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designed by studio OFFwith an idea of roughness as a metaphor. The wall finished with a special mosaic expression tile – Tri-tonal Tile® to give different visual expressions in different weather conditions and viewing angles.


When Patrick Blanc was a boy, he suspended plants from his bedroom wall and ran their roots into a fish tank. The greenery received nourishment from the diluted—ahem—fertilizer and purified the water in return. Forty-five years on, the French botanist's gardens have grown massive in scale. One inside a Portuguese shopping mall is larger than four tennis courts, and there's one in Kuwait that's almost as big. But Blanc's recently completed facade for the Athenaeum hotel in London (shown) could be his most high-profile project yet. Looming over Green Park, it's an eight-story antigravity forest composed of 12,000 plants.
Blanc uses a kind of techno-trellis as the underlying structure: A plastic-coated aluminum frame is fastened to the wall and covered with synthetic felt into which plant roots can burrow. A custom irrigation system keeps the felt moist with a fertilizer solution modeled after the rainwater that trickles through forest canopies.
urbansurgeon said...^i'm using this stuff in response to the requests for graffiti proof surfaces - this was just about the only candidate
i love the idea of felt mats for rooting on unusual surfaces. i'm going to try it out; there's some rocks i've been coating with a blended mixture of moss and buttermilk. success has been mixed, mostly on the smoother spots. this is worth a try.
just my speed! (doors galore, to boot)
mick said...






Most buildings that we design today for large earthquakes are designed such that when there is a large earthquake, the building, in a sense, sacrifices itself to save the occupants...


This step well is located opposite Harshat Mata Temple and is one of the deepest and largest step wells in India. It was built in 9th century and has 3500 narrow steps and 13 stories and is 100 feet deep. It is a fine example of the architectural excellence prevalent in the past.