BIOWALL
by Jill Fehrenbacher, 03/15/06
We love the idea of living walls here at Inhabitat, and if we could turn every surface into a living surface, we would. That’s why we were so struck by Loop.ph’s stunning new BioWall, which was just launched at the NewBritishDesigners exhibition in Amsterdam with Droog Design.
The BioWall is a lace-like, three dimensional fiberglass structure that acts as a sort of modern trellis for growing vine plants. The springy fiberglass rods are bowed into rings and woven into several dodecahedra that in turn are joined together, creating a sturdy yet flexible organic structure that resembles bubbles, living cells and water molecules.
The structure is based on the principle of self-similarity – enabling it to work from the nano to the macro scale. The geometrical BioWall structure is beautiful on its own – but when you add plants into the mix it becomes so much better. With vine plants creeping up the structure, BioWall is designed to act as a living hedge that divides space.
According to Loop design:
By observing the behaviour of plants many farmers can predict and understand the changing weather patterns. As it becomes increasingly difficult to read the signs of our natural environment in urban, built landscapes we use plants in our work as we consider them to be the most sophisticated of sensors and displays. We use technology to try to reintroduce these ideas by creating reactive surfaces inspired by botanical life that reflect and communicate environmental changes.
Thanks Rachel!
Wonderful design – congratulations!