The CEO Game

United States, Germany, Canada and Japan new solution to reduce pollution is transforming urban rooftops to flourishing gardens, who will reduce the heat and noise, clean the air and improve the city’s grayish skyline.

In the heart of downtown Chicago, in the corner of LaSalle street and Washington street, lies the historical town center which was founded in 1911. Its architecture tries to replicate the classic era, with Roman pillars who surround the building from all around. But, the most interesting thing about the building can only be viewed from high above: the building has 1,886 square feet of gardens on top.

Chicago's City Hall

Those gardens are botanical gardens in fact, which are composed of 20 thousand plants of 150 different species, with vines and apple trees, and beautiful pastures amongst them. The entire irrigation system of the gardens is based on rainwater. The man behind the roof, is Chicago’s mayor, Richard Dally, who had promised to make Chicago the “greenest city in America”. He gathered the funds from compensations the town hall had received from the local electric company ComEd. According to him, since its completion in 2001 the green rooftop saves some 3,600$ yearly on cooling in the top floors of the building and moreover, it is considered a popular tourist attraction in the city.

“It wasn’t easy to explain to anyone what a green rooftop is, in those years”, comments Kimberly Warthington, a chief executive in the environment department of Chicago’s town hall. “In the fire station, they refused to give us permissions cause they thought it was too weird. I also recall one of the contractors thought a green roof meant a rooftop that is actually painted in green!”.

Since the foundation of this “hanging garden”, more than 300 additional gardens where planted on Chicago’s rooftops. Altogether they sum up to 1.5 million square feet. Chicago’s lovely roof gardens not only look good, they also improve the isolation of the top floors of the buildings which on top they are planted, and save a lot of air conditioning expenses. In addition, they turn CO2 to oxygen, attract birds, take advantage of rainwater which otherwise would have been wasted, reduce the amount of noise drawing from the building and also will help fight the urban “heat islands”-metropolitan areas which are significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas because of the bare concrete which attracts heat.

In conclusion, the green rooftops seem to be a bright new environmental growing trend and one of the first green initiatives the world’s cities and countries are actually pulling off.

We will continue next time, to see how is this initiative doing over in other countries. Another green project you might like: winds of change, on a new self powered, wind driven tower in London.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

An example of how can man harness his environment for a better future

Who would have thought that a 2.5£ million penthouse will be offered to take in Elephant and Castle? One of London’s more controversial districts, that many believe is a disaster sprung from plans that went wrong way back in the 60’s. The southern district which is less than 3.2 kilometer far from Westminster, was always described as simple, grayish and ordinary. On the contrary, the new emerging tower in the heart of it, the “Strata SE1″ residential block is anything but ordinary. The 43 floor tall building will be the highest residential tower in London according to the “Financial Times”.

London's New Hope?

The skyscraper’s height is “174.9 meter”, said Karl Debenfort from Chestreton Homberts real estate agency, “but he looks almost twice as tall, you can see it from any street corner in London. It is a symbol for a better future throughout the area”. The tower is the most protruded project out of many regeneration projects, which are the goals of an ambitious plan to change the area. The Strata, which is expected to be open in April, contains 408 apartments, amongst them you can find: studio apartments for 285£ thousand, one bedroom apartments for 369£ thousand, two bedroom apartments for 495£ thousand and penthouses for 2.5£ million.

The first ten floors are given over to affordable housing and the top eight boast penthouses with views across London. The tower which is already nicknamed by the locals as the “Razor” because of its similarity to an electric shaver, was designed by the architecture firm Hamiltons and is both revolutionary and functional- the building’s rooftop will include three wind turbines which will provide the electricity need for the entire building (it will still be connected to the city’s power lines, just in case). When the blades, nine meters across, are lifted into place later this month they will help create the first “wind farm” of its kind to be integrated into a building.

Nick Stanton, leader of Southwark council, which is the driving force behind the regeneration of Elephant and Castle, says: “We want to give people space and smaller buildings on smaller developments that are green and safe, with better homes, shops, community facilities and a new park.” In conclusion, the Strata is a bright positive change set in the heart of an urban catastrophe which is now undergoing a green make over and is hoping to wind up just like Pittsburgh did a few years ago.

Want to learn more? Try the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Project on Wikipedia.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.