Babylon had its hanging gardens. A wonder of the world.
Actio, the new building of the Facilities Services department, will get something similar: a vertical garden.
Vertical gardener Norbert Streng has been working on this wonder of indoor garden innovation for more than a week now. Although you can hardly call it a garden – it’s more like green wallpaper. The wall to the left of the new building’s entrance will turn into a green carpet of about 34 square metres. Streng will incorporate 3,000 plants of sixty different species.
Lounge
The garden wall is one of the eye catchers in Actio, the building that will be the experimental garden for “Het Nieuwe Werken” (New Working) at Wageningen University & Research centre. Construction parish priest Rolf Heling calls the vertical indoor garden a gimmick. The garden is the brainchild of interior designer Ramon Beijer of Rietmeier’s. New Working, New Gardening. Something like that. The green wall forms the background of the building’s lounge. A customised large wooden lectern will be placed in front of it. People will move into the new building (Akkermaalsbos, perpendicular to Wisselgebouw) in the fourth week of September.
The garden wall is one of the eye catchers in Actio, the building that will be the experimental garden for “Het Nieuwe Werken” (New Working) at Wageningen University & Research centre. Construction parish priest Rolf Heling calls the vertical indoor garden a gimmick. The garden is the brainchild of interior designer Ramon Beijer of Rietmeier’s. New Working, New Gardening. Something like that. The green wall forms the background of the building’s lounge. A customised large wooden lectern will be placed in front of it. People will move into the new building (Akkermaalsbos, perpendicular to Wisselgebouw) in the fourth week of September.
The plants are suspended from a virtually invisible iron grid and are fed a nutrient-rich substrate discovered by Streng. No need to top op. You do need to water them though, but not with a watering can. That won’t work for obvious reasons. A drip, a system of tubes with small holes, supplies the water. A gutter collects any surplus water. Maintenance is hardly needed. All you have to do is cut back fast-growing plants.
Wageningen University is the leading European university in the field of Life Sciences.
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