Offices · Restaurants · Lobbies · Facades
A living wall is not a decorative panel; it is a hundred plants growing vertically in an environment none of them evolved for, and it fails quietly whenever the light, the water or the maintenance was assumed rather than measured. We take light readings across the whole surface before choosing a single species, design irrigation with leak detection because the wall sits above someone's floor, and only build walls we will also maintain. If a location cannot support one, we say so.
About us
The studio was founded by an interior horticulturist who spent several years being called in to rescue living walls installed by contractors who had never grown anything, alongside an irrigation engineer from commercial glasshouse production. Almost every failure they attended came down to the same three causes: not enough light, an irrigation system nobody could service, and a maintenance contract that expired after twelve months and was never renewed.
So the studio was built around removing those three. We measure light in lux at multiple points and multiple times of day before designing, we specify supplementary lighting where the readings demand it and tell clients when a wall is simply not viable at that spot, and we design irrigation that a maintenance technician can actually diagnose. Every quotation includes a maintenance contract, because a living wall without one is a planned failure with a delay built in.
We install indoors and outdoors — office lobbies, restaurants, hotels, clinics, schools and increasingly building facades, where the goals are shading and insulation as much as appearance. Our own maintenance team looks after every wall we build and a good number we did not, which keeps us honest: a specification that looks clever on paper and is impossible to prune at four metres becomes very obvious when it is your own people on the platform every month.
Advantages
Six decisions taken before a single plant goes into a wall.
A lobby that feels bright to a human eye is frequently below the threshold at which most foliage plants can hold their leaves, and the top of a wall can receive five times the light of its base. We take readings across the whole surface at several times of day and through the seasons where the programme allows, then plant by zone. Where the numbers are too low we specify horticultural lighting on a timer, or advise against the wall entirely.
Water above a finished floor is the real risk in this work, so every system has leak detection, an automatic shut-off, a bunded reservoir and drainage to a safe point, with all valves and filters accessible without dismantling the wall. Emitters are chosen to resist blocking, zones are separated so one fault does not dry an entire wall, and the whole thing is documented so any competent technician can fault-find without us on the phone.
Plants are selected for the light, temperature, humidity and airflow they will actually experience, including the draught from a door that opens two hundred times a day and the heat rising from a spotlight. We plant more of fewer species than a magazine image suggests, because a wall of forty varieties looks spectacular for a season and then becomes a patchwork as the unsuitable ones fail one by one at different rates.
A planted wall is heavy when saturated and sits permanently against a damp surface, so the substrate wall must be checked, waterproofed and ventilated behind before anything is fixed to it. We calculate loads with the engineer where fixings go into a facade, keep a ventilated cavity so nothing traps moisture against the building, and refuse jobs where the client wants to skip this stage. Damage to a building costs many times what the wall did.
Every wall we build is quoted with a maintenance contract, because monthly attention is what keeps it alive: pruning, feeding, checking emitters, replacing individual plants before a gap becomes obvious, adjusting the irrigation as growth changes the demand. Clients who want to maintain it themselves receive training and a schedule, and we are candid that the ones who try usually call us back within two years.
Some places cannot support a living wall at any sensible cost: a dark corridor, an unheated stairwell, a north facade with no irrigation supply, a tenant with three years left on a lease. In those cases we propose preserved moss, planted troughs, climbers on a trellis or a freestanding arrangement instead. Turning down work is straightforward compared with maintaining a wall that everybody knows was a mistake.
Services
Surveys and design, interior walls, facade greening, moss and preserved work, maintenance contracts and rescue of failing installations.
Light measurement across the proposed surface, assessment of the wall structure, waterproofing and services, water supply and drainage routes, and an honest feasibility verdict. Clients receive a planting design by zone, visualisations, irrigation and lighting drawings, a load calculation for the engineer and a full cost including the maintenance contract. Architects can involve us at concept stage, which is when the water supply and drainage decisions are still cheap.
Planted walls for lobbies, restaurants, offices, clinics and homes, built on a ventilated frame with a felt or modular growing system chosen to suit the species and the access. Installation is scheduled around occupied buildings, usually over a weekend, and plants arrive already established in our nursery rather than as plugs, so the wall looks complete on the day it is handed over rather than in six months.
Exterior systems from simple climber-and-cable arrangements, which are cheap and remarkably effective, to fully planted modular facades with automated irrigation. Species are selected for the local winters, wind exposure and orientation, and we set out realistically what maintenance access will require. Facade greening also delivers measurable summer shading and rainwater retention, which increasingly matters for planning consent and building certification.
Preserved moss, ferns and foliage panels for spaces with no light, no water supply or no appetite for maintenance — meeting rooms, basements, shops and short-lease premises. They need no irrigation and almost no attention, they are excellent acoustic absorbers, and they last several years indoors away from direct sun. We make it clear that they are not living, because the sales pitch elsewhere frequently blurs that line.
Scheduled visits by our own horticultural team covering pruning, feeding, pest control, irrigation checks and calibration, lighting checks and replacement of individual plants, with a written report after each visit and photographs so a facilities manager can see the trend. We maintain walls installed by other companies too, which usually begins with a survey correcting whatever the original irrigation design got wrong.
Diagnosis and recovery of failing walls: finding out whether the cause is light, water, nutrition, disease or a species selection that was never going to work, then replanting appropriately and correcting the system. Occasionally the honest answer is that the wall should be removed and replaced with something suited to the space, and we would rather say that than take a maintenance fee for managing a decline.
Contacts
Send photographs of the wall and the room, the dimensions, and a note on the nearest water supply and drain. We will tell you whether it is likely to work before charging for a survey, and the survey itself is credited against the installation if you proceed.
Failing walls installed by others are worth a visit before anybody decides to strip them out.