{"id":570,"date":"2010-01-31T10:56:37","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T15:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=570"},"modified":"2010-01-31T13:25:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-31T18:25:06","slug":"green-wall-to-shade-federal-renovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/?p=570","title":{"rendered":"Green Wall to Shade Federal Renovation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by William Yardley, NEW YORK TIMES, January 30, 2010<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/gsagreen.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px\" title=\"gsa green\" src=\"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/gsagreen_thumb.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"gsa green\" width=\"176\" height=\"130\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a> Urban gardening used to seem subversive. People planted tomatoes in public parks, strung their hops to rooftops to make homebrew and reclaimed empty lots as community farms, never mind the property owner.<\/p>\n<p>Yet here in one of the more thoroughly tilled cities in America, subversive has come full circle: the federal government plans to plant its own bold garden directly above a downtown plaza. As part of a $133 million renovation, the <a title=\"Web site\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gsa.gov\/Portal\/gsa\/ep\/home.do?tabId=0\">General Services Administration<\/a> is planning to cultivate \u201cvegetated fins\u201d that will grow more than 200 feet high on the western facade of the main federal building here, a vertical garden that changes with the seasons and nurtures plants that yield energy savings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey will bloom in the spring and summer when you want the shade, and then they will go away in the winter when you want to let the light in,\u201d said Bob Peck, commissioner of public buildings for the G.S.A. \u201cDon\u2019t ask me how you get them irrigated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rainwater, captured on the roof, and perhaps even \u201cgray water\u201d recycled from the interior plumbing are both possibilities, the architects say. But they concede that they are still figuring out some of the finer points of renovating the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, which was completed in 1975 and is currently 18 stories of concrete, glass and minimal inspiration.<\/p>\n<p>Who will prune the facade? Maybe the same folks who wash skyscraper windows, the architects say. Perhaps the exterior concrete panels removed in the renovation could be reused as salmon habitat in a nearby river. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/01\/31\/us\/31portland.html?emc=tnt&amp;tntemail0=y\" target=\"_blank\">[Read rest of story]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal stimulus plan will pay for a 200-ft green wall on an 18-story office building that is being renovated for the General Services Administration. The renovation, which is expected to cut energy use by some 40%, sounds excellent, but the expensive &#038; experimental green wall is a doubtful move in these times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[245,164,244,148,241,243,242,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itstheenvironmentstupid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}