Green fail

(Fig. 2.1Paradise Park Children's Centre)

Paradise Park Children's Centre

Paradise Park Children's Centre in London, at one time, had a lush vertical hydroponic garden covering certain portions of the structure. According to The Architects' Journal, the BBC, and the London Evening Standard, that time is no more.

The building was designed by DSDHA who wanted a living wall to mitigate against planting the structure on a portion of open park space.  DSDHA called upon landscape architect Marie Clarke and had the green wall system installed at a cost of £100,000.

According to the Architects' Journal, a spokesperson for Islington Council said, 'The wall was the first of its type to be installed in the UK and, as with anything new, carried a certain element of risk ... Of course, we're disappointed that it hasn't thrived. It seems this could be down to its design and we're looking at the best way to restore it.'

(Fig. 2.2 Paradise Park Children's Centre)

In response to this, Tim Newark, Islington Taxpayers' Alliance, said that the green wall was a costly waste of taxpayer money: “The architects should have worked out all the problems before it was installed ... The council should not experiment with taxpayers' money.”
 
The Cause of Failure

What exactly was the cause of the wall dying and failing ? Was it the design?  Construction?  Maintenance?  Or some combination of all three.

Whilst Islington Council maintains that the cause is still being examined and has found no evidence that the water pump of the expensive irrigation system was faulty, a member of the maintenance team disagreed with this.

He claims that the fancy watering system never worked.  It either under watered or over watered the plants.  So although some observers seem to want to blame the lack of maintenance for the wall's death, there's something more to the story.  Maybe it was designed to require too much maintenance...

According to other insiders, the water pump for the 9m-high wall broke and nothing was done to fix it. Mina Samangooei, who was studying Paradise Park for her MSc in sustainable building at the time, has no doubt this led to the wall's failure.

Marie Clarke of Clarke Associates, which built
the living wall on behalf of DSDHA, makes the strong claim that: “It didn't just die - the water
supply was turned off.”

Chris Churchman, partner at Churchman Landscape Architects, believes the disaster threatens the immediate prospects of living walls. “The failure of this particular scheme is going to raise doubts in people's minds about the viability of living walls as a valid technique for cladding,” he says.

(Fig. 2.3 Paradise Park Children's Centre)

“They are very much the product of the moment, the thing that everyone wants on their building, so everybody is moving into this market. But [clients] don't really understand them. “As a practice we took a positive decision two years ago to try to understand this technology, but if you go with someone who has only been in the business of designing living walls for six months, you're taking a big risk,”adds Churchman.

(Fig. 2.4 Paradise Park Children's Centre)

Co-director of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, Fionn Stevenson, is also critical of the “science” behind the walls. “The incident in Islington proves how vulnerable living walls really are,” she says. “A so-called living wall relies on an artificial supply of water and fertilizer to survive, and the design.., is over-optimised and therefore very vulnerable. Unlike a natural eco-system it has no redundancy, so if one thing goes wrong, it all goes wrong. “Just keeping ‘a wall’ alive creates lorry-loads of embodied energy and pollution. The living wall cannot be sustainable because a basic principle of sustainability is that you do not live beyond your needs,' adds Stevenson.

Stevenson also believes that a living wall will not contribute to an eco-system if the designer has placed a threshold between the building and existing flora, as was the case at Paradise Park.

“Architects tend to treat them as a building element, but in fact they should think of them as a landscape element, to think how they engage with the ground and the roof of the buildings...Unfortunately, living walls have just become another part of the green eco-bling armory,” she adds.

(Fig. 2.3 Paradise Park Children's Centre)

A spokesperson for The Driver pub in King's Cross North London, which recently fitted a living wall, states that: “It is very risky - Patrick Blanc doesn't give you any guarantees.” French botanist and designer Blanc claims to have invented the living wall, and peddles his designs to clients such as international art galleries and hotels.

The Principal at Purcell Miller Tritton, Jeremy Blake, installed a nine-storey living wall by Blanc at the recently refurbished Athenaeum Hotel in London. “You're dealing with a living organism and that means it needs to be appropriately selected, appropriately installed and well maintained and irrigated.

(Fig. 2.3 Paradise Park Children's Centre)

“Your three key elements for a successful living wall are the growing medium, monitored
irrigation, and appropriate plant types for that kind of exposure.” A spokesperson for the
Athenaeum Hotel said: 'We have had a couple of bits which haven't survived, but the majority of it is looking quite lush.’

According to Blake, the Paradise Park incident 'will make people more aware of the critical issues that you need to ensure are incorporated
into the design of a living wall'.
That being said, it is still remarkably difficult to find any negative information regarding living walls.

Nicola Giuggioli - whose shop Eco Age in Chiswick, South London, designs and installs living walls - admits 'it is a learning process'.
Giuggioli encourages his clients, of whom are mostly residential homeowners, to buy a maintenance contract from him, whilst still warning them that there are still risks. 'During a cold snap we completely forgot to turn off the watering and the water froze - it broke the roots of the plants, which then froze and died.’

(Fig. 2.3 Paradise Park Children's Centre)

Doug McIntyre of Aldingbourne Nurseries, which installs living walls, claims that the incident at Paradise Park has had a 'knock-on effect' on his business. He says his clients are cautious, even though his walls, he claims, 'are superior' to those used at Paradise Park because they use a growing medium instead of rockwool.

The director at architecture practice FAT, Sean Griffiths, feels that living walls have become a substitute for having any ideas. The Belvedere, a tower designed by FAT proposed for East London, was to feature a 19-storey living wall by Blanc, which the client had requested, But Griffiths reckons that the tower is now unlikely to be built.

 (Fig. 2.3 Paradise Park Children's Centre)

Sources:

Fulcher, M 2009, 'Are living walls worth it?', Architects' Journal, 230, 9, pp. 8-9, Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost, viewed 12 November 2012.

Capital Regional District 2012, Canada, British Columbia, accessed 16 October 2012, <http://www.crd.bc.ca/index.htm>

Hainer Roofing System Co. Ltd. 2010,
People's Republic of China, Shanghai, accessed 04 October 2012, <http://www.hainer.cn/en/>

Jakob rope systems 2012, United States of America, Florida, Delray Beach, accessed 04 October 2012,
<http://www.jakob-usa.com>