10 Eco-Friendly City Architecture To Fight Global Warming

Photo by Wong Maye-E, AP - National Geographic

1. City Forest in Singapore. Using plants and trees in a unique way, Singapore officials opened Gardens by the Bay this year. The 11-million-square foot (1-million-square-meter) complex—the size of nearly 250 U.S. football fields—aims to curb the heat island effect while bringing botanical bliss to urbanites.

The centerpiece of Gardens by the Bay is a glass atrium that houses approximately 220,000 types of vegetation, or 80 percent of the world’s plant species, according to Singapore's National Parks Board.

Outside the menagerie of plants is a grove of 18 “supertrees”— vertical gardens up to 164 feet (50 meters) tall that capture rainwater, filter exhaust, and are capped with solar panels that provide enough energy to light up the trees at night.

The value of vegetation in urban areas goes beyond cooling and shade. City plantings can also help improve air and water quality through filtering mechanisms.— Source Tasha Eichenseher

2. Eco City in Huaxi City Centre, China . The MAD architects and their guests were part of an urban experiment that was aimed at conceiving a masterplan which was to be developed by Shanghai Tongij Urban Planning and Design Institute, Studio 6, in collaboration with MAD.

The ecological method here is not just focused in saving energy; rather, the goal is to create a new, balanced urban atmosphere which can evoke the feeling of exploring the natural environment. The city is no longer determined by the leftover logic of the industrial revolution (speed, profit, efficiency), but instead follows the "fragile rules" of nature. 

This collaborative experiment thus provides an alternative, responsive model for the development of the urban centre: a man-made symbiosis, in harmony with nature, in which people are free to develop their own independent urban experience. 

Photograph by Robert Wallis, Corbis -  National Geographic

3. Greening Government Buildings in Berlin. The Reichstag, Germany’s parliament building, was retrofitted in 1999 with a new dome that uses glass and mirrors to reflect daylight deep into the main chamber, reducing dependence on artificial lighting. It also employs a funnel to divert and collect rainwater.

Designed by British architect Norman Foster, the renovated Reichstag has become a Berlin tourist attraction and an energy saver.

The dome-reflector system also draws warm air out of the building. This feature, combined with the fact that the building can make its own electricity from refined vegetable oil, as well as store excess heat underground, brings the building’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions down by 94 percent, according to the architect.

Green buildings have myriad benefits, including reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and toxic materials use, improved air and water quality, and relief from the heat. - Source