Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Spaces, a digital publication exploring new ways to live and work.
CNN
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Designs have been unveiled for the largest single-dome greenhouse on the planet, set to spring up in France’s Pas-de-Calais.
Tropicalia will span a colossal 215,000 square feet, and is designed by French architecture practice Coldefy & Associates. It will feature a double-insulated, transparent, shell-like roof on an unprecedented scale.
Courtesy Coldefy & Associates
Tropicalia is expected to cost around $62 million and is a collaboration with energy company Dalkia.
The structure is conceived as a “bubble of harmony,” says the practice. A kilometer-long pathway will run through Tropicalia, connecting a variety of tropical landscapes filled with flora and fauna, as well as a thundering 82-foot waterfall and an Olympic-size swimming pool stocked with Amazonian fish.
NBBJ
Amazon is currently constructing three glass 'spheres', which will contain treehouse meeting areas and around 3,000 species of plants. The design is by innovative design practice
NBBJ. This will serve as the centerpiece for its new headquarters, set to open in 2018.
© Craig Sheppard
"You start to think of the plants as the clients, rather than some organization. You are trying to design something where the plants will flourish so you have to get everything right, particularly the amount of light, shade, temperature, humidity, etc. It requires a lot of research," said Jim Eyre, a founding director of WilkinsonEyre.
© Craig Sheppard
In 2006,
WilkinsonEyre was part of a British-led team that won the design competition for the masterplan for Singapore's Gardens by the Bay. Tasked with designing a horticultural attraction and showcase for sustainable technology, they created the Cooled Conservatory Complex. The two main conservatory structures are among the largest climate-controlled glasshouses in the world, covering an area in excess of 20,000 square meters (215,000 square feet).
Iwan Baan
Opened to the public in late 2014, the new Bombay Sapphire Distillery by
Heatherwick Studio straddles the River Test in the village of Laverstoke, England. Two intertwining botanical glasshouses are a highlight of the central courtyard -- one tropical and the other Mediterranean -- housing and cultivating the 10 plant species that give Bombay Sapphire gin its particularity.
Iwan Baan
Heatherwick Studio worked with a team from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew to create the unique ecological environments required within the two structures. The glasshouses are made from more than 10,000 bespoke components.
© Helene Binet
The project that arguably led to WilkinsonEyre winning their part in Gardens by the Bay was the Davies Alpine House at
Kew Gardens. When it opened in 2006, it was the first new glasshouse to be constructed there for more than 20 years.
Royal Botanic Garden, Kew
Kew Gardens houses one of the most important iron and glass structures in the world. Designed by Decimus Burton and engineered by Richard Turner, it was built between 1844 and 1848 to accommodate the exotic palms being collected and introduced to Europe in early Victorian times. The engineering techniques to build with wrought iron were pioneering -- borrowing from the shipbuilding industry -- and from a distance the glasshouse is said to resemble an upturned hull. It was the first time that the large-scale use of this material was demonstrated.
Kurt Bauschardt
Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, this impressive structure in Austria consists of 5,000 sheets of glass and is the largest glass house in continental Europe. It is also the last of its type to be constructed on the continent. Its three pavilions contain different climate zones and are linked by tunnel-like passages.
Mark Boyce
This huge structure, which opened in 2007, covers an area equal in size to 10 tennis courts and rises to 12 meters (40 feet) in height. It has three climatic zones, recreating tropical, moist temperate and dry temperate habitats.
Belfast Botanic Garden
Designed by architect Charles Lanyon and built by ironworker Richard Turner (who would go on to build the Palm House at London's Kew Gardens), it is one of the earliest examples of curvilinear cast iron glasshouses in the world.
Alan & Flora Botting
These modern glasshouses, iconic to the Canadian city, were designed by award-winning architect Peter Hemingway and opened in September 1976. Each of the four pyramids contains a different climate, collectively preserving and growing one of Canada's largest botanical collections.
Robin Smith/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Another modern structure, this Australian glasshouse was built in 1988 by Guy Maron. The largest single-span conservatory in the Southern Hemisphere, it was built as part of the celebrations for the Australian Bicentenary.
Lee Mawdsley
The second biggest conservatory in London, the
Barbican Conservatory has experienced renewed popularity in recent years. Open to the public, it is often used as a wedding venue and for various fashion shoots for the likes of Paul Smith, Rita Ora, Jean Paul Gautier and Agent Provocateur.
fotoVoyager/E+/Getty Images
Of the 27 glasshouses in
Copenhagen's Botanical Garden, the Palm House is the most famous. It was built by Carlsberg Breweries founder J. C. Jacobsen in 1874.
While Tropicalia will leave a big physical mark on the Rang-du-Fliers landscape, its ecological impact is much smaller. Say the architects: “The project is (an) autonomous energy producer by the use of a double dome creating a air chamber heated by a greenhouse effect.”
ETFE plastic and steel will be used to construct the greenhouse and it will bed down in the earth to make the most of natural insulation. Excess heat created by the complex will also be recycled for use in outlying buildings.
Courtesy Coldefy & Associates
The structure is conceived as a "bubble of harmony."
Tropicalia is expected to cost around $62 million and is a collaboration with energy company Dalkia. Don’t hop the channel just yet though – the project isn’t set to break ground until 2019, and will welcome its first guests in 2021.
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