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95,413
2020-11-01 to 2021-04-30
Collaborative R&D
The basis of the project is the development of an innovative new permanent "living wall" system for building facades. It is the development of an existing patented temporary living wall system that grows native wildflower meadows vertically into a permanent facade system. The living wall system has been designed to encourage biodiversity and increase greening within urban environments. It has also been designed to minimise maintenance requirements one of the key barriers to adoption currently. The permanent version of the Vertical Meadow living wall system builds on the successful commercialisation of a temporary Vertical Meadow living wall system based on scaffolding sheeting for construction sites and other temporary sites. The permanent system, has been previously tested as single panels but owing to the upfront investment required to produce a demonstrator its development has been put on hold whilst the temporary version is developed. There is a patent granted on the permanent version for the principle in the UK and pending elsewhere. The design principles of the permanent living wall system we are developing in this project is a rainscreen façade system that has been conceived to be a low cost system compared to the existing offerings. The principle USP of the Vertical Meadow technology is that it allows plants to grow from seed in situ dispensing with greenhouses and pre-growing of panels/plants as per 99% of existing vertical greening systems. It also requires low maintenance requiring one cut per year significantly reducing the operating expense compared to the existing systems. It has been designed in an identical way to existing metal rainscreen facades with the living aspects attached to the front of them making it construction friendly and therefore cheaper to install. It is a metal based system making it one of the only systems globally available that meets strict fire safety requirements. It can also be fully disassembled to meet circular economy principles. The aim of the project is to utilise the existing intellectual property (IP) and develop new IP in the production of a demonstrator as a large-scale proof of concept. We are looking to produce an array of panels that interconnect of approximately 40m2\. The benefit of a demonstrator this big will not only test how water flows between modules but also demonstrate the system to prospective clients. It will be used not only to prove the technical and environmental principles but also the cost and constructive principles in order that this can be delivered as a product following the end of the project. It will also be used as a sales vehicle for winning projects by inviting potential clients to view it. The development of a demonstrator will allow for assessments of the biodiversity, circular economy and fire benefits as a way of providing a strong business case for the product beyond its economic savings.