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Vertical garden exhibit at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival

Exhibition · RHS Hampton Court

A vertical garden built for a show deadline.

A vertical garden exhibit designed with Adolfo Harrison for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, built to be planted, judged and demounted inside a fixed festival programme.

Client
RHS / Adolfo Harrison
Sector
Exhibition
Location
Hampton Court Palace
Scope
Design support, build, planting
Duration
Festival build period

01 — The brief

A show garden runs to the judge’s clock.

Adolfo Harrison and Armando Raish before planting the RHS vertical garden exhibit
Adolfo Harrison and Armando Raish before the exhibit was planted.

Show gardens are judged on the day they open. There is no settling-in period, so the wall has to arrive at full planted density and hold it through build, judging and the public run.

Working to Adolfo Harrison’s design, we handled the vertical elements: the supporting structure, the substrate, the planting plan and the irrigation that kept it looking the same on the last day as the first.

What we delivered

  • —Vertical structure engineered for a temporary build
  • —Planting pre-grown off site to festival density
  • —Irrigation installed and commissioned on site
  • —Full demount and reuse of components after the show

02 — Challenge, solution, result

How it was resolved.

Challenge

The constraint

The wall had to be complete on day one, with no growing-in time and a build window measured in days, on a site with no permanent services.

Solution

The approach

Planting was grown off site in advance so it arrived established. The structure was designed to be assembled and demounted by hand, and irrigation ran from a temporary supply.

Result

The outcome

A fully planted vertical exhibit delivered inside the festival programme, demounted afterwards with the components returned for reuse rather than sent to landfill.

03 — Gallery

Vertical garden exhibit at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival
Vertical garden exhibit at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival.
Close-up of flowering plants and foliage from the RHS vertical garden installation
Close-up of flowering plants and foliage from the RHS vertical garden installation.
Visitors in front of the RHS Hampton Court vertical garden
Visitors at the wall during the show.
The RHS Hampton Court vertical garden from a different angle, showing the jasmine feature
The wall from a different angle, with the jasmine feature.
Aerial view of the Life on Walls vertical garden exhibit at RHS Hampton Court
The exhibit from above.
Aerial view of the RHS Hampton Court vertical garden exhibit and surrounding show ground
The same aerial view in daylight.
Planting detail on the RHS Hampton Court vertical garden exhibit
Planting detail on the exhibit.
Pre-growing the RHS Hampton Court vertical garden planting to its finished density
Pre-growing the planting to the desired density before the show.

04 — Related work

Related projects.

Full portfolio

— — Next step

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