Auckland Transport Living Shelters Trial
Jan 2024 . Written by Cathy Bebelman
Living roofs and walls trials
During 2020 Auckland Transport (AT) began the work to design and construct two living shelters. The work originated from a visit to relatives in 2015 in the Netherlands by Auckland Transports Chief Scientist, Dr Cathy Bebelman. The idea was to start small, testing the designs and planting under Auckland climatic conditions before looking to learn and expand the use of green roofs and walls on the wider transport network.
Objectives of the work included:
To contribute to the well-being of Aucklanders by providing bus stops which filter air pollutants, reduce the urban heat island effect and provide some aesthetic benefits;
To contribute to local native biodiversity and/or pollinator pathways, increasing ‘nature’ in the roadside environment;
To reduce impervious surfaces within the city and provide stormwater quantity reduction benefits – helps to make a spongy city; and
Provide an opportunity to better evaluate the role of living roofs in climate change adaptation and the building of resilient communities.
Installations
Two locations were selected to trial the designs and in late 2021, the ecopillows were installed. The Panmure bus interchange provided the larger living roof and included 4 x ecopanels (or walls, 1mx2m). The roof is 3m wide and 63m long and has over 1000 plants. The Panmure shelter is irrigated using a Bluetooth system connected to mains water. The ecopillows were established and grown off-site prior to installation.
The Diorella Drive shelter has 10 ecopillows and covers 9.5m2 surface, allowing room for solar panels. These panels power lighting at night and a small pump under the seat which provides irrigation with roof runoff collected in the water tank (also under the seat).
The shelters had a maintenance schedule for the first 12 -24 months to ensure establishment of the plant systems. This involves regular inspections and weeding, a check of the irrigation systems around 6 times annually, although this will reduce as the plants mature fully.
The pillows stood up well to the storm events Jan/Feb 2023 with little damage or issues. While there was some plant loss over the previous summer with the hot dry weather, it reflected the low maturity of the plants at the time.
Learnings to take away from the design:
The living walls at Panmure have required regular plant replacement due to people stuffing litter into the walls and breaking the plants. The use of spikey plants or allowing the planted pillows to mature more before being installed might reduce this. Community buy-in reduces vandalism – this has been really successful at the Diorella Dr shelter where the local school environment team and the Local Board have been involved. AT would also look at using smart technology such as water meters and sensors in the future to automate the irrigation.
AT is now looking at the wider network of bus shelters to expand the programme of living roofs and trial different planting design solutions.