Vertical greenery has been adopted as a standard feature in high-rise buildings. It helps to provide aesthetic relief from the harsh urban environment by providing a softening effect, creating a welcoming and friendly indoor living space, and contributing therapeutic benefits to our busy and stressful lifestyles. Many factors including site constraints, cost, and maintenance need to be taken into account to create a successful green wall indoors. An example of would be the vertical silk plant wall over the Asia Square Tower One Food Garden located in Singapore.
For the Asia Square Tower One site, there were three primary considerations:
- Firstly, the site is entirely under the shade, and the use of a interior living wall would require artificial lighting.
- Secondly, maintenance is a significant issue due to the height and location of the vertical wall covering over a food court with no practical access for routine plant maintenance works.
- Thirdly, the appropriate planting media had to be taken into consideration for plants to grow well. The vertical wall had a large surface while the barrisol had a curve, slightly sloping surface.
Technical issues concerning mountings and load of the frame, growth media, and plants were factors that require professional engineers’ design details. Besides cost considerations, using green living plants also poses other issues such as irrigation water dripping and pests.
The design architects from Denton Corker Marshall specified the selection of wholesale greenery to be used at the walls to express the depth, color, and tile covering patterns on the surface.
In the end, the two green walls of artificial silk plants were found to be the most practical and sustainable solution.
Most importantly, all the indoor artificial plants used are fire-rated and meet the stringent fire safety codes.
These magnificent vertical green artificial gardens now adorn over 230 square meters overlooking the concourse of Asia Square. Mimicking nature’s wall of plant greenery, this artificial plant wall stands as an outstanding and beautifully executed solution to meet the unique and demanding design requirements of the client.
Reproduced with the permission of Earthscape Concepts Pte Ltd, the originator of the proposal based on the broad design of the project Architects DCM & A61
