Living Walls and Vertical Gardens » Making living wall art

Barrel Cactus Living Wall by Plant Solutions

Gavin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:37:49 +0000

The Barrel Cactus Vertical Living Wall was built in Scottsdale, Arizona. Designed by Joe Zazzera, GRP, LEED AP and installed by the Plant Solutions Team in May this year, this project is a vertical living wall using golden barrel cacti and a custom built frame. Dunham Workshop built the vertical frame out of steel. The intent was to create a piece of “living art” to draw attention to the entry of the Plant Solutions design showroom.

Photo 1: This vertical living Greenwall system was an experiment in design and fabrication. The base Frame was fabricated out of raw steel for a contemporary look. It was purposefully left un-finished as part of the intended design.

cactus living wall

Photo 2: The design called for 60 golden barrel cacti to be locked into a steel frame, rebar, soil and Rock. The entire frame will be attached to a block wall in the front of the Showroom entrance, enticing potential

Clients.

barrel cactus vertical garden

Photo 3: Since golden barrel cacti have shallow root systems, the frame was engineered with Concrete nails welded to the back of the frame. Essentially, the barrels would “hang” on the concrete Nails and be locked into place with rebar and granite lock.

Photo 4: The day after the wall was planted, we had an event at our facility so we decided to place a Piece of glass over the top of the frame and use it as a buffet table. We also created a great piece of furniture.

Photo 5: When completed, the frame, plants, soil and rock together weighed around 500 pounds. Furniture casters and elbow grease were the best way to move the completed unit around and into Place.

Photo 6: The completed installation would face west so we were a little concerned about late Afternoon sun until the plants acclimate. Simple anchor hardware was installed to hold the frame in place. The frame itself had offset feet but the anchors will keep it from movement.

Photo 7: Golden Barrel cacti are not only plentiful in our part of the country, they also create a highly sought after design effect. We especially like the clean repeating pattern look.

Photo 8: Raw steel is an honest material, the natural rust will continue to change the sculpture over time and with the weather. The root systems will further lock the wall into place over time as they develop.

Photo 9: Time will tell how the plants and the wall will hold up. The frame was designed with access For netafim laser line irrigation that could be manually connected with a water machine. Until established, they made the decision to hand control the watering.

Photo 10: The completed design accents the building, blends with the space and the design of the environment. It also creates a “wow” factor for retail passers-by and a draw for patrons.

Living wall installation in Brazil

Gavin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 22:35:07 +0000

Pierre-André Martin from eMbyá in Brazil sent me a great video of a time lapse of a vertical garden build. This is a short animation of an 8 square meter Brazilian living wall created by eMbyá, a young landscape architecture and environment firm from Rio de Janeiro.

As it shows on the video it is a totally customized to the space and has more than 20 different species. Some of the vegetal highlight are rare native Brazilian philodendrons such as philodendron panduriforme or philodendron radiathum. Native and exotic bromelias also made part of this composition of more than 180 plants.

The time lapse video show a 4 days work using a physical support made from recycled toothpaste tubes shaped into panels covered with the traditional geotextile felt. What a great idea.

The Flower Box Video

Gavin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:53:17 +0000

The video is in Spanish I think… but you can see the designs at least if you can’t speak Spanish. This is a video from Flower Box.

Habitat Horticulture

Gavin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:13:44 +0000

Habitat Horticulture was founded to bring plants into urban areas. They install living walls to improve a building’s aesthetics as well as to make it a healthier place to live and work. David Brenner founded Habitat Horticulture and is the designer of the living walls. His unusal education of a degree in Environmental Sciences with a minor in Psychology helped him delve deeper into the effects plants have on people. Brenner likes to work with plants that are extremely threatened or completely extinct in the wild. His passion is to continue to use threatened plants to help preserve them as much as possible.

Living Pillar

Green Pillar

What used to be a stark concrete pillar has just recently been transformed by Habitat Horticulture into a living “plant pillar”. New Resource Bank, located in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district is a bank designed to help environmentally conscious businesses grow through better loan rates and green incentives. Habitat Horticulture’s living wall is a nice addition to the banking facility’s Gold LEED certification.

Here are a few other living wall designs for indoor and outdoor use. I love the copper and steel frames/reservoirs.

Indoor Living Wall

Indoor green wall

Outdoor vertical garden