Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson was a prominent physician, anaesthetist and sanitarian. He founded the Journal of Public Health in 1855 and was an early advocate of the benefits of cycling. Writing in 1876, in his book Hygeia – A City of Health he argued that in the roof of each house should be a flat area to be used as a yard or where flowers could be grown, which sounds a little like the Mayor of London’s Living Roofs Policy(which the Green Roof Consultancy wrote a technical report) – which was finally adopted 135 years later! Although his City of Health was ‘yet unknown’ Richardson made the point that ‘the details of the city exist’ and his proposals were not an unobtainable utopian dream. All the components of the City of Health still exist but we still need to accelerate uptake of their use.

The Stucki Shopping Centre in Basel

The Stucki Shopping Centre, Basel, opened last year, is the kind of place that you will be familiar with – hundreds of shops under one roof and underground parking. It does include some innovative features though including heating using waste heat from an adjoining industrial estate and absorption refrigerators, which also use waste heat. There is also an enormous (35,000m2) extensive biodiverse green roof – standard practice in Basel (see description by Jim Labbe), but the feature that will strike most visitors as they arrive is the facade greening.

In China, every year, more than 15 million people move from the countryside to the cities. Most will eventually find themselves living in an apartment in a multi-storey block. They may be cramped but at least they have a roof over their heads. But most of these new urbanites miss contact with nature and yearn for the days when they could potter in their own garden back in their ancestral village, enjoying fresh food produced through their own effort.

I was working in AECOM’s Design and Planning section in London in 2008 when I was approached by colleagues looking for ways of improving the design of the southern terrace. A barrier was required to separate residential properties on Bulwer Street from what was expected to become a noisy and crowded entrance to the new Westfield Shopping Centre. I had recently visited various living wall projects in France and immediately saw that this was an opportunity do something similar in London.

The Generalife Gardens (Jannat al-'Arif? meaning Architect's Garden in Arabic) in Granada, part of the Alhambra complex, were the summer residence of the Nasrid Dynasty (1232-1492). Spain had been first secured by Arab Muslims in 732, so the defeat of the Nasrids in 1492 marked the end of nearly 800 years of Muslim civilsation in the Iberian Peninsula.