Filed under: Architecture,Landscape,Living Wall,Materials,Natural Inspiration

A New York-based architecture firm with an interesting name, Ginseng Chicken has designd a Fibonacci Spril-inspired building for the Liverpool’s National Wildflower Center. The concept for the building, which houses such activities as seed processing, plant production and education, is to create a form that would provide a seamless relationship with nature, mathematics and physics. The architects, via Arch Daily, describe it as providing “an operational hub for creative conservation, learning and innovation.”

“The spiral form is layered to divide the complex pragmatically. The lower spiral contains conference rooms, classrooms, and a community room; above, a pebbled floor provides the base for operational programs, such as the seed processing rooms, while a sustainable wildflower screen provides enclosure; the uppermost level offers a continuous circulation path along a PV paneled covered roof.”

“The wildflower screen is a self-standing sustainable skin that creates a greenhouse condition to develop an energy saving system. “The double-skinned screen enhances the building’s energy-saving performance through features such as seasonal daylight control by varying pot arrangement, water irrigation systems, and living machines,” stated the architects. The screen provides an aesthetic texture to the façade and allows users to stay connected with the exterior gardens, even while occupying the interior spaces.”

images via Arch Daily
Honestly I’m not that impressed by the looks of the wall screen. It seems a bit messy and is really just pots set in hoops. Kinda boring and not at all elegant. I also don’t understand how the plants are watered or how the system is self-sustaining. An irrigation system is mentioned and shows some sort of cascading gravity system in the section but I can’t figure out how it works in reality given the other pictures and the angles.

Also, here’s an interesting product I came across recently from Loop called Biowall that kind of resembles the wall structure that held planters for the National Wildflower Center, but on a smaller scale and with a more interwoven texture that would just allow for plants to climb on. It sort of looks like artistic chicken wire in a way.

Loop describes BioWall as: “springy fiberglass rods are bowed into rings and woven into several dodecahedra that in turn are joined together. The woven fibres create a balance between the rigidity of sheet material and the flexibility of a textile. The structure is based on the principle of self-similarity enabling it to work from the nano to the macro scale. It can be seen in our natural environment in the formation of bubbles, living cells and water molecules. With plants creeping and crawling around the structure, BioWall can become an indoor, living hedge that divides space.”

images via Loop





