Understand the importance of incorporating sustainable design thinking and practice in buildings and city spaces
Understand the importance of incorporating sustainable design thinking and practice in buildings and city spaces
Learn about the use of plants in green architecture.
© University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
ZOE NIKAKIS: A research project at the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning is exploring ways to better incorporate sustainable design thinking and practice into buildings and city spaces. The project is a joint venture between university experts and industry representatives which looks at different ways in which sustainability can be part of the construction process, what the benefits of including sustainable elements are, and what barriers prevent its wholesale adoption.
DR. DOMINIQUE HES: The City of Melbourne is very interested in getting more greenery into private industry projects. The industry told us that their main concerns were things like cost, maintenance, the ability to keep it looking great, and really the return of investment for them.
NIKAKIS: Dr. Hes said the roof of Origin Energy's Collins Street, Melbourne office, is a great example of different ways in which industry can act and think sustainably.
HES: We have a private industry that have invested in their staff by having a green roof space. But they've also thought about things like maintenance and keeping the costs down. So we have low maintenance plants. But what's really low maintenance is that they've combined the real plants with the turf. And what these artificial turf does is it means it'll always look green, it always looks pretty, but it doesn't use a lot of water.
It also, surprisingly, reduces the urban heat island effect. So if we had concrete here it would absorb that heat and that heat would re-radiate and make the place more uncomfortable. Whereas this actually absorbs some of that heat and reflects a lot of it. And the plants use it for their growing and so forth. And so that reduces the urban heat island effect.
NIKAKIS: Project member Dr. Ole Fryd says there are many other good examples of marrying sustainable thinking with good design and industry considerations.
DR. OLE FRYD: Urban greenery can assist in revitalizing abandoned [INAUDIBLE] land. It can actually promote increased property values. It can actually increase employment. And it might eventually turn into a tourist attraction. An example of that is the High Line in New York which was abandoned railway line which was turned into an elevated linear park. And what has actually happened is that the property values have doubled since it opened.
NIKAKIS: Dr. Fryd says changes in policy and thinking are integral to developing more sustainable infrastructure locally.
FRYD: The key issue is also related to urban policy. It is not only about the city being regulators, but also the city being facilitator's. It's about developing a good co-equation between public interest, private stakeholder interest, and working jointly towards developing sustainable green cities of the future.
NIKAKIS: Dr. Boon Lay Ong has developed a research tool, the green ratio, which measures the quantity of greenery in buildings.
DR. BOON LAY ONG: The green ratio is based on a very simple idea, that most of the benefits we get from plants come from the leaves. If you calculate the total amount of leaves on a site, against the ground that the building covers, you get what I call the green plot ratio.
Knowing the amount of greenery on a building, we are then able to estimate the benefits of that greenery with regards to that building. We would then be able to calculate how much transpiration the plants are doing on the building, how much air is being cleaned through the leaves, how much heat is absorbed by the leaves, how much shading is provided by the leaves.
NIKAKIS: It's these and other such research tools scientists and industry groups will use to create a more sustainable future for everyone.
HES: I'd love to see a lot more greenery in the cities because if we have greenery around us we're more productive, we're healthier, we feel more active, we want to go for walks more. These are all things that make a city more livable. And so bringing greenery in is not only healthy for us, it's good for the environment-- seems a win-win for me.
DR. DOMINIQUE HES: The City of Melbourne is very interested in getting more greenery into private industry projects. The industry told us that their main concerns were things like cost, maintenance, the ability to keep it looking great, and really the return of investment for them.
NIKAKIS: Dr. Hes said the roof of Origin Energy's Collins Street, Melbourne office, is a great example of different ways in which industry can act and think sustainably.
HES: We have a private industry that have invested in their staff by having a green roof space. But they've also thought about things like maintenance and keeping the costs down. So we have low maintenance plants. But what's really low maintenance is that they've combined the real plants with the turf. And what these artificial turf does is it means it'll always look green, it always looks pretty, but it doesn't use a lot of water.
It also, surprisingly, reduces the urban heat island effect. So if we had concrete here it would absorb that heat and that heat would re-radiate and make the place more uncomfortable. Whereas this actually absorbs some of that heat and reflects a lot of it. And the plants use it for their growing and so forth. And so that reduces the urban heat island effect.
NIKAKIS: Project member Dr. Ole Fryd says there are many other good examples of marrying sustainable thinking with good design and industry considerations.
DR. OLE FRYD: Urban greenery can assist in revitalizing abandoned [INAUDIBLE] land. It can actually promote increased property values. It can actually increase employment. And it might eventually turn into a tourist attraction. An example of that is the High Line in New York which was abandoned railway line which was turned into an elevated linear park. And what has actually happened is that the property values have doubled since it opened.
NIKAKIS: Dr. Fryd says changes in policy and thinking are integral to developing more sustainable infrastructure locally.
FRYD: The key issue is also related to urban policy. It is not only about the city being regulators, but also the city being facilitator's. It's about developing a good co-equation between public interest, private stakeholder interest, and working jointly towards developing sustainable green cities of the future.
NIKAKIS: Dr. Boon Lay Ong has developed a research tool, the green ratio, which measures the quantity of greenery in buildings.
DR. BOON LAY ONG: The green ratio is based on a very simple idea, that most of the benefits we get from plants come from the leaves. If you calculate the total amount of leaves on a site, against the ground that the building covers, you get what I call the green plot ratio.
Knowing the amount of greenery on a building, we are then able to estimate the benefits of that greenery with regards to that building. We would then be able to calculate how much transpiration the plants are doing on the building, how much air is being cleaned through the leaves, how much heat is absorbed by the leaves, how much shading is provided by the leaves.
NIKAKIS: It's these and other such research tools scientists and industry groups will use to create a more sustainable future for everyone.
HES: I'd love to see a lot more greenery in the cities because if we have greenery around us we're more productive, we're healthier, we feel more active, we want to go for walks more. These are all things that make a city more livable. And so bringing greenery in is not only healthy for us, it's good for the environment-- seems a win-win for me.