In many regional centres across Australia, there is a strong connection with the land. No doubt this understanding of the flora’s oxygen liberating properties has influenced this regional council to include a green wall in the principal depot.
The state-of-the-art facility was built to meet the current and future needs of council staff and the region. The environmental committee chairperson commented that the building construction delivers a modern and sustainable facility to provide a safe and productive working environment for all staff. There are many sustainable design elements focused on water and energy efficiency to minimise the building’s environmental impact.
The feature 62m2 green wall in the depot reception includes 22 different types of plants and 122 horticulture luminaires. As a feature element of the development, the sustainable vertical wall allows for pleasing aesthetics, as well as purification benefits to the internal space.
Horticulture lighting for a sustainable vertical wall is a crucial part of the success to keep it healthy and growing. Internal spaces rarely provide enough access to natural light levels needed to support growth. As plants require light for photosynthesis, evaluation of light distribution is fundamental. At a target level, each plant is to have minimum exposure to 3000lux (source: Greenwall lighting specifications, Fytogreen, 12.2018) to maintain long-term growth. For context, outdoor planting will receive rough lux levels of 30,000lux through 100,000lux depending on location and weather conditions. Colour temperature of the lighting is another critical factor. Roughly, the colour temperature of the lighting should be between 4000°K and 6000°K as this will best mimic the light the plants receive if located outdoors.
The tight space for lighting at the depot required the use of small-sized yet efficient luminaires installed to both low and high levels. The MX track lighting, coupled with the Kobe Flo was the perfect solution. The Kobe Flo combines electronics and spectral tuning with an array of customisable configurations and multiple beam angles and lenses. The “waving pattern” of the lighting installation with varying beam angles achieves compliance with the predictive lux map.
Vertical Garden Specialist: Fytogreen Australia
Builder: McNab Developments, Pty. Ltd.
Architect: Sims White, Aspect Architects & Project Managers
Photographer: Lucy Robertson-Cuninghame
