blooming buildings – the netherlands

Category: Vertical Green

Dille and Kamille is a Dutch retailer in interior design products who is known for its sustainable
operation. The brand, over 40 years old, uses a lot of plants in their shops. Therefore it was an extra challenge to work within their brand identity in terms of esthetics, but also in a truly sustainable execution.

On several locations we used a diversity of vertical green: hanging from the ceiling in the stairwell and hanging over the railing in the main atrium; climbing along steel cables in a 8 m high room and in a ‘conservatory’ type of room where the planting follows the existing beams.

The containers were tailor made with sustainable materials (a.o. no glue in plywood). We believe in vertical walls which do no use the standard cassette systems as we believe that letting plants grow in a natural way, hanging or climbing, is more sustainable (not a lot of replacement) and more cost-effective.

We were involved from the very start when the building was being stripped. This gave us the
opportunity to really think from the beginning and adjust as much as possible to the house style of the client. This is why we came up with several types of both hanging and climbing plants as these, in a small format, are an important trade mark in the shops.

We were spoilt with the fact that we had a huge variety of spaces at our disposal in the monumental building, and we made a tailor made plan whereby we incorporated both the plants as well as the containers in the total design, and in the general use of materials.
The alignment with the clients house style went as far as looking at types of foliage and shades of green. If you would look at pictures of all our projects this would stand out in regard of the foliage being a tad more light, more yellowish. But also the containers for the hanging plants, which hang from the ceiling with ropes made from natural fibers.

For the main wall we chose to not have it fully covered from the start: as a base we used 8 steel
cables, all going to the top of the room. They were planted in one large tailor made container which is made of the same material as much of the furniture, and which even runs along the staircase. The plants along the steel cables are joined on soil level by a diversity of other, supporting, plants.

Whereas the climbing plants will soon reach the top of the room – there is one slower development going on: in the back of the planters we used a slow creeper: Ficus pumila: this will find its slow way, growing 1 cm per month and will cover the whole wall.

We like the slow transformation, marking the passing of time.

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