The Build Process

We Design

Working for You

One of our in-house Project Managers will work with you and our multi-disciplinary team to sign off the design in terms of:

• Architecture & Structure
• Irrigation
• Planting

Architecture & Structure

We work with you to set out the living wall and define interface requirements. We confirm the details in a comprehensive CAD drawing pack that can be in 3D if the project calls for that level of sophistication.

Living Wall Overview, Swansea University Impact Building for Kier Construction

Specification and Drawing Details

Living Wall Irrigation

Irrigation requirements are developed with precision drawings and calculations to ensure long term resilience.  Irrigation plant room drawings and details clearly identify what we provide and where we will need incoming and outgoing services (water, electricity. drainage etc).

Example Irrigation Drawing

Living Wall Planting Design

Biotecture is an RHS Chelsea award winning planting designer. Our experience of planting design of living walls is second to none. We design all of our own living walls and welcome collaboration with other designers.

Living Wall Planting Design is a function of:

• Location
• Layout
• Aspect
• Light Levels
• Client Preferences
• Requirements (i.e. nr of species for planning)

Planting Design Strategy for Fordham House Living Wall, Stratford

We Grow your Living Wall

Nurtured for You

We work from two growing nurseries (both in sunny West Sussex) and have the capacity to grow approaching 4,500m² of living walls on purpose built vertical racking at any one time.   The total number of plants under our care in our nurseries at any one time is usually in excess of 500,000.

Our nurseries are run by our Production and Horticultural Managers.  We always grow our living walls in the nursery before sending them out into the world. Our living walls are grown hydroponically, to find out more about hydroponics and why we grow this way please take a look at our Why Hydroponics? page here. There are two crucial advantages to ‘pre-growing’ the plants into panels as we do at our nursery:

• Controlled growing environment In the same way that children need to go to nursery school so plants also need to spend their early days in a nursery.   The plants will develop in a benign and controlled environment at a level where they can be easily cared for – rather than being three stories up into the air or straight out into a cold easterly wind.
• Wow factor The instant wow factor that comes from installing a living wall that has already been through the nursery process.

Showing the full Living Wall Construction process from nursery to installation.

We Install

Safely & Surely

Our Living Wall Construction Team is led by our Operations Director, Mark Fleming.  We are affiliated to a number of safety bodies and we carry out regular internal and external safety and environmental audits.  Our aim is always to safely deliver and install quality.  For us quality means:

• Always working in accordance with our specifications
• Being clear and considerate in all of our project communications
• Creating minimal waste
• Defect Free Construction

Video showing the Living Hoarding installation at the Nova project, Victoria.

We work to bring together three disciplines:

1. Excellent horticulture
2. High quality construction
3. Integrated water management

This is where we excel