March 2010

EcoBuild, Earl's Court, London

Once again we are at EcoBuild, this year with a major display on the central landscape feature “Cityscape”. The centrepiece of the entire show, it consisted of an eight metre tall cube, which also featured displays from two other green wall manufacturers. From our pioneering launch here in 2008, this clearly demonstrates how the industry has quickly grown and established itself in the mainstream of building design. We are pleased to continue to be at the forefront of innovation and design in the world of biological architecture and have a packed workload and R&D program for the coming year.

projects

We currently have a number of exciting walls in production: one for RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) in Portland Place, a major new public building in Grimsby, an indoor wall for a resturant in Gateshead, plus private walls in London and Guensey. We also have a major project which we are awaiting permission to announce...

February

United Arab Emirates

Mark Laurence has just spent a week in the UAE looking at green wall projects and visiting nurseries. We have been commissioned to design a wall for a project in an oasis town which last year had recorded temperatures of 61°C. Time was spent visiting sites and assessing suitable plant species, prior to setting up a trial wall.

January 2010

A New Year

The new year has got off to a flying start with the installation of a 160m2 wall at on the redevelopment of Grade II Listed Buildings in Central London. The snow has cleared up on cue and the plants are fully hardened off and ready to embrace their new location! The interesting thing about this project (apart from its position) is the fact that this is on a temporary hoarding and will be there for a three year period.

December 2009

Installations

We have been installing a number of courtyard walls, plus we have a large project pre-growing in our greenhouse, with another due to commence planting in the New Year. We have been to Chicago recently with very interesting developments there. One interesting US based project is shown in the portfolio, although this is not the main focus of business out there. More will be revealed next year...

October 2009

Anthropologie

We are very proud of our latest indoor wall, at the new Anthropologie store in Regent Street, London. With a design inspired by the woven patterns of fabric, the wall stands three stories high, covers 150m2 and uses 11,000 plants in 15 varieties. many of these, especially the Peace lilies and Spider plants, are well known for their beneficial effect on air quality. It's the look, and sheer size, which grabs attention though!

May 2009

We have two walls at this year's Chelsea Flower Show. The first is a vegetable wall, planted with an array of salad leaves, for Pat Fox of Aralia Garden Design. This is one of the small Urban Gardens, the whole design being that of an outdoor kitchen.

The second is a wall (or series of small vertical strips) for Mark Gregory of Landmark Consultants, planted with a monoculture of Pratia repens, a small, blue flowered alpine plant. this garden is for the Children's Society.

April 2009

We have just installed a living wall at the King's Fund, Cavandish Square, London. The King's Fund is a NHS research charity and so the planting for this wall has been chosen with medicinal usage in mind. (pic coming soon).

We are in the process of designing a wall to be installed indoors, to a new store in Regent's Street, in September/October this year. The wall is three stories high and will be quite a head-turner! We are also installing a wall to Westminster City School in July, and one to private dwelling in Clapham in June.

February 2009

We provided a Herb Wall to the front garden designed by Claire Potter at the RHS plant and Design Show, London on 17-18th February. Both the garden, which won a silver medal, and the herb wall were met with critical acclaim.

A number of high profile commissions are underway, the details of which must remain under wraps for the present. One is for a medical college, another for an interior wall to a retail outlet in Regent's Street and another is for a major project in Shanghai. More when possible...

January 2009

Mark Laurence was a speaker at the “Living Roofs and Walls” conference, held at Thistle Hyde Park on 27th January. The days was largely a technical one, focused at architects and specifiers with again, great interest aroused by Mark's presentation. Hosted by Dusty Gedge of livingroofs.org, the idea of urban vertical food walls really seemed to hit the spot.

December 2008

Mark Laurence gave a presentation on green walls for the AJ Sustainable Design Summit, which was well received and has led to a number of requests for CPD's and further discussions. What is clearly emerging is that the future of BioTecture is about far more than cosmetic green walls; more to do with deep green sustainability and a radical alteration of future building design through the implementation of “building biomembranes”.

November 2008

We now have a busy CPD program up and running, and have already been giving these to a wide range of Architecture practices, at a rate of 2-3 per week. CPD's are the best way to give an insight into the methods, specification and future potentials of green walls. Please visit the CPD page if you would like a visit - bookings currently being taken for Jan/Feb. 09.

 

October 2008

Green Wall Event, Surrey on 22nd October. We are co-hosting a day of talks and information on green walls and irrigation with Watermatic Ltd at Pantiles Nursery, Chertsey. Green wall talks by Mark Laurence will focus on the current state of the green walling industry, and future potentials. Pantiles Nursery will be an authorised agent for the Biotecture BioWall™

September 2008

100% Detail, Earls Court, 18-21st September. Our BioWall™ will be on display at stand U42, onto which we have been invited by green roofing company Index Building Products Ltd, to show how well green walls and roofs combine. You can visit the show's website here. We will be at the stand to answer your questions!

 

Radio 4's series, “Costing the Earth” recently talked to Mark Laurence of BioTecture about our Green walls and the part they have to play in the future of urban regeneration and ecological design. You can hear the discussion here (opens with your media player)

July 2008

We have just installed this green wall at Clerkenwell for David Morely Architects as part of the London Festival of Architecture. We gave a presentation on July 17th to about 60 attendees and had some very positive feedback. Bill Watts from Max Fordham also talked about using green walls as active heat exchangers for cooling buildings and we will be fitting (in conjunction with Bill) an experimental cooling system to this wall and monitoring its performance for the next two years. It will be used to cool DMA's IT server room.

We are currently installing 822m2 of green wall to a project in Leamouth Peninsular, London. This is to a design and system by Patrick Blanc. With This system, the plants are planted directly in-situ into the felt growing medium.

 

 

February 2008

We are delighted to announce that we won the top award for "Innovation in Sustainable Design and Construction" at this year's EcoBuild show, held at Earl's Court. The show also saw the formal launch of the BioTecture “BioWallT” modular green walling system, which had architects, developers and town planners queuing to discuss potential projects!

January 2008

BioTecture Ltd has won a prestigious contract with Ballymore Properties / Lancsville Construction to install 820m2 of green walling to a major new development at Leamouth Peninsula, Docklands, London. This will be the biggest greenwall to date in the UK and is designed by Patrick Blanc. Installation will take place in June 2008.