I have been commissioned to design a green wall on the facade of Magic Lantern shop on Brunswick st, Fitzroy . The owners of the shop Lucy and Gonzalo are looking to extend there window garden onto the wall. They say this little mini garden creates a lot of interest into the shop and wish to promote more interest.
One of my main concerns this year is how do I design for other people. This project is a great opportunity for me to work in an artistic way, personalizing the project with the clients strongly established aesthetic.
One of my main interests as a Landscape Architect is to create landscapes and gardens that promote the imagination of the viewer/ user to get lost in a day dream. The use of a vertical garden, that is segmented into little worlds will do just that, as the window garden does at the moment.
These images are of the existing window garden mini world.
The proposed surface area for the vertical garden is around the windows of the shop front. As the walls are concrete, fixing the garden to the wall won't be a problem. The depth of the garden and dealing with vandalism of the exposed little worlds inside the garden are the two main issues to resolve.
I am thinking of two ideas at the moment. The first is having a ladder framework up either side of the shop. Each box is a different little scene. The scenes are then linked together by little ladders, similar to the levels of donkey kong.
The problem with this is that people might try and climb the ladder, creating safety and security issues for the shop. For this reason as the viewers not being able to see the top or bottoms scenes easily, this idea might be concentrated in the middle of the columes.
If these scenes are as successful as the window garden, in attracting interest of costumers, it might be an idea that they could be taken out and sold. For this reason i am looking at making this part of the wall modular.
Keeping the same concept of a ladder as the framework for the scenes a door could be opened and allowing a scene to be removed. By having this door, it also secures the individual scenes from being stolen, as they are on the front of the shop.
The windows of the door, might be covered in clear perspex so as characters and plants wont get stolen. This will also control how much water they get, as I don't think the planter boxes will have drainage, instead hardy plants will be used and watering controlled
When the scene is removed a frame can be attached in the same style as the Magic lantern signage and the scene can then be hung on a wall.
The second idea is to create a maze over the facade of the shop. Little characters could then travel around the maze and scenes created within. I now have to consult the clients and see what they think of these ideas. Whatever the outcome I am exited create a mixed medium vertical garden that offers more then just a vegetated wall.
Riding home last week I was thinking about how to achieve this maze wall, when i saw this skirting on a shop front. It is not exactly what I want to do, but helps describe me intentions. If you image the raised areas of the skirting as plants.
Image above and left sourced from http://inhabitat.com
Figuring out how to achieve this, it is almost easier to use the existing method of vertical garden modular squares, cover the whole area of this maze. Then covering areas to create the paths of the maze, where the characters will be situated.
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