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Generate shadows without trees: vegetable awnings, a new way to generate shadows in the city.
(www.singulargreen.com)
I found these kind of cool as an idea, as they can be added rather easily to existing cities and provide some greenery without taking up space, while providing shade:
The people below are not getting shaded by or seeing the vegetation tho? If you need shade you can just use the canvas without the plant life and all the other stuff needed to sustain it up there. Actually if this system is intended for narrow streets like this it seems completely unnecessary as the buildings already shade the street. Otherwise if you want plant shade use trees or malleable plants like wines instead of inventing ways to put plants in places they aren't meant to be.
I had an office with a few of these canvas triangles high up above us below a bunch of high windows and it was beautiful! The way the window shadows hit the canvas and the way they shaded each other made beautiful diffused light and interesting shadow shapes.
If somebody had put vegetation on them the whole experience would've been worse.
Also narrow streets do not shade, when you have sun shining from above, which happens every day at noon.
...in the tropics, sure
plants give you a better microclimate than just a canvas, because of the controlled evaopration of water. + the air smells nicer with plants around
This is totally dumb. I wouldn't want one attached to my building. How heavy are they? I'm guessing it doesn't snow there? How do you weed it when it invariably gets infested with weeds. The irrigation system is sure to break, how do you service that? This will look like absolute shit in a year.
I make canvas and awnings. Shade sails are almost always really stupid. Big bucks for very little bang. Most of the day you end up with a wee thong shadow halfway up the wall