Remember the no-sunlight-and-all-concrete-walls depressing
scenes? We talked about how unliveable that kind of environment would be like. Well,
it is not impossible to have greenery in the depths of the crust. In fact,
projects are underway for the world’s first ever underground park, located in
New York!
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| Picture from www.kickstarter.com |
The Lowline is a proposal for a community park underneath the
bustling city of New York, in a long abandoned trolley terminal (The name is inspired by the successful highline park in New York). The team
behind the project even overcame the challenge of providing sunlight to the
plants using nothing but a few reflective dishes. The “remote skylight” as it
is called is the brainchild of James Ramey, the co-founder and creator of
Lowline. The technology harvests natural sunlight from aboveground and
concentrate the rays onto a focal point after which the light energy is
transferred underground via fiberoptic tubes and spread across the facility by interconnecting
reflective domes on the ceiling (Lowline, 2014). With that, plants can
photosynthesize in an otherwise dark room. By using natural sunlight, it also
means that electricity is not needed to power bulbs in the day time.
You can find out more about the Lowline project by watching their promotional video:
You can find out more about the Lowline project by watching their promotional video:
And, of course, they succeeded in building their prototype! They have proven that it is very possible to have a park full of healthy trees and shrubs below the ground. Residents in that area can relax at the park even when it is raining or freezing cold in winter.
According to Asimov (1989), one advantage of living underground is to make space aboveground, so that forests need not be cleared for more urbanisation. People can enjoy nature both underground and above, and the ecosystems on the surface would be in better shape.
Would you like an underground park in Singapore too? With greater wildlife and forests conservation by not touching present forests, it looks like living underground can truly make us a garden city!
According to Asimov (1989), one advantage of living underground is to make space aboveground, so that forests need not be cleared for more urbanisation. People can enjoy nature both underground and above, and the ecosystems on the surface would be in better shape.
Would you like an underground park in Singapore too? With greater wildlife and forests conservation by not touching present forests, it looks like living underground can truly make us a garden city!
Literature cited:
The Lowline. (2014) Project. [Online] Available from: http://www.thelowline.org/about/project/.
[Accessed: 20 September 2012].
Asimov, I. (1989) The advantages of underground living. Los Angeles Times, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
[Online] 2nd June. P D2.
(I'll be using the Harvard referencing style from here on)
(I'll be using the Harvard referencing style from here on)
Surely there are limitations to the plant species we can bring underground with us. This shows we can only bring certain plants underground while others such as tall rain forest trees are definitely out of the question. And what's a park without its wildlife? Is it possible to bring ecosystems underground? Even if they manage to bring wildlife into the underground 'park' (poor birds), who would want to be with insects (think bees and wasps) in an enclosed space?
ReplyDeleteYup Cheryl! Although we can't grow those tall trees underground (those should be left to reserves, parks and sidewalks), the possibility of having some greenery underground is good enough. At least we won't be devoid of plants in our underground environment. And I don't think birds should be allowed down there. As for insects, bees and wasps like to build their nests on large trees, so they probably wouldn't follow us down too.
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