After a lovely stroll through the south park blocks in downtown Portland in the late fall, I decided to wander over to the Hotel Madera to snap some pictures of the lovely courtyard designed by local landscape architecture firm Lango Hansen in conjunction with Holst Architecture on the upgrade of the old Days Inn to the new boutique Hotel Modera. The location of the new courtyard replaces what used to be a lifeless parking lot.
From the sidewalk, the trellis structure indicates the entrance point into the courtyard, doubling as a subtle welcome sign. The connection between the courtyard and the streetscape works well in that the courtyard feels like it’s own space and yet is still open and inviting enough not to feel uninviting to those passing by.
A wooden screen between courtyard space and sidewalk creates a feel of enclosure while allowing for the best urban activity of all, people watching. This is especially interesting given the public bus stop right outside.
Once inside, the wood decking leads up to the hotel entrance while a low wall lines the walkway to the left surrounding an outdoor dining area while the open area off to the right is an open, public space. Moveable seating mixed with permanent seating walls invite people to sit down and relax awhile. As the furniture would indicate, the seating walls could either be used for sitting or as a table.
The public space is madeup of a grid that overlays both the horizontal and the vertical space with hardscape, furnishings and planting which create patterns that move in and out of the grid. Patches of vegetation reach out from the vertical wall into the horizontal hardscape with sharp, angular edges that give it a clean, modern feel that meshes with the identity of the hotel. This design is the part that is so intriguing about this space, instead of creating a gridded living wall that simply because of product or budget limitations, this particular living wall not only fits perfectly within the design but enhances the idea of the fluid grid.
One might say that the vegitated wall looks too regimented unlike the walls of Patrick Blanc which run seamlessly without lines. But here, such a seamless style would not make sense and instead the vegetated tiles work perfectly. They even seem to float, almost giving off the sense that the viewer could move them about as they wished by simply pushing them around.
Metal edging details the planting areas, separating them from the precast paving tiles. Some plants are clipped and manicured to remain within the square and rectangular spaces while others, like the soft grasses, are allowed to flop outside the lines.
A rough rock slab and gravel pathway move through lush, vegetated squares that bring the viewer close to the living wall amongst the ferns and grasses. Here one can touch and look closely at the vegetated tiles that make up the wall.
I believe the vegetated wall panels are the Green Wall Panels by G-Sky. These are pretty cool products that make it easy for even the vegetated architecture novice to achieve good results. The designer can select a palette of plants that fits in with their design, G-Sky will then plant the tiles for them. Pretty simple and easy. Here it looks like they are planted with a mix of dirt inside of fabric pouches and moss has filled in some gaps around some of the smaller plants. Drip irrigation is then added behind the system and here it is allowed to drip freely out the bottom and drain into the nearby planter bed.
This plaza has successfully managed to blend the feel of the richly vegetated Pacific Northwest with the clean lines of modern architecture while bringing in a cool element of new technology within landscape architecture. While this space was rather empty in these pictures, I’m certain that it’s just because it had recently rained and it was bitterly cold out. I can only imagine that on a sunny day this space would be full. I’ll make sure to visit again to capture this space on one of those days.
Wednesday January 13th 2010, 5:03 pm
Filed under: Living Wall
A recent post about the living wall at the cafe at Nike in the Condesa neighborhood in Mexico City displayed one example of the many lush vegetated walls that are popping up around Mexico City from Verde360.
Verde360 is a Mexico City-based compay founded in 2006 that specializes in the design and construction of living walls in urban settings. The members are on a mission to contribute to the greening of large cities by way of innovative green technologies like living walls. They’ve sent me images of some of the walls they have completed around their city which are truly inspiring in their lushness, variety and success. At the end there is also a sneak peak of a project for 2010.
First, expanding upon the previous post, some images from the cafe courtyard at the Nike sportsware store in the Condesa neighorhood of Mexico City, built in August of 2008. The mounding was built specifically for the green wall which covers 180 square meters. The space is open to the public.
The next wall resides in the open central courtyard in a private Mexico City home apartment. Built in 2008, the abundantly vegetated living wall measures at 4 meters in length and 5 meters high and receives natural light.
The following images are from the outside of the Restaurant Solotto in the trendy Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City. This wall which runs from the public sidewalk to the top of the building was built in February 2009 and covers 82 square meters of this east-facing building facade.
On the terrace floor of the Restaurant Solotto, there are two living walls covering 21 square meters as well as a vegetated multi-story column inside the restaurant that reaches 15 meters high and is lit from the below.
In Mexico City’s Sante Fe Shopping Mall, Verde360 have designed a lush display wall for the Steve Madden retail store. This double-sided indoor living wall is 6 meters in height and 2.5 meters in width with artificial lighting.
In a private home in San Angel, Mexico City, this 2.5 meter wide wall of vegetation reaches up 6.5 meters in a sunny courtyard. The living wall is south facing with lots of natural light and was built in February 2007. I love the huge ferns and the way some of the plants defy the boundaries of the wall.
In the Benito Juarez International Airport, the Mexicana Airline proudly displays their support for the vertical greening of Mexico City with a 20 meter long living wall in their check in lounge that sits 2.7 meters in height. Artifical lighting adds to the effect.
At the International Airport of Toluca, a city just outside of Mexico City, this living wall displays the logo of a company at their private hanger. The double sided wall was built in May 2009 and sits 14 meters long and 4 meters high. This wall displays a very different character from many of their other designs. Instead of flowing clusters of plants these plants are confined to a rigid design in order to exhibit a company logo. The plant choices here therefore are different and yet just as beautiful.
In another private home in San Angel, this living wall integrated with a 2.5 meter wide water feature and pool was built in April 2008 and reaches to the top of the building at 6.5 meters high.
And finally a future project for 2010 has Verde360 working on greening an intriguing structure for the El Volador Market in the Mexico City center. It will be interesting to see this project unfold.
Below are some images from their mobile test wall done for the Mexican Government for the El Volador market project. This wall was built in August 2009 at the office building of the authorities of the historic center of Mexico City. The test wall is 4 meters wide and 6 meters high.
Tuesday January 05th 2010, 12:38 pm
Filed under: Living Wall,Water
One of the UK’s longest living walls at 170 meters in length can be found at the Westfield Shopping Centre in West London. Designed by EDAW (now AECOM), this 4.5 metere high north-facing wall lines the southern pedestrian approach to the shopping mall.
From the original EDAW press release,“Westfield London incorporates a modular living-wall system manufactured by Canadian firm ELT and planted by Aldingbourne Nurseries. The living wall is constructed from modular plastic panels. Each section is approximately 50cm high by 50cm wide by 8cm deep, is subdivided into 45 cells and can be stacked to the required height and width.”
ELT is Elevated Landscape Techonologies based out of Canada and the developers of the Easy Green System used in this wall. This system is essentially a tray system attached to the which have the plants growing in soil. Somewhat like turning nursery trains on their side. The plants are then watered from the top down via a hidden drip irrigation style system. The plant palette for the wall consists primarily of native woodland plants with ferns as the dominant fixture.
Some living walls like to recapture the water that is then dripping out from the bottom of the system. Others like to just go ahead and let it drip. This particular wall has done an interesting thing and designed a decorative water feature at the base which also combines to create a flowing seating wall. It’s a nice touch. However I don’t know for sure if the water from the wall is allowed to flow into the system or not but it looks as though they are kept separate with the wall falling a bit behind the water feature.
