Design Approach

We take our cues from Nature and develop green infrastructure products that prioritize product efficacy, reliability, recyclability, and scalability, with digital technology intelligently integrated where it makes the most sense. This holistic, ecology-driven approach makes our products better for our customers as well.

Here’s what they do:

Benefits to Nature

Technologies

How Leaf Island Envisions The Urban Landscape

Underpass Retrofit Vision

A bare, uninviting concrete underpass has the capacity to be transformed into a tunnel of green space that not only looks beautiful, but also delivers immense ecological potential.

Floating Wetlands take up all of the stormwater from the overlying expressway. Their vertical exterior becomes a habitat for bryophytes, which capture the air pollution generated by the thousands of vehicles that pass through this area each day. Its concrete barrier structure protects pedestrians, cyclists and would-be jaywalkers from the high-speed traffic on the roadway.

Dense ivy sprouts from the floating wetlands and planters located at the base of the pillars and grows along cable trellises surrounding the pillars and overlying plinths. This vertically-aligned vegetation utilizes the immense surface area offered by the pillars to essentially eliminate the urban heat island effect through the process of evapotranspiration; not only cooling the nearby area, but allowing vehicles to carry cool air further down the underpass during hot summer months.

The LED lighting above creates a safe, welcoming public space for pedestrians and cyclists at night, while supporting the plant growth in this normally low-light environment. Air quality and temperature sensors cause certain rows of lights to change color, allowing residents to see the effects that this greenspace has on the area.

This is Leaf Island in action.