‘Living Pavements’ To Greenify Public Spaces
Dutch designer Bennie Meek designed a form of pavement that would improve rain water drainage in urban areas, such as the city of Eindhoven. Meek’s design was part of the Design Academy Eindhoven 2012 graduation show. The philosophy behind the Living Pavement is re-thinking about how nature should be present in an urban area.
According to Meek, nature should be present in less domesticated shapes and forms. He says that over the years nature has become something people only look at and don’t experience. By integrating nature with pavements it becomes an ‘end destination’ in daily transit. Nature will be the last thing people see when they enter their house at night.
By applying this form of pavement on a large scale in the city of Eindhoven, the inner city climate will be improved. Meek thinks his design could result in a decrease of pollution in the Dommel river. Despite his good intentions streets look quite odd in the renderings and it’s hard to imagine that a whole neighborhood would look like this. What do you think, could living pavement be a serious solution to urban drainage problems?
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The paving block modules look great.
The renderings do look a bit odd and dishevelled though. The thing is cities go to great expenses to make certain they don’t look run-down or dirty. He should look now at working with a very good landscape architect to work out what plants work best in this type of situation and would leave the street being representable than it was to begin with, not an easy task at all.
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