Replay Barcelona

Stockholm, Sweden, 2011-09-22 –
Replay’s store on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona now hosts a vertical garden of just above 100m2. In the storefront location, the two storey wall is set in a dramatic and playful environment with waterfalls, sculptures and contrasting materials.

 

As a great place to study nature’s own vertical gardens, the waterfalls were a natural starting point for the plant design. Looking closer to the environment around a waterfall, growing conditions change with linear patterns of fissures and cracks in the underlying exposed rock, or the rapidly decreasing moisture already small steps away from the immediate vicinity of the falling water. In such a manner, like the erratic and geometric cracking of an eroding rock, groups and strings of plants were laid out in an organic pattern.

The generous surface allow for many kinds of plants. Larger groups of begonias, different ferns, small (but long) aroids like the common Philodendron scandens or Scindapsus pictus, sets the background for more dramatic effects of cascading fronds of Nephrolepis exaltata and Polypodium subauriculatum or larger aroids like Philodendron giganteum and P. erubescens.

The store also have a outdoor vertical garden, located in a patio in the back of the store. Partially shadowed by surrounding buildings, the southwest facing wall has the upper area well exposed to the hot mediterranean sun, whereas the lower part is mostly in shadow. This difference in sun exposure gave way for more typical mediterranean plants in the top – such as Lavandula, Rosmarinus and Artemisia – and more shadow preferring plants like Chlorophytum and Fatsia in the lower area. In between there are a few plants that will gain some more size, the idea being to create a strong and wild growing surface, contrasting the metal grid from which it extends.

Completion date: May 2011
Location: Barcelona
Size: 100m2 indoor + 11m2 outdoor
Landscape architect: Michael Hellgren / Vertical Garden Design
Interior architect: Roberto Baccioni / Studio 10

ABOUT VERTICAL GARDEN DESIGN
Vertical Garden Design was started by Swedish landscape architect Michael Hellgren. Since 2004, projects has been carried out in a number of countries. The company develops projects for indoor as well as outdoor environments and creates unique designs for almost any climate and location.