to your 182 new roommates.

[saphironkindris]

I don't hate the idea, but my landlord barely even does critical building repairs in a timely matter, you're right that I wouldn't trust them even a little bit to make sure the plant life thrived on the building. I don't think I'd necessarily mind attention from more animals an insects though, I love observing nature through glass.

[DeftPol]

My brother in law worked on one of these buildings in Sydney, and I must admit I thought it looked awesome when done - although it didn’t have trees on it to be fair, just vine plants woven into a mesh through parts of the building. Even still, seeing how just vines and weeds manage to destroy roads and sidewalks given enough time, what this would do to a vertical structure if not aggressively managed…

[mosaton]

I don't know about saving the environment, but trees, flowers, and plantlife growing on buildings in Singapore were absolutely, impressively beautiful.