Green Roofs and Walls

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Permalink Reply by Mark Stephens Architect on February 10, 2011 at 12:13pm

Hi, I designed & built our own house in VectorWorks that has a large section underground with a grass roof (intensive) - what would you like to know.

Mark

ps photos in projects section of website http://markstephensarchitects.com/projects

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Permalink Reply by Derek Ashby on February 11, 2011 at 3:32am

Hello Mark,

Thank you for your reply and the link to your web site, some very nice and varied work you are producing. I really like your main photo of the cantilevered balcony and green roof.

I guess my question is mainly around producing 3D drawings and elevations of green wall drawings on what plant symbols to use in Vectorworks to create a good looking render and detailed drawings. I feel I have a good handle on producing drawings for green roofs, just not the best way to go about green walls. I will play around with the concept but as they say why re-invet the wheel if some has ridden down the street on it and came up with a way of staying on.

Hope the weather has been kind to you, it's been a wet summer on the east coast of Australia.

 

Cheers

 

Derek

 

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Permalink Reply by Mark Stephens Architect on February 13, 2011 at 9:30am

Hi Derek

Many thanks for kind words, sorry haven't got involved much on the walls side,nor doing 3d drawings of them-sorry.

Weather has been pretty wet and still on the cold side. Best of luck

Mark

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Permalink Reply by Steve Rice on February 14, 2011 at 10:04am

Hi Derek - I think it would be very difficult to create a realistic-looking "green wall" using 3D plant symbols as you'd need such as dense matrix of plant objects with each of them assigned a Z-value to position them vertically.  I think a better approach is to use sections of "flat" image-based textures to create something giving the impression of a Patrick Blanc type planted wall (see here), as in my attached image.

I created this by modifying the colours of the VW image textures for "Nature Foliage 03" and "Nature Grass 02" using Photoshop Elements, then applying the coloured textures to extruded, random-shaped, closed polylines which I'd drawn onto the wall face.

If you're not sure about creating the re-coloured textures, let me know & I'll add instructions!

 

Steve Rice, Blooming Good Gardens

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Permalink Reply by Derek Ashby on February 14, 2011 at 3:01pm

Hi Steve,

 

Thanks very much for the tips and ideas, I hadn't thought of going down that direction. I've been play around with making my own symbols but still very rough (not as nice as looking as your wall) and not where I would like it to be but I'll continue to plug away at it,

 

Regards

 

Derek

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Permalink Reply by Mark Stephens Architect on February 15, 2011 at 12:20am

Why not just do the whole lot in photoshop, the end result will be much more realistic - the only reason to use Vectorworks would be to do counts on the symbols etc... Which wouldn't be feasible in this case anyway

Mark

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Permalink Reply by Derek Ashby on February 15, 2011 at 12:55am

Hi Mark,

I don't use Photoshop so thats why I'm doing it in Vectorworks, however I have been looking for Photoshop alternatives for Mac to use, so if anyone can suggest a Photoshop alternative for Mac I'm open to explore them.

 

Cheers

 

Derek

 

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Permalink Reply by Mark Stephens Architect on February 15, 2011 at 2:02am

how about the cut down PhotoShop Elements, perfect for most stuff

Mark

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Permalink Reply by Steve Rice on February 15, 2011 at 6:09am

Hi Derek - I did initially try doing all my stuff in VW, using the "color filter" when making the new texture from the existing one - but this gave a very saturated coloured image which looked unreal - hence taking it out and Photoshopping it.  I use Photoshop Elements (PSE) - mainly for extracting plant images / etc. from their backgrounds when making a plant Image Prop in VW - I think it cost about £60?  There's also "GIMP" which you can download for free - it certainly has LINUX flavour as well as Windows flavour, so it may be worth checking for Mac versions.

 

Hi Mark - Good point about doing it all in Photoshop - especially fot a final presentation version, but I still think there are plus point for keeping it in VW:

1. If the wall/roof is being designed, rather than just being a style "illustration", the planted area shapes need to be formulated.  (This has to be done whether my "flat" texture or Derek's Image Props are employed.)  VW has all the geometry tools needed to do this.
2. Whilst doing this initial "graphic" design, it's easy to experiment using different solid / gradient colours, or hatches, for the polyline shapes before going on to develop the textures which represent "real" plants.
3. The contractor will need a scaled drawing to plant the wall/roof as you've designed it.
4. The image textures which I used can be varied even more by rotating the image and/or rescaling them each time a texture is created - combined with the colour modifications, 2 or 3 "base" images can give a multitude of variations to simulate particular plant species. 
5. Once the textures have been developed, they can be saved in your resources library for re-use on other projects.
6. When the wall/roof texturing is done, it forms an intrinsic part of the overall architectural design and can be shown from any position, without extra work, just by moving or adding a new VW camera position.
7. Although my flat texturing won't give automatic plant counting, the area of the polyline shapes is available.  It's easy enough to divide the area sizes by an "average size" for each plant species used to get the numbers needed.  This could probably be automated in a VW worksheet by using record formats to assign each polyline shape a plant species name & average plant size.

Derek - hope you get your plant images to work - I'd be interested if you can post back with a pic of your results when you're happy with it!

 

Steve.

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