Big News: The federal government plans to plant a garden directly on “vegetated fins” that will grow more than 200 feet high on the western facade of a federal building in Portland, Oregon.. the following info is culled from the NYT article:
It is part of a $133 million renovation, that the General Services Administration is undertaking. Donald Eggleston, the president of SERA Architects, which is overseeing the project for the G.S.A. said that landscaping experts will experiment with vines and cover plants that can endure Portland’s wet, mild winters and its dry, hot summers — and do so at varying heights.
“We may train them on some vines in the nursery,” Mr. Eggleston said. “About 50 percent of the windows we need to shade every summer. You can’t take little seedlings up there in Year 1, because you won’t have anything up there for five years.”
“They will bloom in the spring and summer when you want the shade, and then they will go away in the winter when you want to let the light in,” said Bob Peck, commissioner of public buildings for the G.S.A. “Don’t ask me how you get them irrigated.”
Joe Vaughan, a commercial real estate broker here, said that the building’s office space would ultimately cost more per square foot than some other environmentally-conscious projects that are built new.
spend the 133 million dollars on buying and creating open space - park space for the urban dwellers in Portland.
People need parks - not expensive ivy (and that is what they will end up with) covered buildings...
what say you?
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