In order to make the urban and suburban environment more aesthetic but also more conducive to good healthy living, there is the need to introduce trees into the landscape.
Nonetheless it is well recognised that trees require a certain amount of space within these populated areas if they are going to develop into mature trees offering the benefits of shaded foliage, water retention, cooling, aesthetics and so forth to the surrounding area.
For the most part, town planning have seen the planting of trees in urban and suburban areas to grow in close proximity to pavements and walkways so that benefits of the trees can be enjoyed by those pedestrians utilising such places.
Nonetheless this is where the great conflict or competing demands begin to present themselves when trees are attempted to be placed in populated areas or positioned along pavements, walkways and so forth.
It is well recognised that the trees to successfully grow require rich nutrient soils with the appropriate levels of moisture and sufficient drainage to allow the tree's root system to pass there through.
Alternatively walkways or pavements require compact well supported soil structure to keep the positioned pavers or concrete in place thereby avoiding any structural damage to the construction.
Hence if trees are going to be planted in urban and suburban areas there seems to be a predicament as to whether or not one needs to look after the tree and therefore provide low compact soils suitable for root growth or alternatively compact soils which provide the necessary load bearing support for the pavement and make it unconductive for the root system of the tree to develop and therefore extend out or damage the pavement in any way.
In order to try and overcome these kinds of problems more recently systems have been introduced that accommodate tree rooting, pavement and side walk developments in close proximity and also potentially offering further functionality for storm water management.
FIG. 1 enclosed herewith provides such an example of how a modulated cell can create uncompacted soil volumes for large tree growths and also on site storm water management through the creation of a modular frame positioned about and below a load bearing feature such as a pavement and also within the tree root network.
Nonetheless problems with such an arrangement as the one depicted in FIG. 1 are quite numerous.
As the person skilled in the art will appreciate the rectangular crate type structure presented in FIG. 1 while it may have a lot of open spaces to accommodate a tree's root network, it does so at the expense of vertical stability of the frame structure when the cell frame is mounted vertically one upon the other.
Also the cell frame is made up of several independent components including the base, top plate and also the fastening means.
While there is some scope of the cell frame to be mounted vertically, albeit quite efficiently due to the amount of space in between the beams providing support, there is no inherent lateral fastening mechanisms to bring together adjacent cell frames to form a matrix type configuration.
Still further with so many individual components making up the cell frame it would be difficult to conveniently pack together a whole series of these frames during storage or transportation to their intended site for construction.
While further efforts have been made by others to provide similar cell frames again to try and create some stackable frame structure to provide load bearing support but also accommodate a tree's root network, these other attempts have not been able to create a balance between the requirement of the load bearing aspects of supporting the pavement without detrimentally affecting the usefulness of the frame structure in allowing the root network of the tree to pass there through.
While it may be possible to add further posts and beams and make the cell frame of reduced dimensions to the one illustrated in FIG. 1 this then takes away the benefit of open spaces and the like to allow the tree root network to pass there through and will also make the construction of the overall structural frame cumbersome, time consuming and expensive.
Therefore there clearly remains a need in this area of interest associated with being able to provide a feature which is open to accommodate the needs of both a tree but also those physical engineering requirements of an appropriately level load bearing soil structure to support important transport sections such as side walks or walkways that must be free of any hazards such as cracks or tree root intrusions.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide a modulated cell which is adapted to form an improved structural frame which is able to provide support for a load bearing feature such as a pavement or walkway but at the same time adequately accommodate a rooting area for a tree.
Further objects and advantages of this invention including the ability of the same modulated cell structure to assist in storm water retention and the diversion of the storm water to underground tanks and so forth will become apparent from the complete reading of this specification.