Up in the air - it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a garden, as residential development goes green

Hanging from a rock face 30 metres from the ground is not usually the time or place for thinking about your garden.

But for Phillip Johnson it was scaling the heights of the Grampians’ Mt Arapiles that inspired him to take a leap into the world of vertical gardens.

The daredevil-turned-horticulturalist has since taken his love for gardens to the most extreme and unlikely of places – the soaring wall of TRIO apartments in the Sydney suburb Camperdown.

Last month his 33-metre by five-metre vertical garden, which spans 12 storeys and includes 4,528 native plants, picked up the top gong for commercial landscaping at the Australian Landscape Excellence Awards.

The stunning design (pictured above), and Australia’s tallest living wall, was created in partnership with botanist Patrick Blanc, a flamboyant Frenchman whom Johnson describes as “the grandfather of green walls around the world”.

Their win was described as “pioneering” – a term Blanc knows well but one Johnson will have to get use to.

“It is still very early days in Australia,” he says. “The vertical garden movement is starting, but I say bring on the revolution.”

Johnson believes we are a good 10 years behind Japan and some cities in Europe and North America, which due to high-density living were more prone to greening up irregular spaces like walls and rooftops.

“In Japan idea of green walls is so evolved that they call them bio-lungs, which acknowledges the bio-diversity and the improved air quality they bring to the urban environment.”

Johnson says Australian developers and property investors need to understand that vertical gardens are more than just window and wall dressing.

“We all know what plants do for removing Co2, but these gardens also become living habitats attracting birds and butterflies to their buildings.

“They are also effective for insulating against heat and reducing city noise,” he says.

“Greening up our cities is in everyone’s interest, and contrary to what many people think, it doesn’t need to be complicated. If we use the right systems and have the proper level of maintenance, it can be achieved.

“And we need to show how landscapes like this can add value to property.”

Although it can be difficult and costly to install vertical gardens in existing buildings, the “revolution” depends on developers who see the benefits –but also the commercial viability – of including living green spaces in their new projects.

Frasers Property, the company behind Trio and the planned One Central Park apartments in inner Sydney, is one developer flying the green flag.

“We’ve looked carefully at the installation and operational costs of vertical gardens, and in our experience, they are no more costly to install than commonly used stone-clad facades, but they are clearly more appealing,” CEO Guy Pahor says.

“With respect to ongoing maintenance, when amortised across the 623 apartments at One Central Park, it will become a minor part of the overall building maintenance expense.”

The ambitious project (pictured above) led by celebrated architect Jean Nouvel and Patrick Blanc will incorporate 44,000 plants over 23 vertical panels (or 1,100 square metres) and seven linear kilometres of planter boxes containing an additional 150,000 plants.

The gardens are fed by an external hydroponic watering system using water collected from the site.

Pahor is convinced that “organic architecture is global and growing”, but other developers are less willing to meet the start-up and ongoing expenses.

At Hamton’s Eden development in the riverside Melbourne suburb of Abbottsford, installing permanent vertical and rooftop gardens was considered too costly, but also environmentally unsustainable.

“We worked with landscapers to create a look using creepers and planter boxes that softens the façade and blends in with the natural surrounds, but doesn’t require large amounts of water or energy-intensive lights to keep the plants alive,” Hamton managing director Steve Buxton says.

“This will ensure costs are kept down for residents.”

A different approach is being taken by CK Designworks, which is designing the Crystal Gardens development in Russell Street (pictured above), in Melbourne’s CBD. The architect has designed the 35-storey building such that it will have a park every six storeys.

“Melbourne consistently rates as one of the world’s most liveable cities, partly due to its expansive parks and gardens, but developers should now look at rooftop gardens and high-rise parks as the next step in the greening of the world’s cities,” CK Designworks partner and project architect Robert Caulfield says.

Nearby at Melbourne’s Flagstaff Gardens, the planned SkyPark Tower hotel and apartments (pictured above) will include, as the name implies, an activity and fitness park high up on the 32nd floor.

The catch is that this park will be completely covered in synthetic grass and has no plants or vegetation.

Architect Billy Kavellaris, director of Kavellaris Urban Design, says vertical and rooftop gardens are often “good design initiatives”, but are not the only way to produce “good design outcomes”, particularly when it comes to engaging people in open spaces.

“They have become fashionable, but I am concerned they are often added on to justify the lack of other sustainability measures within the overall building or design,” he says.

“The SkyPark offers a critique on this discussion and is a good way to generate debate in the industry.”

SkyPark Tower includes a half basketball court, gym, barbecue area and a climbing wall (pictured above), which unlike Johnson’s preferred rock face, will be completely devoid of plants and grasses.