The hanging gardens of Singapore
Fri 21 October 2011
Karina Eastway, Bachelor of Communications
There’s a new trend to literally “green” the world’s biggest cities, with landscape architecture transforming urban streetscapes, building facades and city roofs.
Singapore, a city well known for its existing green cover, is taking the idea one step further by introducing artificial “supertrees” in a fusion of nature, art and technology.
The 50m high structures-vertical tropical gardens which include solar thermal collectors, rainwater harvesting devices and venting ducts-are part of the global push to reconnect cities with nature.
The supertrees reflect Singapore National Parks Board (NParks) initiatives to make Singapore a “City in a Garden” with green roofs, vertical greenery and gardens in the sky becoming an integral part of the built environment. 
Singapore has been at the forefront of this movement since it introduced the Index on Cities Biodiversity (CBI) in 2008 as part of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
At the time, almost 50 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities, and the UN predicted the figure would increase to 70 per cent by 2050.
With that in mind, NParks concluded the major impacts on biodiversity would inevitably lie in urban settlements.
It foresaw the decisions, behaviour and consumption habits of Singapore’s large urban population could potentially have a powerful and positive influence on biodiversity conservation.
As part of its vision, NParks introduced the Skyrise Greenery scheme .
The project funds the installation costs of green roofs and vertical greenery to residential and non-residential buildings, ensuring any greenery lost on the ground is replaced in the built environment.
University of Melbourne Green Infrastructure Group researcher John Rayner felt Australia could learn from Singapore’s example.
The research group aimed to maximise the benefits provided by plants in urban environments from traditional green infrastructure to innovative technologies such as green roofs and walls.
“Australia is weird in that we have urban sprawl but we need to change our culture and accept that we’re going to be living in vertical buildings,” Mr Rayner said.
“Some of the benefits of green infrastructure are cleaner air, the capacity to minimise storm water runoff and also improve the quality of the water runoff.
“The plants also act to cool our cities which suffer from an urban heat island effect, making urban areas up to 5 per cent higher than the surrounding countryside.”
Mr Rayner said cities such as New York were even converting large roof areas into farms and experimenting with urban agriculture as a means of food production.
“If climate change scenarios are correct, we need to plan, design and create a technological response to find proper solutions that actually work,” Mr Rayner said.
“We need research to prove the benefits of green infrastructure— we won’t survive without it.”
While the Skyrise Greenery scheme is environmentally sound, it also provides major economic benefits for Singapore, attracting foreign investment and creating employment.
NParks said the “City in a Garden” image increased property values, raising the economic value of surrounding urban areas and measured the economic savings in lower building maintenance and reduced energy consumption.
Perhaps most importantly, green ecosystems also aid physical and psychological health, and provide vibrant and sustainable living communities.
Sydney’s University of Technology found a close proximity to nature was critical to human well-being, providing both social and psychological benefits.
In a 2007 presentation on urban forests, Dr Jane Tarren established nature had a restorative power, enabling people to overcome mental fatigue and lead more comfortable and effective lives.
Green recreational areas also encouraged active lifestyles which produced positive health outcomes and a longer life span.
The research showed urban forests provided benefits to specific target groups such as hospital patients, prisoners and people in the workplace.
In these examples, having even just a view of green space provided faster recovery, less use of health services and increased well being.
Of course, greening cities to accommodate environmental, economic and social concerns provides a dichotomy.
By increasing the effectiveness and appeal of urban areas, more people are attracted to them, creating even greater environmental and economic pressure and further urbanisation.
Conlon Birrell Landscape Architecture director James Birrell said this could be a positive thing.
“As cities increase in density, it will help to preserve the environment and humans leave less [of a] footprint on the natural landscape,” Mr Birrell said.
“By creating urban green spaces we can also affect micro-climate control and prevent the low density sprawl which causes a huge drop in fauna and flora.”
If UN predictions are correct, our move into urban areas will be the biggest migratory shift of the human species to date.
While scientists and politicians across the world debate solutions, the concept of greening our cities at least seems to have everyone in agreement.
Image(s) designed by NNECAPA photo library
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Submitted Comments
Very good Karina. Very good.
George
These buildings are very pretty and eco friendly. It would be great if cities all over the world did this.
Wes