WORDS Neyani Mphephu PHOTOS Supplied

In the past, greenery in urban settings has often been seen as an aesthetic addition rather than a functional necessity, and almost always the first line item cut when a development budget tightens – which is exactly what makes green connectivity, the growing movement to weave nature through the built environment as deliberate, functioning infrastructure, one of the more quietly radical ideas reshaping urban design in cities like Lisbon, Bangkok and Cape Town.

Green connectivity goes beyond simply planting trees. It is the deliberate weaving of natural systems such as street canopies, green corridors, pocket forests, urban farms and water-sensitive landscaping through the built fabric of a city, so that nature does not merely sit alongside urban life but moves through and with it.

It is this thinking that drives the work of organisations like Mission for Inner City Cape Town, whose Greening Lead, Vincent Truter, describes the city’s green network in terms that go well beyond horticulture. “Every street, every park and every public space is not only part of an ecological system,” he says. “It is also part of a nervous system. It is quietly influencing how people feel, how they move and how they recover from the intensity of urban life.”

At its core, green connectivity challenges cities to treat green space as essential infrastructure, not just an amenity. And it has a host of environmental benefits that address global warming.

The hothouse

Cities are getting hotter in every sense. There have been a number of successful initiatives globally to combat rising temperatures in metropolitan centres. One of these programmes is Forestami – launched in Milan in 2019 – an urban forestation initiative that includes creating green roofs and restoring polluted land in the Italian city, with the aim of planting 3 million trees by 2030.

Since its launch, research conducted in the metropolitan area found that urban forests provided an average cooling effect of 3.5°C on mean temperatures and up to 5.5°C on maximum temperatures within a 180-metre range. A clear demonstration of green connectivity working in practice with measurable results.

Cape Town’s tree canopy cover was measured at only 6% in 2020, against a world norm of 10% to qualify as an urban forest. Cllr Francine Higman, Ward Councillor for the City of Cape Town, warns that “if we don’t continue investing in greening, we risk creating places that become increasingly hot, less resilient to climate change and ultimately less attractive places to live, work and invest.”

Georgina Smit, CEO of the Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA), echoes Francine’s warning: “If we do not intentionally weave green spaces into our development strategy, we risk losing critical green and blue resources and their myriad benefits.”

While one of the most overlooked benefits of urban greenery is its ability to cool cities naturally, Vincent argues that what is even less discussed is what trees do to the human nervous system. “Breathing slows. Conversation changes. Children move differently,” he explains. “Green spaces are not only performing ecological work. They are also performing nervous system regulation.”

Beyond the green

A truly green-connected space goes beyond planting trees on a pavement.

Georgina cites Newinbosch Neighbourhood Estate in Stellenbosch as a leading example. It’s the first estate in Africa to achieve a 6-Star Green Star Sustainable Precincts certification, with its on-site nursery, pocket forests, green corridors, urban farm and circular waste processing.

Closer to the city, Green Point Park demonstrates similar thinking at a much larger scale. Its Biodiversity Showcase Garden is home to approximately 300 indigenous plant species and 25 000 individual trees, shrubs and groundcovers, while a sustainable water system sourced from the Oranjezicht spring saves roughly 580 million litres of potable water annually.

But designing a green space is only the beginning. Ensuring that it survives and thrives requires long-term care, partnerships and community stewardship. “Success isn’t simply measured by how many trees we plant. It’s measured by whether those trees survive, mature and continue to expand the canopy,” says Francine. Connected green space, she emphasises, should always be designed around people: “shade where people actually walk, seating, accessible public spaces, biodiversity and opportunities for people to spend time outdoors.”

Future forward

The next evolution of cities may not be primarily technological, but relational. “The question is not whether cities will become greener. That trajectory is already underway,” says Vincent. “The more important question is whether they will become more coherent across their systems. Because cities do not only shape landscapes. They shape people.” missionforinnercity.org | @missionforinnercityct

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Urban trends like Biophilia and Greentecture emerged from our need to connect to nature. Neolith sintered stone offer a sustainable solution by blending indoor and outdoor spaces, creating a natural ambiance across building facades and interiors.

According to the trends book Inspiring Living For Tomorrow Lifestyle Trends 2024 by Neolith, cities are gradually beginning to enjoy the benefits of a green approach to their planning, fostering more sustainable urbanisation which reduces the temperature in major cities, mitigates pollution and fosters natural environmental resilience.

Neolith surfaces offer a comprehensive and sustainable response to this need which puts an end to the “inside” and “outside” dichotomy, creating a natural atmosphere through buildings facades all the way to household interiors.

Bringing nature home

To create a rational and emotional mix between “inside” and “outside”, it is necessary to balance natural resources, innovation, and new materials supported by technology, creativity, and design.

Neolith is striving to create a world of fresh surface experiences, from contemporary outdoor kitchens to building and home facades. The goal is to eliminate the barrier between indoor and outdoor spaces and enable seamless extension of living spaces. This approach creates hybrid areas that offer maximum comfort and design excellence throughout the year, with a range of colours, designs, textures, and finishes that enable unique projects.

Penthouses, terraces, porches, pools, gardens, furniture and outdoor kitchens… they’re all undergoing a deep transformation and being re-invented under one main premise: to become fundamental places in people’s daily lives at home irrespective of the season.

Future forward: bioclimatic facades

With cities producing 70% of the world’s CO2 emissions, urban planners and architects have a key role to play in the creation of more environmentally friendly buildings to combat climate change.

Neolith sintered stone is being used on the exteriors of various buildings such as residential, commercial, and institutional ones, due to their sustainability and aesthetic qualities.

Made with all-natural products, mostly recycled, these surfaces facilitate air circulation which diffuses any water vapours from the inside out, facilitating facade “breathing” to prevent condensation between panels.

What’s more, Neolith sintered stone stand out due to their thermal insulation, which eliminates thermal bridges and, therefore, changes in temperature within the building to achieve energy savings of more than 40%. At the same time, they offer solar protection, creating thermal comfort inside buildings by preventing excessive heating in summer. They also enhance acoustic insulation due to the fact that the facade system is comprised of different layers, which increases the level of acoustic absorption. Impermeability is another advantage: the chimney effect generated by the air chamber prevents water filtrations and protects the building structure.

The Neolith Group has a strong commitment to sustainability. Having recently achieved a Zero Waste and EcoVadis certification, the company has been recognised for its excellent waste management practices and commitment to a circular economy. The EcoVadis certification recognises the company’s environmental, labour, and human rights policies and initiatives, as well as its sustainable procurement practices. Additionally, Neolith has recently launched a new campaign based on the sustainability efforts the company has been doing from the beginning based on the concept Sustainable Beauty, a first step towards a more sustainable world that Neolith strives for.

For more information on Neolith and the trends book Inspiring Living For Tomorrow Lifestyle Trends 2024 by Neolith, visit neolith.com/trendstudy-en.

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Landscape architects Yes& Studio team up with architectural planters Plantr for Boxwood Property Fund to introduce a green public realm intervention to Cape Town’s Long Street in the form of custom planters-cum-street furniture.

Considering the haptics of relationships between people and place – 14 Long is a boutique office/accommodation above high-street retail offering – Yes& Studio was tasked with executing a landscape intervention that makes for a soft green edge to 14 on Long.

Their solution? New paving, street furniture and, most ogle-worthy, Plantr’s unique, custom-designed planters. Think: soft landscaping that mediates the scale of the towering built form with the pedestrian environment and a steal of Cape Town’s natural surrounds tucked into the city.

Plantr is passionate about bringing living greenery into concrete ecosystems because they believe it’s the key to design that breeds health and happiness. They create high-end, design-centric, sustainable plant containment solutions that are dynamic and customisable through the use of 3D modelling software and lifelike renders.

Shop Plantr online or off the shelf from their showroom at The Palms in Woodstock.

VISI Collab: Plantr Minilux Planters

The Plantr Minilux is subtle in shape, soft in texture and simple in design. The Minilux in limited edition textured white and gold is a collab between VISI and the Cape Town-based design studio, and comes in two sizes – small and medium. 

From R399 | VISI Shop

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A school in the Drakenstein Valley, designed to educate for sustainability, is also a benchmark in regenerative architecture.

Fabio Venturi of the Terramanzi Group, the sustainable design consultants for the recently opened Green School South Africa (GSSA) outside Paarl in the Drakenstein Valley, believes that the campus might be “the greenest school on the planet”. Because the school is on track to be the first Living Building Challenge (LBC) certified project in Africa, he explains, it has to be compliant with the world’s “most rigorous certification system”.

To be awarded LBC certification, Fabio says, “You have to demonstrate that [the buildings are] regenerative“ – which, in the simplest terms, means “you’re basically putting in more than you’re taking out”. This is architecture that actually heals the environment rather than merely doing less damage: it generates energy, purifies waste, recycles resources and restores biodiversity.

The architecture is all the more significant for its being a place of learning. GSSA is the third Green School in a growing international network. The first was launched in Bali in 2008 to, as its promotional material puts it, “educate for sustainability, through community-integrated, entrepreneurial learning, in a wall-less, natural environment”. It is education grounded in an immersive relationship with nature, designed to inspire a new generation of creative, innovative, entrepreneurial thinkers.

One of Fabio’s favourite quotes, which he has included in various presentations, sums up the idea: “If our education does not prevent us from destroying our environment, then no matter what qualifications we may have, it is insufficient and irrelevant.” The same goes for the architecture.

The campus was designed by GASS Architecture Studios, with landscaping by Danie Steenkamp of DDS Projects, and with close involvement from Fabio and other consultants. Fabio points out that the LBC dovetailed perfectly with the school’s values. Its biophilic approach, he says, is predicated on “the innate need of humans to connect to nature”. “You mimic forms from nature, structurally and visually,” he says, from the quality of the light and air to the materials, colours and textures, and the inclusion of plants and wildlife – all of which creates a multisensory experience that brings people and nature together.

Architects Wessel van Dyk, Chris Bakker and Theuna Stoltz explain that the arrangement of the buildings and their rounded forms were inspired by the shapes of the Paarl Rock boulders in relation to the valley the school is in, drawing “from the macro-context and applying it to the micro-context”. The buildings also function like petals or the segments of a fruit, the parts in service of the whole. Their orientation and overhangs make for passive energy saving, and low-slung forms immerse the classrooms in the landscape, creating courtyards and in-between spaces that knit together structures and surroundings.

Tiny details were scaled up, too. A curled, drying leaf the team found, which had part of its vein-like structure exposed, became the inspiration for the way the buildings dematerialise in the transition from inside to outdoors. The classrooms and other buildings are woven together with paths like “ribbons” as Chris puts it, rather than direct axes, so that navigating the campus becomes the architectural embodiment of a “process of discovery” akin to learning itself.

Vernacular references are drawn into elements of the design as well, especially via the biophilic introduction of water through low werf walls and “leiwater channels”, which reinterpret aspects of the area’s architectural heritage. Salvaged teak doors from nearby demolished buildings further root the new structures in the history of the area.

The GSSA’s carbon footprint has been reduced by using local materials and techniques such as rammed earth construction. Of course, there’s plenty of state- of-the-art tech, and much of it has been made visible as a teaching resource. So, too, have the food gardens, which supply the school kitchen and make the regenerative cycle at the heart of the campus’s functioning both immersive and tangible. The vegetable cuttings go to the compost heaps, which in turn nourish the soil and help grow the produce. (The school also helps recycle waste from the broader community, in a further demonstration of the regenerative potential of development.)

The ripple effects go still further. The LBC is incredibly strict regarding not just building materials, but also the ingredients that make up those materials, as well as the manufacturing processes used to make them. Some local suppliers went so far as to create special new sustainable products for the GSSA project, such as the wax-sealed timber and the epoxies used for the kitchen and bathroom floors. It seems that we could all learn a thing or two from this school campus. terramanzi.co.za | greenschoolsa.co.za | gass.co.za

*GASS Architecture Studios has been shortlisted for the esteemed World Architecture Festival 2024 in the WAF Completed Buildings: School category. They have also been shortlisted for the Sustainability Prize.

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Architect, educator and social activist Diébédo Francis Kéré is the first African to win the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Born in Gando, Burkina Faso and based in Berlin, Germany, Diébédo Francis Kéré has been recognised for the ways in which he empowers and transforms communities through the process of architecture.

“Francis Kéré is pioneering architecture – sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants – in lands of extreme scarcity. He is equally architect and servant, improving upon the lives and experiences of countless citizens in a region of the world that is at times forgotten,” comments the Pritzker jury. “Through buildings that demonstrate beauty, modesty, boldness and invention, and by the integrity of his architecture and geste, Kéré gracefully upholds the mission of this Prize.”

One of his earliest projects, Gando Primary School in Burkino Faso, established the foundation for his architectural ideology – to build with and for a community in order to fulfil an essential need and redeem social inequities. Locals offered their input, labour and resources from conception to completion, crafting nearly every part of the school by hand, guided by the architect’s inventive forms of indigenous materials and modern engineering. The success of Gando Primary School awarded him the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004, and was the catalyst for establishing his practice, Kéré Architecture, in Berlin, Germany in 2005.

He has completed numerous schools and health centres across Africa, including the Republic of Benin, Burkino Faso, Mali, Togo, Kenya, Mozambique, Togo and Sudan. His work has yielded exponential results, not only by providing academic education for children and medical treatment, but by instilling occupational opportunities and abiding vocational skills for adults, therefore serving and stabilising the future of entire communities.

“I considered my work a private task, a duty to this community. But every person can take the time to go and investigate from things that are existing. We have to fight to create the quality that we need to improve people’s lives,” says the architect.

Kéré’s designs are laced with symbolism and his projects outside of Africa are influenced by his upbringing and experiences in Gando. The West African tradition of communing under a sacred tree to exchange ideas, narrate stories, celebrate and assemble is recurrent throughout his body of work.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize is considered architecture’s most significant lifetime achievement award.

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The Aquatecture rainwater-harvesting panels, installed close to Oranjezicht City Farm Market in Cape Town, are a laudable innovation by South African-born designer Shaakira Jassat.

It was South African-born designer Shaakira Jassat’s experience with Day Zero during a visit to Cape Town in 2018 that inspired her to create the Aquatecture rain-harvesting panels at the V&A Waterfront’s Granger Bay parking garage. Shaakira is based in the Netherlands (where she also studied), and her cleverly perforated panels divert raindrops into JoJo tanks.

The panels, installed at the car park near the market, have been dubbed “the cheese grater” because they resemble the kitchen utensil – but Shaakira’s inspiration was the world of fauna and flora. “The cheese grater never crossed my mind during the concept phase,” she says. “I was more in the realm of Namib desert beetles and tillandsia plant species.”

The design of the perforations took in-depth research, with various patterns tested to see which collected water most efficiently. After observing how the water flowed over the surfaces and into the openings, Shaakira could rework the chosen pattern to optimise it for efficient harvesting. “The most difficult part was combining an aesthetically pleasing product suited to urban architectural language with high functionality,” she says. “Sometimes, the value of design is overlooked in the process because we tend to focus mainly on the result.”

The integration of tanks by JoJo – the well-known South African water-solutions company – is fitting and necessary, given its pioneering and innovative work in water harvesting, storage and (now) filtration. “To be a part of this project is a perfect fit with JoJo’s abiding philosophy of not only providing water solutions, but also elevating the awareness of water security in South Africa and intensifying the conversation around it,” says JoJo MD Grant Neser.

“Aquatecture is designed as a façade panel, and can be easily installed on open structures such as the car-park framework,” explains Shaakira. “We study the direction of the rainfall at the site to determine optimal placement.” The pilot in Cape Town was completed in 2020, and both this facility and the upcoming Aquatecture installation planned for Eindhoven in the Netherlands will be used to further test the efficiency of the collection process.

“A volunteer team from Engineers Without Borders South Africa will assist me with the research at UCT, with Jo Anderson of Green Building Council South Africa acting as facilitator,” says Shaakira. “Data will be collected and studied, and can be shared after the research term, once the project has been further developed.

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Oasia Hotel Downtown by WOHA is a tropical, living tower that rises as an anomaly out of Singapore’s dense CBD, inviting nature back into the city and challenging the cold, sleek metallics of the concrete jungle its surrounded by.

According to WOHA, Oasia Hotel Downtown is “a prototype of land-use intensification for the urban tropics”. Landscaping is used extensively as an architectural surface treatment with twenty-one different species of creepers and their colourful flowers covering almost 90% of the red building’s exterior in an impressive mosaic. Achieving an overall Green Plot Ratio of 1,100%, the tower serves to provide food for birds and insects – creating an inner-city oasis and reintroducing biodiversity.

Interiorly, it boasts a series of strata each with its own sky garden. These gardens function as urban scale verandahs, replacing the air-conditioned enclosures typical of the city with breezy openness and natural light.

Sheltered from above by the preceding garden and with open sides for ventilation, the sky gardens also create unique views that trump reliance on external vistas and solve the problem of being closely overlooked by surrounding towers. On the roof, the skyscraper is crowned with a tropical bower alive with a delicate and diverse harmony of flora.

Looking for more green design inspiration? Check out Green Magic Homes – energy-efficient homes that blend into their natural surroundings.

h/t: archdaily.com

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The second of our Fresh Talent profiles celebrating Youth Day on 16 June is furniture designer Cameron Barnes, for whom each step is considered, from tree to table and beyond. He uses no glue or nails, and the pieces can easily be taken apart and repaired or redesigned. Best bit? When you’re “so over it”, Cameron will buy his pieces back from you! We caught up with the environmental architecture Masters graduate for a quick chat on all things green.

Although slower than machine work, you work mostly by hand – why?

My motivation is partly environmental, but I’m also strongly influenced by a worldwide revival of traditional joinery techniques – using hand planes, chisels, files and scrapers to smooth and level the timber as each piece takes shape – as a way of moving away from mass-production.

Why do you use no imported or indigenous species, and no plywood?

Locally sourced timber from invasive alien species cuts down on the transport energy and cost of moving it around the world, not to mention saving indigenous forests. As for plywood, after years of researching the glues and methods used to make most composite woods, while working in “green” architecture, I discovered that some of the resins and adhesives continue to release gases into the air throughout their lifespans.

Career highlights thus far?

Last year a bench of mine went for R40 000 at an international charity auction. Surreal. Another highlight was designing and building furniture for Woolworths to use in their cafés at Design Indaba. To see that many people use something you’ve made is very gratifying.

cameronbarnes.co.za

Celebrate Youth Month with us and browse more of our Fresh Talent profiles here.

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With World Environmental Day on 5 June, green and sustainable living underpins all eight delightfully livable and quirky homes. Ranging from the French Riviera to Rosendal in the Free State, from off-the-grid to energy positive, from modernist architecture to upcycled decor, from disappearing into nature to reappearing from history, from South African Institute for Architecture award nominees to instant contemporary classics, they all put the planet back in down-to-earth. Local theatre designer Johan Engels also shares his experience of curating the Kaffe Fassett retrospective in the UK.

In the essays, shortlisted Etisalat Prize novelist Karen Jennings finds herself living near the hotel and pub that her great-grandfather managed for a decade; Cosmopolitan’s youngest-ever Sexiest Man last year, Masego “Maps” Maponyane explains how two buildings shaped the person he is today; PR maven and Afroprint accessories designer Maria McCloy writes an ode to her beloved Yeoville; and journalist and columnist Herman Lategan recalls the menagerie of wacky characters he grew up with in a boarding house in the 1960s.

Turning up the heat are the 32 Reasons to Love Winter, which include sofas, rugs and fabrics just begging for a snuggle, the latest kitchens and bathrooms straight from Milan, all the cooking toys needed to turn hibernation into Masterchef bootcamp, burglar bars that get our aesthetic stamp of approval, four low-cost housing solutions that are changing the game, Africa’s “greenest house” – in Port Elizabeth nogal – and charming local wares from Green Grass Design, I Love Bokkie and Mr Somebody and Mr Nobody.

For only R49.95, VISI is available at selected Spars, Woolworths, Exclusive Books and other retail outlets. Subscribe before 7 July 2014 and be entered into a lucky draw to win a brand new LG G Flex phone, while also benefitting from a 30% discount on annual print subscriptions and 50% discount on annual digital subscriptions. 

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The third solution, from Earthworld Architects, uses existing buildings combined with containers to address the unresolved issue of sufficient inner-city accommodation is still an unresolved dilemma. By using existing buildings combined with containers, has come up with an answer. 

Container concept

Hotels and apartment blocks are springing up in Cape Town’s city centre and it won’t be long before maximum capacity is reached. With this in mind, Earthworld Architects decided to utilise existing buildings when designing accommodation, rather than building from scratch.

The idea is explained as follows: “The exchange of information, products, ideas and beliefs thrives in urban conditions of proximity and density. For this reason, travellers do not want to be anywhere else but in the centre of the city.” By using containers as the viable building material (their shape, weight and size make them the most labour-effective option) and attaching them to structures built on the exteriors of pre-existing buildings, the company has found an innovative way to create additional living spaces.     

Company profile

Earthworld Architects was established in 1998 and provides a variety of professional services that include architecture, project coordination, detail design, technical and tender documentation, construction administration and inspection. The ethic of Earthworld Architects is to establish a synergy between client, architect and contractor. The company’s technical expertise and thorough knowledge of the building industry has enabled it to successfully present clients with final products of excellent quality. 

The team that worked on this project comprised Braam de Villiers, André Eksteen and Leon van der Westhuizen.  

012 346 5400, info@earthworldarchitects.co.za, earthworldarchitects.co.za

See more VISI articles about container architecture here. 

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