Why Green Skyscrapers are a Terrible Idea 

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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.

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🌳🦆

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

My apartment complex advertised dense green spaces on top. The fact that no one is allowed up there makes me doubt it.

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.

I can't help but wonder where the roots of the trees are supposed to go. Root clusters are huge. When a tree gets knocked over by the wind, the pit left behind is massive compared to the diameter of the trunk. Are the roots supposed to just not exist because there's a balcony beneath them?

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

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

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.

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.

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

Your ability to transition to the sponsor description about rats, and hawks killing pigeons made me laugh so hard I had to watch it again. I sent it to my university friends to show how marketing should transition. Thank you Adam Something you made my week!!!!!

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.

I like green skycrapers (and green walls and green roofs in general) on the basis that they A) look cool, B) have thermal and acoustic benefits for the occupants, and C) provide valuable habitats for small animals in what would otherwise be a brick wasteland. Mostly A. Trees are probably a bad approach, but vines and succulents are tried and true, and offer even more green coverage without the drawbacks.

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.

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.

In the area where I live in Turkey, there has been an eco-ish residence for over 20 years. Well, because it's 20 years old, it hasn't been really well-maintained. The trees were alright because that type of fruit tree doesn't grow taller without an abundant water supply, so they addressed that problem, I guess. However, what they didn't consider was that the building is made of steel and concrete with wooden ornaments and coatings. Although the structure looks very cool and eco-friendly, the whole building burned down due to an electrical malfunction, likely because the building is old. Firefighters couldn't extinguish the fire because there was too much wood, and the smoke from the burning leaves made seeing things incredibly difficult. Fortunately, nobody died because rich people usually don't stay in the majority of their properties.

You forgot to mention that trees and bushes like the sun to the point of developing branches as far as possible in the direction that gives the most light. So they would really try to stretch away from the building and put even more torque on the structure as a result. This is kind of mitigated with gardening, but still worth pointing out.

Vertical water pumping is difficult, and exposure to high wind and sun makes for thirsty plants. Even without these sterile ornamental parks roughly 1.5% of all power consumed in Hong Kong for example is used to pump water up to high rise apartments.

I understand your point about Greenwashing for a city, but it can be done right! In Eindhoven there is the Trudo tower (you showed the construction of it in your video), which is social housing (tenants pay ~600€/month instead of 1200€/month that is usual in Eindhoven)! It was built for 1650€/m2 instead of the usual 1500€/m2 for social housing. The balconies have an irrigation system and the shrubbery is chosen in collaboration with landscape architects and a gardening company that also takes care of the plants. Tenents are made aware that they need to allow gardeners in their apartments every quartile for maintenance (not every 2 weeks), as the shrubbery is low maintenance. You mention that the trees can also be fitted on the ground. As an architect I say: why not both? The urbanist does their part, and the architect does too :)

The "shitting on the floor" analogy is the best comparison I've seen for a while! Bravo!

Birds of Prey like Hawks and Falcons like to nest on Skyscrapers in general. Peregrine Falcons (among other species) like to nest in mountains and to them a skyscraper is just a sort of funny but still perfectly serviceable mountain. My dad had a view which always had pidgeon parts that were the bird's leftovers.

The Bosco Verticale in Milan does look very cool, but it's a one-off kind of project, made for millionaires and that's it. The park directly below it has a lot more trees and is actually enjoyed by Milanese people. It's a cool landmark in a new part of the city, like many other old landmarks in other parts of the city (Duomo, Castello, Galleria, Brera, Monumentale etc). It's not a solution to anything, it's just a cool piece of concrete in the middle of the city.

"Climbing plants" like Ivy would also be a good idea for greening regular buildings

Middle height buildings... from the comments - moss, as Tokyo is doing... short plants and weeds, which the gardeners or the owners pull up once or twice a season, and throw down the organic compost shute....And maybe every 7th floor can be a garden floor. Do it with PUBLIC HOUSING first. The grandmas would love to get the little ones digging.

As someone who actually bought an apartment in this type of building and did a bit of due diligence: On one side, it's amazing that you found out all those issues as a hobbyist. On the other - so did Boeri & Associates - and got it all figured out: 1. The building is located right in the city centre, there is no space for any greenery on ground. buildings 7. They spend months running computer simulations to calculate wind speeds and optimize tree type and placement (most wind-exposed areas get smaller, more flexible trees). It worked, btw - the building survived 3 extreme storm events, not a single tree went flying. 8. Yes, you have to use alpinist gardeners. It sounds like best job ever and if I ever get bored working in IT, I *sooooo* want to become rappelling special forces gardener. Deep down, even you can admit it: It's a Best. Job. Ever. 9. Building uses intelligent, rainwater based watering system. You can get a system like it for your garden in Castorama for a few bucks, it would be outright weird not to use it in XXXM€ buliding. 10. They are squeezing 360 full size trees on 30 floor building, which is quite a result. As a funny trivia - the rooftop is fully forested and closed even to the penthouse owners (to make it a safe haven for birds and other animals). 11. The walkable terrace park on 8th floor will be reachable by general public. It was one of requirements city council put on the developer (and codified in the building deed). In summary: This is actually a rare good implementation. Pollution is very local phenomenon and putting building like it right in city centre should have great impact on local micro-climate. Even if you left the ground unused as a park, you wouldn't be able to fit more than 20% percent of trees the building has. You would be also stopping ~300 families from having a car-free home within walking distance to the best connected rail station in the whole country. @Jazzcat135: You are correct - that is the only real issue. Based on calculations of engineering firm that designed it, they had to use ~30% more concrete to accommodate the trees. I still feel that given the benefits, it's worthwhile choice. BTW, when the project is finalized in Q4 this year - feel free to visit with me, maybe with @AdamSomething in tow :D

I suggest to go checking how Bosco Verticale in Milan, which is now 10 years old, was built and is maintained. Many questions the video ironically asked, has been solved. From how to carry the weight of the plants, to how to replace them (there are two cranes on the roof tops, in case), how the trees are anchored to prevent wind to make them fall, to maintenace done with special gardeners. Obviously those things aren't cheap. But this is not the point. The point is that, if you do it properly, it works just fine. Many imitations around the world didn't take in account all these things and often failed.

Some counterarguments: - I went to a school that was newly built with plants on the top. The Welsh weather and the short roots made it such that nobody had to water them except for maybe a few days in Summer, and the roof was very safe. - If you were to look _between_ a lot of the nanjing towers you mentioned, you'd see a lot of trees, green space, and public utilities. Oh and also, the area is on the growing metro network too. - It would be entirely possible to have the lease agreement state that to live inside the flat, you need to allow the garderners to come in, say, every Tuesday at around 13:00. The floorplans could certainly be made such that the floor-balcony route follows a hallway instead of going through rooms - There is little problem with flowers and short-rooted plants in what are effetively plantpot-troughs attached directly to the structure - Should there be plants on _both_ the floor and skyscraper, there should be little problem with the class split you mentioned.

As a landscape architect, I see nothing wrong with wanting more greenery one the buildings. It's mostly an issue of chosing plants that are suitable for what is basically a giant cliff-side. And less than full-on trees or shrubs can do the job just fine to get this kind of vibe. I'd say it's one of those things where, no, of course this is not by itself a solution to anything, but it has a strong signal value of a worldview becoming more widespread where unkept nature is valued as something integral to daily life and human well-being, not just something out there far away in a nature reserve or (god-forbid) an in-itself worthless thing to exploit. Culturally, it is a big step that apparent wilderness is becoming not just something to tolerate for the sake of dry biodiversity goals etc., but attractive and alluring as an aesthetic in itself. Keep in mind, I don't want to defend dictatorship concrete jungles, car-centric planning or greenwashing in general etc. I love this channel precisely because it is so good at cutting through the bullshit and I don't doubt that a lot of those greenscraper projects are just that seen in isolation, but I hope this adds a bit of context.

"gardening-themed burglaries" is my new favorite phrase 😂💀

The structural integrity of the buildings will most likely be the biggest problem with big plants on buildings. Everyone who owns a small garden or just.... ....has eyes. Knows that no matter what you do, plants can and will break though everything. You can see this with roads where plants crack up everything. No imagine this with skyscrapers. Ofc maintaining could kinda delay the problem (not solve it) but we all know that most residents won't do that, especially in countries with less regulations.

I live near Luciano Pia’s 25 Verde in Turin. It isn't a skyscraper, but I think it is an early example of this type of work. The plants are in big iron planters on a scaffold that wraps the building. I was going to do a tour on an annual architectural tour event around the city, but the line was crazy long (Italians can't just let people walk around for 20 min and read signs, they have to engage some long-winded person to tell you endless details). I like it from an aesthetic point of view, and it gave me a real feeling of serendipity when I first stumbled upon it when going to tour the old Fiat plant across the street. Certainly, any claims of it being a great environmental treasure are silly, but I'm glad it exists.

As someone who's studying architecture i find your video quite interesting as it seems that most problems involving green skyscrapers have already been solved Now i dont have any practical experience so please take my comment with a grain of salt but since this concept of putting plants on buildings seems to be quite popular here in the netherlands id like to give my own opinion 1. Maintainance In most green wall/roof systems there are pipes that provide plants with water and minerals. Plants are also carefully selected to minimize overgrowing and the need for trimming 2. Damage caused by roots When installing a green wall/roof a root repulsive layer is added to make sure the roots stay within their pots 3. Insects/pests One of the key sellingpoints of green walls/roofs is improving biodiversity for example: bees, butterflies and other insects wich support the ecosystem. Speciffic plants can be chosen to attract the right insects though i fully understand someone not wanting a massive insect magnet infront of their window Some more points not adressed: Having plants in a city drasticly cools down the temprature during the summer and with many (european) cities not having the space for plants at ground level it could be a solution to place them on the walls/roofs Having more plants in a city also improves with retaining rainwater Instead of al the water going down the drain a causing clog ups or even flooding the streets it is now being held by plants slowly evaporating in dryer periods Though the last one could also be a negative as having tons plants retaining water will affect the weight of the structure and thus needing more material for construction While green walls/roofs wil not be saving the climate as some people make them out to be i do think that having a green wall/roof here and there will have its merrit both for nature and human well being

To be fair, Nanjing currently has and is expanding a subway system. It has 13 lines with a daily ridership of 3.1 million, which is about 1/3rd of its metro population (I’m not sure if it’s 1 way or 2 ways. 2-ways it’s more like 1/6th, which is still a lot). It’s also has a bunch more metro scheduled for completion in the next couple years.

Or (and I accept this is a somewhat radical idea) we can do *both* ideas! Remove lanes to reduce traffic, have street-level parks and make the city walkable _and_ have green wall/roof buildings to add even more plants to the city, reducing the heat island effect, reducing echoes and damping the noise of the city, providing habitat for wildlife and so on... Maybe keep trees on the ground and have climbing plants and small shrubs etc on the buildings. With regards to maintenance access, I recently did some work at a clients apartment where the buildings main stairs lead onto an outside balcony that then went to the apartment doors. Didn't seem to be any more of a problem than inside corridors. I suppose when it rains you might get wet going between your door and the stairwell.

0:30 my dude I can't focus with this Sims 2 BANGER blowing through my speakers

I also want to note something from an engineering standpoint, as someone who's been on farms since I was 6, and started dicking around with hydro, aero and aqua -ponics around 15: A HUGE issue for long-term installations is also that plants don't *get* they're in a building - the root systems that grow will *ALWAYS* find the tiniest imperfection in their beds construction given enough time. Meaning that the building itself is slowly getting demolished by the plants. My municipality building has those crawling/climbing shrubs because "aesthetic". The problem is, they also plate the outside with marble slabs. Every 5-15 years, the entire building gets shutdown for 6 months to fix and replace the marble, but they never uproot the invasive plant.

Do you have a link to one of those poop scraping robots? My toilet is like 8m away from where I sit now. Unbearable.

I go regularly to Nanjing. It's, in many ways, a concrete jungle, and the long summer is 40c, very humid weather. However, the public transportation system is quite good and affordable. The center(s) are walkable, and residential areas all have convenience stores nearby. You can live far from the center without the need of a car. One critic I would have about those buildings is the maintenance cost. In China, typically, the residents of a block choose the maintenance service and go for the lowest bidder, so what was nice after construction quickly degrade over a few short years. The many green spaces will likely quickly degrade to a few low maintenance plants, with patch of dead vegetation.

Two things: It's not easy at all to plant trees at ground level in cities, as there are some many underground facilities and infrastructure. I live right next to such a green building and the main problem is that plants need constant moisture to thrive, while at the same time that's very bad for the buildings substance. Just doesn't mix very well.

I used to wok on one of these in Sydney, abseil cleaning windows... the gardeners were constantly behind because the EWP on the roof did not have the working capacity to pull out enough material in a day, the irrigation lines would constantly blow out, pouring fertilized water all over the windows, filthing them up. Worst part every 10 years the soil in the planter boxes, and all the vegetation had to be replaced, as plants do not live for ever and the soil becomes denigrated. There was not plan on how this was going to happen, and the EWP would not be able to handle it. long and the short is that the strata fees were increasing, with no sing of stopping.

6:18 - that was my first reaction to the concept of trees growing on buildings. Their roots can penetrate (eventually) just about anything.

4:35 ... you missed the train station that is even closer to the buildings than the road. Regarding the effort: With automated watering and wise choice of plants you barely have any effort. Trees isn't a good choice... smaler plants might be smarter. Just to be clear, this can't be effective to catch CO2.. but it can keep buildings (and whole city area) cooler in hot climate.... if you reduce AC by this... it still helps reducing CO2.

But the green render looks SO much better than another gray skyscraper next to the 6 already there...

There's something soothing about listening to someone else complain about stuff. It's like a mini Holiday from my normal grumpy old man duties. Kind of have me leaning towards their plan when you had the hawk tearing apart of pigeon outside my window .

hi, i'm actually in my first semester in uni studying city planing in germany. green facades are actually one of the key components we are talking about in my course. especially on roofs. the thing is tho, atleast here, a majority of buildings arent skyscrapers. i would really like to discuss this point. (other key factors are green infrastructure as in plants and public transport etc)

Never expected a half-baked take from this channel, disappointing. I live in Singapore and we made it work and it helps to keep our areas cooled down and not be baking.

Trees on the ground in sufficient quantity can lower the ambient city temperature by over 10 degrees C (roughly 25F lower) in really hot weather.

As an Italian, I am very grateful you were merciful enough to never mention our Bosco Verticale. Seeing it in on screen every 5 seconds was enough for me to cower in shame.

To be honest the building in the thumbnail does not really have all the issues listed in the video. It's the Bosco Verticale in Milan which stands near a public parc, a major train and metro station, cycle lanes and is far from freeways. Also for maintenance there is a crane on top of the building which can be used by gardeners. Of course this is a building for the super rich and it would be better to put trees on the streets (and we're doing that) but Milan doesn't really have the same level of car dependancy as the other examples listed in the video, and in fact the thing that pollutes the most are the old buildings that don't meet current European standards, while transportation is "only" about 15%. And by the way I'm pretty sure they select plant types with caution, of course they won't choose to plant trees that will get too big and damage the building.

As an avid floor pooper myself, I'm interested in that poop scraper you mentioned.

An architect's dream is a civil engineer's nightmare

Hello! Very interesting video. Im an architecture student and i'd like to add some context. Green roofs or green walls are a concept that has at least 100 years. It was revolutionary in 1928 when Le Corbusier built Villa Savoye. Green roofs have lots of problems, if poorly done they leak, they are heavy (which means they require stronger construction, which means more concrete and steel [concrete has a very big carbon footprint]). The idea behind greenery on buildings was more about allowing people to enjoy having a garden, when they only live in an apartment. I would love to know what do you (the author of this video) think about Habitat 67' that is an apartment building, created for EXPO in 1967 in Montreal. It looks pretty much the same as this one. Except it was built 50 years ago. As far as i know Habitat 67 is rather looked up to, or maybe i looked at the wrong sources. Montreal as a canadian city likely dosent have the best enviormentak thought put behind it. What i mean to say is that its not architects fault that the space around is poorly designed. Its the job of the urbanist, or another architect before him. Although i understand it looks hypocritical to put "green" building next to a highway. The only solution i see is to just ban things. Or create good building laws. Limit some things, force every new building to obey new restrictions. It also requires politicians and city planners to listen to urbanists and architects. Another thing. Idk how is it in China but where i live every building plot has to have certain - required by law "biologically active surface", that means, grass, trees, ponds etc. Green roofs and green walls are added to this. So someone can have more development surface on their plot, (more concrete, lack of water retention etc.) But they put a green roof to have enough biologically active surface. Another thing, im no gardener but. Not all green roofs require care, there are certain types of bushes which grow to a certain size and they dont grow more. There are built green roofs that arent meant to have people walking on them. Although it dosent look like its the case here, but i would like to point out that this solution exists. Another, last thing. As i said im no gardener but there are surely trees that grow to a certain size and dont grow more. Especially if they have restricted roots. You can grow a tree in a big pot. If im mistaken, id like someone to correct me. It would be really helpful. But if its the way i think it is, there wouldnt be a danger of tree falling from a green balcony. I've never heared of such danger before.

Milan “giardino verticale” featured heavily in this video is actually very nice. It’s just a luxurious apartment building that looks extremely nice and placed in an area that got re-qualified successfully.

4:27 This stock photo image really caught me offguard and made me lose my shit. Who is making these??

Don't forget all the additional concrete that is required to hold all the trees (yes plants weigh much). The production of concrete creates a lot of CO2 as does it's demolition

There are three main things that are the most damaging to a building: wind, light, and water. And because soil retains a lot of water, lots of care was put into making sure that everything was completely watertight, and that the water could safely flow away. Consider the amount of engineering required to facilitate all that for two dozen times the amount of greenery, stacked on top of itself, multiplied by how many green skyscrapers they want to build. Come one tropical storm and every one of those buildings is a full tonne heavier. Unless all terraces are equipped with a proper drainage system, all the excess water will gush out the sides. Imagine the noise, the colossal volumes of water rushing through the pipes. The wind banging the leaves and branches against the glass. The same sounds echoing from the other eco-skyscrapers. It would be a green and grey hell

I visited Milan, the Bosco Verticale (used in the video quite a lot); and I kind of like it. Not from an eco-greenwashing perspective, we don’t need a whole city full of these, but still. It looks cool. It can attract tourists and give a unique feature to the city. Reducing car dependency and developing such projects are separate topics. You can remove roads, add more trees, and build such futuristic-looking beauties at the same time.

I think you're being overly harsh about the design of the city of Nanjing. Just from looking at the images, it appears to be mostly tall apartment buildings packed quite densely together and with a lot of greenery between them. Yes, there are some wide roads going through the city, but it doesn't look like the entire place is dominated by roads - just looks like there's a few arterial roads going through it. I also do think that a) most of the problems with green skyscrapers that you mentioned are not actually insurmountable, pretty much all of them could be solved with careful planning, and b) it is possible to build green skyscrapers and also put more greenery on the ground at the same time, they are no mutually exclusive.

Where I live the train station tried having plants all across the wall. Well a few years later, all those plants were removed, and now it's just dried dirt where plants use to be. It's a nice concept, but also cost money to maintain.

The biggest advantage of the greenery is the natural cooling and it’s actually pretty cost effective in the long run if you choose the right plants like native shrubs

I get your point and mostly agree. But on the other side, I'm quite often at Alterlaa in Vienna. Which is often featured in the context of Vienna's housing solutions (which is actually not the best example for that). You probably seen it at least on pictures. It's a high rise complex from the 1970s or the like in the outskirts of Vienna. The complex includes shops, schools, sport facilities and big parcs. It is directly connected to Viennas famous public transport. And I also has special shaped buildings so that for the lower floors the building gets leaner at every level. And each of this set backs actually has big planters for plants. They quite often have trees growing in them. Or bushes. I guess they are maintained by the people living in the respective flats. So they are probably very hig balconies. While people love to live there despite it being relatively far away from the center of Vienna, its also not the very rich living there. It provides hosing for a lot of people. While giving a very special green feeling and not just concrete. I actually love walking between these buildings, as the park and those balconies actually provide a nice atmosphere. And this is while the park is directly connected to another (public) green space along a park at a small river (Liesing). Which by itself is connected to even more parks. And small woods. However on the other side of the complex there is a 5 line street and crossing another fast 4 line street that connects to a highway. It's not a "modern" green high rise, but somewhat in between. And I guess its working out well enough. Else it wouldn't appear in so many examples about Viennas housing solutions. I guess a big element why this works is because of the great public transport. But it also caters to those dependent on cars. However, in my point of view the greenery included helps a lot to make it a livable space. (Shops and schools as well.) It's not the solution. But its better than just concrete. On so many levels. As I actually offers third places in the parc between the buildings. Which one works because of all the greenery.

You can build automated watering systems You can select plants that require relatively little maintenance You can provide access routes for gardeners without having to go through apartments You can select plants that can resist high winds You can have the gardens inspected regularly by professionals to identify and remove potentially hazardous plants. All that is possible, and individually these solutions are already implemented. But each one adds more costs, limitations and considerations. The cost would be incredibly high, though it would be a high-end building so I guess money isn't really an issue. But what you can't fix is that plants are quite flammable, and having a flammable exterior on a high rise is a bad idea, and when you put it that way, it starts to sound like Grenfell 2.0...

Trees don't grow very large if they have no room to grow their roots.

Usually I've only seen these green buildings on smaller ones where there's just grass on the roof.

Quick everyone, comment something witty so you can get all the likes!

You're right, the issue of trees needing to be tended via crane is a problem. Oooh, what if, instead of the trees all being up on high skyscrapers, we create a platform above street level, where the trees are. Imagine, like, a plate that covers the whole city, so that we can tend the plants above the plate! And if people complain, we just drop the plate on them =D

"Gardener that repels down skyscrapers" sounds like the coolest job in the world

6:44 dude that was so out of context 😭💀

I live in a Brazilian metropolis called São Paulo, most areas of it i think can be described as tree obsessed, in almost every curb in almost every block in residential areas there will be trees, you can only barely see highrises in the distance covered by trees, surrounded, choked, avenues that don't get much sun because of rows of enormous unbroken canopies, rows of newly planted trees, green splotches between rows of buildings, it's one of the main reasons i love living here so much. Now, we can only afford to have that much space dedicated to trees because of how robust the public transit system is, bike lanes, buses, electric buses, bus lanes, subways, trains, you can get from anywhere to anywhere by public transportation and often it's way better than driving since traffic is hell, all the while being a city richer than entire states and countries because efficient mass transit is a blessing to any economy. Not every area of the city CAN be like this, industrial districts and heavy foot traffic (like hundreds of thousands of people a day heavy foot traffic) specialized commercial districts can't really afford that space, but considering an over 20 million people population and city planning focused on having all essentials within walking distance of most residences instead of crammed in commercial districts, residential vastly outweighs the rest, it's a successful example of a not perfect, complex, chaotic and definitely flawed, but better way, one that is still striving to be better and improve, it shows there is no logical, societal or even economic reason to desperately hold onto the car dominated sweltering miserable concrete jungles so many population centers are, many industries who profit specifically from the status quo like automotive have a choke hold on government yes but the people allow it, and the only reason they do is the fear of change, the refusal to accept anything new or different. So what I'm saying is we have to use old people as fertilizers

Thinking long term, I can easily imagine the soil depleting, the owners not taking care of the plants and the dead leaves and wood, and preferring to either remove all the soil to have space for a balcony, or let it degrade until it's too heavy for said balcony, making it structurally unstable.

As someone that works a job where you sometimes need to enter different building (say for example a apartment complex) you don't get a skeleton key that can unlock every flat, if work has to be done on the facade or the roof it is pretty much always accessable w/o having to enter any private living quarters. If the planter boxes have to be maintained it would be insane not to have a small walkway or smth similar. So I don't think your robbery claim stands, but other than that it's a pretty good video :)

There's a tree near where I live that has roots which are forcing their way through the pavement, causing the concrete near it to buckle and break. I'm sure, though, that the architects who designed these buildings have already considered the risk of having living plants (with unpredictable and potentially destructive roots) growing inside an external concrete planter on the 8th floor facade of a building. After all, once you plant a tree the roots stop growing forever... right?

Living in Milano (where the bosco verticale you show is) I have to say I did like seeing the green towers pop up on the horizon here and there. Then again I see your criticism and completely agree. Still I think it’s a little harsh for certain specific projects and geographic locations. For example , Bosco verticale has a built in water system that is fed by surplus water arriving from the near by alps to the large Milano metro area. The gardening and grooming of trees is done by a specialized crew which is paid well, and in my mind is not much different than to landscapers for all the new fancy eco parks that are built in the wealthy areas of NYC or London etc. The structural issue was solved … but by pouring a TON of concrete… so yea not so eco in the end. But just a cool one off idea that can’t be replicated really lol

One of the reasons I hate the suburbs is because they waste so much space with front yards. Make it a public space with natural cover or a victory garden. I know it’s just my autism, but I love the idea of vertical gardens. The idea of making the concrete jungle less ‘concrete’ and more ‘jungle’ is just something that makes my little heart happy. Most of the problems you described with green skyscrapers already have solutions, and there are genuine benefits to green skyscrapers that can’t be so easily replicated through more conventional methods. It just feels disingenuous to view green skyscrapers purely through the lens of public transportation and walkable cities. It isn’t like they’re mutually exclusive with the implementation of simpler methods of making cities more eco-friendly. Although, I do agree that the people who think green skyscrapers are a fast-pass to more liveable cities are just being wilfully ignorant. They really will come up with anything to keep chugging car farts. MY main gripe with green skyscrapers is that they’re just unaffordable for the average, working-class schmuck. I know this may sound like a revolutionary concept, but wealthy people shouldn’t be the only ones allowed to live in beautiful places. Wow! Who let Karl Marx into the room, amirite?! Good video, btw. Always up for some Dubai slander.

I live in Canada. My favorite buildings have atriums. I wish there were more friendly designs utilizing atriums; shared common space, plants, a warm open balcony that you can use in the dead of winter. 😍

I don't know what is true for "in most cities", but in Poland studies regularly show that the major source of air pollution (by that I mean except CO2) is small houses and their heating- coal furnaces. Transport is the second one, but heating by personal coal furnace is the source of 60% of all pm 10 and pm 2,5 dust. And in the other 40% comes in transport, industry, public heating and electricity.... So in all transport is around 20% -25%. In this aspect big housing blocks are a step forward. CO2 is a problem on it's own (climate change). It is not a important part of air quality problem - in the concentration we find it in the atmosphere it is indifferent to health directly.

I agree with the points made and the only reason I can think of to do this is to mitigate the heat island effect.

The first time I saw these kind of buildings was in Milano and they immediatlely caught my attention. To be honest, I liked them right away because there are a nice contrast to the buildings of glass and steel surrounding them. From a archetectial point of view I can understand building it if the additional cost are covered. Nevertheless I agree with Adam on this subject, it is much easier and more logical to renaturalize the places around the building to make the quality of being on the ground better. I will soon visit Buenos Aires again and really look forward to it. There are so many alleys and parks that where you can escape the noise of the flood of cars (still it is a car centric city). Definitely not everything is perfect there, but it is easy to find places to relax or rest for a while in the shadow. In some areas they came up with bike infrastructure which is quite exceptional for Latin America. For now, the public transport is really cheap as well. although Milei is probably going to end this pretty soon.

every video every solution with you is trams and trains lol

I would say that apart from carbon capture and helping air pollution the Urban heat island must also be considered, green spaces help reduce insolation absorption because vegetation has a the ability to transform heat into chemical energy rather than a stone building that absorbs heat and then releases it as it gets colder. Cities on average are around 20° hotter than their surrounding neighborhoods and implementing greenery can actually help lower temperatures considerably.

You should have mentiometd Singapore: they put trees wherever possible, so non-irelevant numbers also end up on buildings. The result looks great and the gardens are usually free for public access, so that when you are on the 22nd floor, you can go to a small park on 25th or 50th floor without leaving the house. Not that you are wrong with 5 lane roads etc, but one can do those well, have maximum trees on the streets AND have trees on buildings (although, on dedicated horizontal layers)

I've had the idea of building literal forest skyscrapers. There would be no humans living in there, only plants, and then those plants could sit there, get perhaps water and clean the air or something

8:17 Lol, Adam realized he fucked up while editing and tried to smooth it over. I'm on to you, Adam!

As a Washingtonian, I require a minimum number of evergreen trees in view of my current location or I don't quite feel at home. Those trees don't need to grow on buildings, however. Just plant them wherever there's space

In our city, the kinds of vegetation used are typically a mix of grafted small trees (that won't cause said structual damage in any manner), and low hardy shrubs + vines. Our weather typically makes it easy for plants to sustain themselves since we're a monsoon country, and failing that during dry spells, manual or automated sprinkler watering takes place. Since these green parts are typically housed on specific open gallery/balcony floors that are also freely accessed by the occupants, the gardeners/arborists can work without interfering with the residents of the buildings.

In the future we will need to build more green buildings, but I think most scientists agree that the plants should be edible at least for the concept to be practical.

When I was studying architecture we did a field trip to Paris and some of us went to see the Riccardo Bofill buildings around Marne-La-Vallée. We were all bonkers about the film Brazil and its most iconic scenes were filmed there. The bloated cornice of the Palais d'Abraxas was supposed to be fringed with a parade of cypress trees. When I saw them, the buildings were hardly 5 years old, and every single cypress was dead and skeletal. (Mind you - the Hundertwasser flats in Vienna - that's really how to do it.)

Environmentalism and day-to-day maintenance aside, "Green" skyscraper really only work in very specific regions. If you are in typhoon/hurricane prone region, the trees become a liability of branches blowing into the windows. Similarly with earthquake prone regions as entire tree can topple. If you are in a drought prone region, are the tree drought resistant? Can the structure support the expansion of frozen ground and can the tree survive with shallow root in freezing temperature of snowy regions?

While I agree with most of your points about green skyscrapers, I don't think your comparison between Nanjing and Dubai holds up at all. Let's look at some numbers Nanjing Population: 9.2 million Metro ridership: 3.11 million/ day Registered vehicles: 3.2 million Dubai Population: 5.9 million Metro Ridership: 684,000/ day Registered vehicles: 1.8 million Nanjing's metro services way more of it's population, and they're already planning on expanding the service with an additional 13 lines in the next 10 years. Dubai only has plans for two more lines by 2030. I was quite surprised to see that Nanjing has more cars per capita than Dubai - maybe it has to do with Dubai's large migrant worker population having less access to vehicles? Nanjing seems a lot more comparable to London (Pop: 8.8m Metro: 3.15m/d Cars: 2.6m) but with more cars, but Nanjing is still expanding of their current metro network, which will hopefully reduce the number of cars in the city.

On the maintenance, what you said is exactly what they'll do. A crew will take care of the plants in a similar way to a window washing crew or in a similar way to what they might do if you were living on a ground floor apartment with a communal green space. I work in a spot where the property owner's association takes care of all the greenery in a 1.6km² area (along with other land parcels), they do an excellent job. So it can be done but I am also dubious on whether it SHOULD be done on a skyscraper.