[notes from an indoor grove]

This winter I deconstructed a fir tree and suspended the branches over my family's table for Christmas eve dinner. I've always wanted to sit under the canopy of a large tree, inside. This year I made it happen. Sound was dampened; the guests' attention turned inward toward each other and the meal; we were cozy. Lit only from candles below, the side of a branch that is normally never illuminated was exposed. Next I want to make this at a much larger scale in a different context.

Conceptual drawing by the author

[notes on a ginkgo biloba carpet, fall]

This is the 3rd year that I've obsessively stalked a tree. Check out the darling of my attention this season--an ancient Ginkgo Biloba or Maidenhair tree--and you may also seek out a love interest in your neighborhood. Here in the RISD Museum's central courtyard, an ancient Ginkgo Biloba drops perhaps millions of florescent fan-shaped leaves in a couple of days, creating an ephemeral glowing carpet. How about that for phenomenological? Must hurry: leaves quickly brown if they're not swept off to dumps by maintenance crews first. Stalking a Ginkgo carpet is therefore necessary and very arguably worth it.

No one else seems to know about this tree, probably because it's mostly invisible from the street. Don't forget to look up. Our tree in October vs. November:

Why stalking is necessary: three days difference: 

Through a Japanese Maple to the courtyard a few days before the Ginkgo leaves fall:

A few of my studies of a Ginkgo over a year: 

Ginkgo Biloba trees are remarkable. They're considered living fossils with records dating back 270 million years. They have no living relatives. Clearly highly adaptable, they're also resistant to urban pollution which is unusual and makes them valuable in cities as a form of landscape infrastructure. Peter del Tredici, a great urban tree specialist, landscape architect, and ecologist, has written extensively on them. Check out the Harvard Magazine for more. Here's one of his images from a recent trip to discover naturally-occurring  Ginkgo Biloba species in China:

I've been reading recently that they're at risk of not being planted as widely in cities because of the smell of the fruit the female tree produces. How quickly people forget that our world is more than just a visually-occurring place. It would be an ecological and experiential loss to our world to stop planting this great tree.

[notes on a vertical garden]

There are vines creeping up buildings and then there are vertical gardens. I came across this hotel in the middle of Rome around the hip Piazza Navona neighborhood. Its lush, plush presence amid densely-packed, stone, and plastered neighboring buildings and streets sated my inner Anne of Green Gables. Wisteria and Japanese Creeper (Boston Ivy) are planted on the roof, giving air + sun to roots + dramatic license to trailing vines. Note the gorgeous contrast of texture and shape of the potted palms + the deeply-inset Venetian Red windows (complementary colors).

...

which leads me to MFO Park by Raderschall Landscape Architects at a housing project close to where I used to live in Zurich, Switzerland. Yes, vines creeping up a building, yet inventively. Here an open steel structure with conical steel cable columns uses carefully-selected vines to make interior spaces, a grove, and a vegetated structure: 

Photo: Stichting het Panorama

Photo: Raderschall 

Photo: Raderschall

Photo: Raderschall

Photo: Raderschall

Photo: Raderschall

 Raderschall's Vine Planting Strategy:

Raderschall architectural section of the building and a visitor's experience of the spaces:

 

...

And finally to the Caixa Forum next to the Prado Museum and across the street from the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid, Spain. While Herzog + de Meuron designed the building, Patrick Blanc--a vertical garden designer--designed the contrasting green wall. This project elevated the visibility of vertical gardens (aka: living walls, green walls) and they've been popping up in cities around the world. Two things you can't get from pictures: the smell + temperature of the space next to the wall. See design tips below for more info.

Photo: Patrick Blanc website

Photo: Patrick Blanc website

Installation Photo: Patrick Blanc website

Photo: Patrick Blanc website

Photo rjhuttondfw flickr

[design tips]

Vertical garden walls like Patrick Blanc's require an interlocking, waterproof, modular grid structure similar to those little plastic flats for plant starters or vertical columns with holes. Plant plugs are placed individually in each opening, increasingly without soil, and fed water + nutrients through an extensive internal irrigation system. 

TONS OF WATER required. In the absence of soil, they rely on potent mixes of fertilizers and compound nutrients, not making them a very environmentally-conscious design solution. While they are beautiful and do provide significant cooling properties to any building, beware "green-washing" lexicon around them. 

Vines, however, require less water (fewer plants) and have the capacity to grow in locations with less sun and available roof planting space. They also help to reduce the temperature of a building and its surrounding area. Vines work in a few ways: 

1. Twining (the entire vine twists around something)  

2. Tendrils (little arms shoot out from the stock to then twine)  

3. Adhesion (a disc with a natural chemical substance glues it to a surface)

Vines on buildings do require maintenance and must be systematically removed in order to not harm the structure on which they grow.

[notes from a roman palace]

It's easy to miss--this tiny, bark-covered woodland cottage in the heart of one of Rome's palaces. I walked right by it, looking instead for parterre gardens at the Palazzo Barberini: those ubiquitous geometric carpet-like gardens at European estates. Imagine: I walked right past the dwelling of bygone royal wood nymphs! Walls are covered, both inside and out with thick, spongy bark and intricate detailing of slender branches. Light filtered through foggy windows, and the world became still for a few moments. A good reminder to look between the mundane cracks of life for beautiful places + things.

Aforementioned parterre gardens...rather overgrown

Barberini Palace, Image courtesy of Galleria Barberini

[history of bark houses]

We all know the word wigwam but who knew what one looked like? 8'-10' wood-framed dwellings covered in birch bark, of varying lengths and shapes. Supposedly belonging to agricultural (vs. nomadic) Algonquian, Ojibway, and other tribes around the wooded Great Lakes region, these were some of the first recorded bark houses on the continent.

Chippewa Indian wigwam camp from MInnesota Historical Society 1915

http://ed101.bu.edu/StudentDoc/current/ED101fa10/hillaryw/Woodland.html 

Tom Smith poses at a Birch bark Wigwam, Minnesota Historical Society 1920

Pukaskwa National Park by Ojibway people, Walter Muma photo

Pukaskwa National Park by Ojibway people, Walter Muma photo

[design tips]

While building your own bark dwelling might not be possible, planting a grove of birch trees is within reach. At least that way you'll have free material when you are ready to start siding... Betula papyrifera or Paper or Canoe Birch is an excellent grove tree and one of my favorites in naturalized landscapes and urban wilds.

If you are inspired to side your urban garage or your wood nymph dwelling, I've discovered that bark shingle manufactures do exist. The typical overlapping shingle technique doesn't do the Barberini cottage justice, but it could be cobbled together without overlap with the same twig detail technique could be used to conceal seams. In terms of sustainability, it's often harvested today from Poplar and Chestnut trees and is incredibly durable, lasting for well over 50 years. See these two manufacturers:

Barkhouse

Parton Bark Siding 

Before signing off, a little eye candy of a third type of wood structures by one of my favorite artists, Patrick Dougherty, for a final moment of day-dreaming:

Brahan Estate Scottish Highlands_2006_Fin Macrae Photo

patrick dougherty la county arboretum

Desert Botanical Garden PhoenixArizona_2007_Adam Rodriguez Photo

Morris Arboretum Philadelphia PA_2009_Rob Cardillo Photo