Here’s my idea for a type of road which grows and purposefully breaks over time to transform itself from smooth roads into classier Parisian-style cobblestones as the surrounding neighbourhood changes over time.
Basically, when a road is newly paved or redone, saplings are planted on top of a root guide at specific nodal flex points alongside a street. Then the pavement poured around these nodes and into the street is perforated in such a way that, over time, as the tree grows it’s roots will be guided to push out and up and break the road surface along those perforations in a controlled way.
Breaking up the perforations will create a cobblestone effect that will act as a traffic calming measure to encourage pedestrian use around the same time desired walkable access to nearby activities and amenities are developed. Additionally, local grasses planted in the perforations along with the highly permeable nature of the system, act to effectively absorb excess storm-water to prevent runoff and overloading sewage systems
Earlier in the summer I submitted this idea to an architectural ideas competition too, posting it here I’ve tried to simplify it somewhat. I’m no CAD or 3D jockey, so I played to my own style when creating the illustrations for the presentation:
