HORTITECTURE The Power of Architecture and Plants

BOTANICAL
BUILDING SYSTEM
EUROPE/GLOBAL,
2015–NOW
The Botanical Building System started as a project for
refugees in Europe. The aim was to develope a very flexible
system that can adapt to different needs. The combination
of garden and housing enables one to start
their own buisness, and the modular system can grow
step by step. This system can also be extended to a
high-rise with private gardens and the possibility of
everybody being able to produce food for themselves.
“I think that architects now also have a responsibility to
think about ecological alternatives, especially when it
come to our cities. My experience comes from China and
in India, where I lived for five years and have a couple of
projects. The cities there are growing at an enormous
speed, and by 2050 I think around 70% of our population
will live in urban areas.
The current way of constructing our cities is hugely unsustainable,
and the building profession is using more than
50 % of all the energy on our earth. So we as architects—
we are a big contributor to this pollution of our cities. So
I think we really need to find an ecological alternative, to
work with materials which have less of a carbon footprint
and have a more ecological outreach for our cities. And I
think that innovation doesn’t necessarily need to be hightech.
Like, in this sense it can be also low-tech. So, to do
more with less, in a way, or with something that is already
known: to look at vernacular architecture of specific
places and learn from them and then adapt those methods
to a more modern and contemporary way of how we
construct.”
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