In our cities, there are many buildings and elements that serve pure functions such as bus shelters, noise barriers, waste bins, recycling stations and public toilets. How can we use vegetation to create both ecosystem services and higher experience values?
Greenworks' plant walls and moss roofs frame Uppsala Municipality and JCDecaux's new public toilet in the City Garden. After the inauguration in January, the vegetation has now become so lush that a blackbird has built a nest in the greenery.
“I was there filming the chicks in the nest the other day,” says Jens Öqvist, landscape engineer at Greenworks, enthusiastically, while describing a diverse plant palette with shimmering blue-green reef sucker, red-green alum root, dark pink rhododendron among the rosette leaves of the dew cap.
– We also have lush red rhubarb and large parasol leaves that give it even more of a jungle feel. As an extra green element, we have established moss on the roof.
At the inauguration, Rickard Malmström, chairman of Uppsala Municipality's Street and Community Environment Committee, emphasized that the city toilet will contribute to more robust management of climate change.
“The toilet is accessible to everyone regardless of gender and age,” emphasized Rickard Malmström. The green exterior with plant walls and moss roof lowers the temperature inside during summer days, while the smart water management saves water.
JCDecaux is responsible for the investment cost of SEK 3,5 million. Before Magnus Heljeberg, CEO of JCDecaux Sweden, assisted Rickard Malmström in cutting the red ribbon in front of journalists and municipal employees, he said that it goes without saying that the toilet is free from all types of advertising.
– We also cover the operating costs, taxpayers here in Uppsala don't have to pay any money and it doesn't cost anything to go to the toilet either. We are planning for several green and smart city toilets all over Sweden.
– The “jungle mug”, as the public toilet is jokingly called, is as green on the inside as it is on the outside, emphasized JCDecaux's vice president Mikael Nilsson. The water for cleaning is filtered and can be reused between 50 and 80 times before it needs to be changed. We also have sensors that alert us if maintenance or other assistance is needed.
The location right next to the City Garden playground, not far from the park's Pelle Svanslös Statue, is of course strategic. Jens Öqvist explains that the plant map is planned to withstand both cold winters and hot summers.
“Seven years ago, Greenworks contributed plant walls to a city toilet at Konsul Olssons plats in the middle of Helsingborg,” says Jens Öqvist. Now we have more projects of this type underway, including plant-covered recycling stations in Madrid. Why not other types of living functional buildings in the cityscape of the future?