“The windows on the side are like little gills,” says Gerard Damiani, president of the firm. When Pittsburgh’s Studio d’ARC architects were asked to replace a dilapidated 1970s greenhouse built atop a downtown Victorian, they created a saw-toothed top to maximize solar gain. In environments where densely packed buildings have squeezed out backyards, roofs have stepped up as a place for plants. “They wanted to make something spectacular because there are a lot of people passing by,” says Gora. (Above.) In a narrow and dark courtyard, her glass-and-steel arch provides enough light for the palms, magnolias, and lemon trees inside while also blocking the strong wind from the courtyard behind it. Monika Gora of Gora Art & Landscape created an airy structure-inspired, she says, by the Crystal Palace-for residents of a retirement community. Laminated glass is the star of a greenhouse built in a windy and shaded space by the sea in Malmö, Sweden. In a weather- and sunlight-challenged courtyard in Sweden, a strikingly modern greenhouse by Gora Art & Landscape offers a tropical oasis. Even standard glass can be strengthened with coatings and made into a better insulator with layering. New low-emissivity glass, developed in the last decade, is better at trapping thermal energy while still allowing enough light for plant growth. But for durability, longevity, and clarity, tempered glass is hard to beat, and the technology continues to advance. The versatility of plastic and its high strength-to-weight ratio make it a favorite of today’s designers, and it’s typically a better insulator than glass-even double-paned, sheet glass has a tiny fraction of the insulating value of a material like polycarbonate. He’s since gotten requests for temporary bubble gardens in the United States and London. The largest of the series was a 430-square-foot enclosure in the Place Colette filled with orchids. For the three-day installation, he created a series of translucent plastic domes that were easy to assemble and take down. And when Amaury Gallon of Jardins de Babylone teamed up with the Flower Council of Holland, he designed four pop-up gardens to be sprinkled throughout Paris. (Above.) The food that grows inside makes its way to the restaurant next door. In Japan, ON Design Partners created a set of small stacked iron-and-glass cases in 2010 for an urban farm in central Tokyo’s tightly packed Roppongi district. If you have just a few sun-drenched square feet-in a yard, on an exterior wall, or on a roof-you have space for your own botanical paradise. While wide-open yards with ample sunlight are ideal, they’re not always part of a gardener’s reality, so thoughtful engineering has brought modern structures to rooftops, rock faces, and urban environments. Today, architects, artists, and design firms have reimagined these indoors-in-the-outdoors spaces, creating innovative structures through a smart use of materials and a creative approach to available space. Inside, discrete plantings provide a connection to nature and fresh vegetables for nearby restaurants. In a crowded Japanese cityscape, glass boxes by ON Design Partners are stacked like the urban towers that surround them.
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