Yokohama Living Wall at the Pebble Beach Concourse d'Elegance
I was down in Pebble Beach going by the Concourse d’Elegance (the most prestigious vintage automobile show in the country), and I happened to notice this display by Yokohama Tires. After googling Yokohama, I discovered that they’ve been using different living wall displays in exhibits and shows around the country, and that it’s gotten them a lot of publicity.
More after the break…
Yokohama, at least according to their original press releases, worked with a company called Naturexhibits, who is developing a series of products designed specifically for tradeshows and the like. The one I saw at Pebble Beach didn’t appear to be this company’s handiwork. It was constructed exclusively of small plants in about 2″ square plastic grow pots (I refer to these as liners, but I think there are a lot of names for them). They were set into a wooden frame structure, which was pretty simple. The exhibit only lasted 3 days, so it probably didn’t need much maintenance. The plants (just two varieties) were probably grown ahead of time to achieve maximum fullness, but were probably inexpensive. A nice solution!
You may recall a post we did a few months ago about another temporary living wall installation that ValleyCrest Landscape did at this year’s Pacific Coast Builder’s Conference. Valleycrest built frames for our TerraScreen product, and used them to create green towers in the common areas of the show. While they worked great, in hindsight all agreed that they could have been staged somewhat higher. The benches hid the bottom 2′ of plants, so by raising them the plants would have had more impact. Because this was a three-day show, there wasn’t that much maintenance involved. From what we heard, much of the effort was in the creation of the sub-structures, and obviously in the effort to transport the material to the site, assemble the walls, then to take them down again and return everything after a few days.
PCBC trade show - temporary TerraScreen living walls
We had another one of these projects come up again two weeks ago, for the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Transbay Terminal project in San Francisco. This replacement of the Transbay Terminal, now a dilapidated bus station, will serve as the high-speed rail and transportation hub for the Bay Area. The project is designed by Caesar Pelli, with Peter Walker Partners as the Landscape Architect. We’re currently working with PWP on the design of a living wall for the project. This is the biggest construction project in the Bay Area, and the groundbreaking was attended by the appropriate dignitaries, including federal Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Sen. Barbara Boxer, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (not to mention all the local politicians).
We got a call about two weeks before the event from Mauk Design, who were designing the stage for the event. They sent us through the following rendering, wondering how we could elevate the TerraScreen on our recently introduced stands, so that it stood high above the stage.
image courtesy of Mauk Design
We had a bigger problem – we didn’t have the inventory they needed! Most everything we had was destined for an installation that same week at a very large company in Silicon Valley. Our next delivery of panels wasn’t due for several more weeks. We received a call from the contractor, Island Creations of San Francisco. An events specialist, they needed us to help them figure this out. With some creativity, they took cache pots from a TerraScreen system, and cut holes into plywood panels using the same grid spacing we use for the TerraScreen. Once again, Sunborne Nurseries was able to help them with the plants. While technically this isn’t a TerraScreen installation, we’re happy to take at least some credit for it, nevertheless…
Ray LaHood, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer - and a temporary living wall (photos courtesy of sfcitizen.com)
It was a great install, and all for a 3-hour ceremony! The emphasis for this project is green building and transit, and they organizers wanted the stage to reflect that. What better way than to set up a living wall?
More bigwigs (including former mayor Willie Brown) and the temporary living wall
This television news report will give you more than you ever wanted to know about the project – skip to 1:47 to see an image of the entire stage, and the full temporary wall.
We’re still trying to figure out an effective business model for the temporary/rental business. It seems a natural fit for companies already in the plant rental and events business – we just need to encourage them to add living walls (using TerraScreen on a stand) for their next new product offering.
