Questions posed by Tess Patterson, House & Leisure Magazine, S.A.
I’d like to get your input on what made you choose a rooftop garden. e.g. lack of facilities at work, time constraints, ugly buildings – what’s behind the drive to the top floor and outdoors?
We were working up concepts with our sponsor RBS, and we were looking for something new and fresh as a ‘relevant to now’ type concept. We wanted to develop a concept garden that had strong relevance to RBS and their core brand values etc, it seemed obvious to start with the idea of a progressive contemporary workplace. It was decided to take it to ‘Rooftop’ for many reasons, one of the primary drivers was the amount of dead and wasted space in urban city centre’s (places where RBS offices tend to be) and that by developing the concept as Rooftop, we could expand office space without actually take up any more precious city space, and would be majorly contributing to urban greening.
The garden is referred to as ‘textured, structural and delicate.’ What inspired you to take this approach, as opposed to say a more rambling look (which presumably would also have had a calming effect).
We needed to provide a low maintenance solution. Many of the gardens shown at Chelsea Flower Show would not actually be practical in real life, our garden was very much designed to be a real garden, and therefore in real life the garden would need to be low maintenance to keep service costs low etc. A structured approach was selected to the planting to be in line with the overall design, the whole design concept was based around the shape of a tablet (I Pad) with rounded corners, and informal loose planting style would not have delivered the effect we were looking for.
The palette, furniture shapes and layout strike me as both futuristic and embracing. How did you merge the idea of future and work, with the sense of tranquility and the natural world.
As already mentioned the concept was based on technology itself, and the shape of the I Pad inspired much of the design elements. The rounded square became an icon that we used throughout the garden, from the furniture, the decking shape edged in steel for emphasis, through to pruning the buxus into a rounded square profile. We wanted to maintain a simplicity of shape and space, that would allude to the future, but would not be too hard and edgy. The rounded square worked perfectly and the block planting in a restricted colour palette really enthused a feeling of calm and tranquility.
Technically: is there Wi Fi throughout, so no cables, plug points etc in the exposed areas. Or are they weather-proof and/or concealed?
Yes the whole garden was with Wi Fi throughout, we had plug points within the cube building and there were external sockets & plugs through out the garden and well hidden (i.e. under the umbrella tree table, sunk into the decking – all with weatherproof sockets)
Do you think this sort of space requires a definite mind-shift? Is there a rigid ‘work is work, home is home’ attitude, or are people starting to acknowledge the power of garden spaces, and the use of rooftop areas?
We feel that these spaces could become incredibly important to corporate companies. The power of a garden space such as ‘Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow’, is incredible, it feels so different to a normal office. The space is empowering, uplifting and rejuvenating, we feel that these spaces can really encourage and support creative and lateral thought, and would add value into any organization. We actually had real birdsong playing throughout the garden at Chelsea, and it was unbelieveable how when the sound was playing how it really affected the space. In Urban areas you rarely hear birdsong, but the instant it was played you suddenly felt that you were miles from a city, your shoulders almost instantly loosened up and it just felt so tranquil. I would recommend this in any office garden, whether it was birdsong or the sounds of nature.
Rooftop gardens have become a real hot potato, and the interest within this sector has been huge since Chelsea for us. We have already been commissioned to design 10 Penthouse rooftop gardens (with more to follow) for a major development in London, Chelsea Creek. The gardens will be quite unlike any rooftop space that this developer (St George) has done before, and we can’t wait to see them built in due course. It’s about time that people started acknowledging these dead spaces that have so much to offer, if only some thought is given to them!
What do you love most about this garden, and why do you think the judges liked it so much?
I think the judges loved it because it was new and different, and was showing how a garden space could be so much more than just a garden. It was quite unlike any of the other gardens at Chelsea Flower Show and the RHS love to show the visitors a real spread of inspiration.
Personally for me, I loved all of the technology, it was fun to put together a garden using features that I hadn’t used before, such as the huge LED sports screen, which added another dimension of it’s own entirely. We displayed beautiful photos of close ups of plants, but we also envisaged that it would be used for Power Point Presentations and even to show Films or music videos. Gardens are only really limited by our imaginations, and at Aralia we love to dream and imagine, and we hope that our next garden at Chelsea will be another stunning individual concept!
Practically, what’s the key starting point for business owners or flat dwellers who want to turn a concrete expanse into an inviting green space. Is it as simple as a timber deck and a few pots?
There are many practical & technical issues facing the development of a rooftop garden, on the whole I would always recommend that a Landscape/Garden designer is brought in to assist with evaluating these issues and to advise the best way forward. The roof needs to be assessed to ensure that it is strong enough to support the planned weight loading, and strengthened if need be to avoid disaster. Maintenance issues can be tricky, due to access, and of course building regulations /health & safety regulations need to be adhered to. In a nutshell call in an expert to avoid expensive mistakes.
Images from Aralia’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden ‘Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow’. Copyright Benjamin Wetherall
