Page 58 - I-Plants Magazine special 2021 Biophilic Design Awards issue - regular res

Gold Award 58

Green Walls & Vertical Gardens, Interior & Exterior
$40,001-$75,000

Project:
BC College of the Rockies

Congratulations to:

GSky Plant Systems, Inc.

Delray Beach, Florida, U.S.A

The story behind this design and installation:
BC College of the Rockies at the Kootenay Centre at the Cranbrook Campus We love this wall not only for the positive environmental
features (plants and wood) it brings to their public meeting and gathering space but for the unique way it incorporates living framed art.
This great feature was designed into the space replacing a vine container system previously installed by others. It had pothos planted
into a planter box with poles extending 28’ into the air that never accomplished what it had been envisioned to do. Caleb Willems with
Elevate Your Landscape, a full-service lawn care company brought the challenge to us on behalf of the college so their vision of an indoor
sustainable living wall would no longer be a vision but would be reality. The design intent for this wall was to bring live plants and nature
indoors even during the cold long winters there. Our in-house designer envisioned a contiguous design flowing from frame to frame of a
mountain range in their area. The plants chosen were interior tropical plants for sustainability but were placed to paint the picture. She chose
the mountain range after being told, “Mountains represents our area of pride, mountains are a sign of our way of life.” She also gave them an
option of contemporary art with plants that could be changed like an art show when wanted but they love their mountains and chose that
design. One of the great features of this living wall system is you can move the potted plants around any time and have another piece of art!
Our project lead and his team worked with them to recycle the white post beam structures the pothos were supposed to grow on originally.
The project includes 22 framed walls , 11 are 4’X4’ and 11 are 4’x7’. It was a little more complicated than replacing it with a solid wall but the
benefits of recycling the existing structure and incorporating custom maple wood frames was better and less weight for the older buildings
existing brick wall. However, the irrigation & drainage systems weremore complicated. To minimize exposed pipe in front of the vertical