The top 7 living walls of 2021 (and what's next)

2021 has been a year full of big changes for us.  Our team has grown, our first case study under our feasibility and design consultancy was released, the Environment Bill finally received Royal Assent, and we also received approval of our two guides to building with biodiversity net gain (co-authored with AECOM) from DEFRA, Natural England, BRE and UKHab!  We’re proud to have come so far in such a short space of time.

But what have been the highlight projects for us?

We’ve listed our top 7 living wall (there’s a bit of green roof in there too) projects of 2021 below, each for their own unique reason!

Let’s go…

#7 Gullane Golf Club

Kicking off with Gullane golf club, where golf has been played over the links for more than 350 years!  This makes the top 7 as it’s been a while since we’ve worked in Scotland on a living wall project (our last one was at the University of Edinburgh and is another of our favourite projects), and everyone finds the planting a beautiful surprise with the vibrant pinks and paler colours.

Native Scottish wildflowers were used to create this effect, and we couldn’t be more pleased with how it’s turned out.

View the full case study here.

#6 North Feltham

Our work at one of SEGRO’s largest and most established estates commemorates the start of our partnership with Octink, our signage partner.  The contrast between the bold red ‘O’ and the evergreen planting, with a smattering of colour from the Vinca Minor ‘Alba’ is stunning, and is a good start to a promising future with integrating signage into living walls with Octink.

View the full case study.

#5 The Pavilion

The two living walls (either side of the central wall, one in the café, one in the studio space) at The Pavilion make the top 7 as it’s a project in the Chichester community, where we at Viritopia are based.  It’s also one of the teams all-round favourite interior projects of the year, with a lush tropical plant palette that nicely offsets the other elements of the room.

View the full case study here.

#4 Warsaw Private Residence

Our first step into Poland!  It’s also our first living wall where the request was to go with a Japanese garden style, to surround the decking area which is a part of a private Warsaw residence.  We worked with our partners in Poland, Green Systems.

View the full case study.

#3 88 Wood Street

88 Wood Street is without a doubt our favourite interior space, being so focused on biophilic design principles with plenty of natural lighting, natural materials, a lot of open space, and of course the natural living wall that runs the length of the reception.  This is the project we take clients to when they want to see an interior living wall in situ.

View the full case study here.

#2 Glasshouse Multi-Storey Car Park

Admittedly this was installed at the end of 2020, but we’ve been blown away with it’s seasonal changes this year so it’s had to make the top 7!  A multi-storey car park is such an unlikely place to come across such an abundance of natural beauty.  Surprisingly, we work on a lot of car parks, and there are more coming in 2022.

View the full case study here.

#1 Victoria Square Car Park

Saving the best till last, our #1 project of the year has to be the work at Victoria Square car park.  To say this has been a challenging project would be an understatement.  This involved not only nearly 2,000m² of living wall, but 3,500m² of extensive green roof (using our sedum, and sedum and wildflower GrufeKit to form a chequered pattern), and 800m² of intensive green roof.  This involved getting tonnes of soil onto Level 10 for the intensive green roof (larger species like shrubs and trees need deeper substrate), and all the GrufeKit modules onto Level 11.

However the rewarding finish has made it all worthwhile, and we can’t wait to see the intensive green roof establish and flourish over the next few years, as well as the living wall/s transform with the seasons.

Here's the full case study!

If you'd like to keep up to date with projects we complete, head over to this page.

There's more...

There are plenty of new and exciting projects coming in 2022, including what will be the largest living wall in Europe in the UK, more projects overseas and more case studies under our consultancy.

If you want to keep up to date with what we’re up to, let us know here.

We forgot to mention that we also have set ourselves the target to fund 10,000 trees by the end of 2022!

Thank you for your support.