In Living Color
GBBN, Office Green wall
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Cincinnati, OH |
We find solving design puzzles to be most successful when people from different disciplines, with complementary skills and passions, work together. Using this approach, we developed a custom living wall to anchor the lobby and café on the first floor of our renovated Cincinnati workplace that is a custom, colorful, living wall that anchors the lobby and café.
The project grew out of a desire to implement environmental graphic design into the office renovation, but in a way that pushed the boundaries and definition of “wall graphics.” Knowing whatever we developed for the space would be prominent, and visible to passersby outside, we wanted something that helped convey GBBN’s commitment to sustainable, healthy, and welcoming workspaces. Additionally, research points to significant health benefits for people who visit nature more than once a week. With 95% of our lives spent indoors, living walls—help keep us connected to the natural world, boost performance, and help restore us from mental fatigue.
Augmented reality helped the design and installation team understand how the support structure and lattice overlay work together so plants could be placed appropriately in the openings.
From 2D idea to 3D reality, the green wall comes to life and brings life to the lobby and cafe space in our Cincinnati office. Bonus: it makes a great background for video calls.
Green walls are very stimulating to the mind. People are attracted to that so when these walls go in, people gravitate towards them.
We originally collaborated with Cincinnati-based Urban Blooms on a 50-foot living wall at TriHealth’s Thomas Comprehensive Care Center, a first in the region that has led to five more installations for TriHealth, including this one. We knew we wanted to continue this partnership with the design and installation of a living wall as part of our own workplace renovation.
To achieve the sculptural effect we were after, Urban Blooms worked with our in-house environmental graphic design practice, and our computational design and fabrication experts on a substructure with a lattice-like overlay to create the appearance of plants growing through the wall. Using Fologram software and Augmented Reality goggles allowed Urban Blooms to see a digital model of the lattice and place plants accordingly before the lattice itself was installed, which saved time.
Wearing AR goggles Urban Blooms founder, Tyler Wolf, is able to "see" where plants should be placed before the lattice is hung which made his work easier and faster.
From faraway, or up close (it looks great as a background on a Zoom call!) our living wall draws more than curiosity, it draws people together.
Learn more about the project and the installation process here. Read more about our Cincinnati office renovation here and here.
Learn more about how we work and the different disciplines we bring together to create design solutions.