3deluxe has just been awarded with the GREEN GOOD DESIGN® 2022 for the concept of #WeThePlanet House – a contribution to transform metropolitan areas into climate-resilient places with positive impact on the environment.
Christian K. Narkiewicz-Laine, Museum President/CEO, The Chicago Athenaeum states that the green movement “is in full swing worldwide – from Singapore to Paris and Los Angeles.”
New York seems to catch on to the European idea of creating natural environments on rooftops as a way to enhance human comfort and livability in urban surroundings.
3deluxe was fortunate enough to be commissioned by New York-based organisation #WeThePlanet to come up with a concept for a building with many specific ideas for investigating how to reshape our cities. As part of this year’s Earth Day summit 2021, the founders of #WeThePlanet, Kunal Sood and Laura Muranaka, presented the plans for their corporate building in Manhattan, the brainchild of 3deluxe.
The idea behind the building follows 3deluxe’s 50/50 principle which states that 50 per cent of every building project should be reserved for nature. In this case it takes the form of a luxuriant natural biotope on the roof that occupies the same surface area as the interior used by people.
The building’s simple shape corresponds to that of a steep slope. This purely scenic approach to architecture creates an opportunity to situate utilisable inside rooms underneath a hill.
Its sides are generously glazed, not only to maintain a pleasant indoor ambience but also to integrate as large a sensor-driven area as possible for intelligent technologies for energy recovery and consumption reduction. Transparent photovoltaics, eyrise® smart glass, algae bioreactors and solar foil made from recycled kitchen waste and much more besides. This building project is intended to showcase the kind of innovative technologies that will, in future, be able to play an important role in the carbon-neutral city.
A socially interactive house
The green rooftop biotope will become a semi-public space, one that includes its surroundings – people from the neighbourhood will also be able to use the roof garden for urban gardening and beekeeping, schools, and kindergartens to communicate both knowledge and the wonders of nature, cultural events, readings, and lectures will be able to take place in a climate friendly and pandemic-resistant environment in the open air. In return, local people will take care of and maintain the biotope.
The biotope will extend the overall living space, not only for people but also for birds, insects, and various kinds of plants, thus promoting biodiversity. At the same time, the biotope will store rainwater and humidify the surroundings on hot days, it will absorb particulates, transform carbon dioxide into oxygen and improves air quality. The roof garden will insulate the building’s interior against the cold and heat, as well as cutting its energy consumption. The building will be like a living organism and positively influence its surroundings in many ways.
Photos & illustrations – copyright © 2021 3deluxe.