FLOATING GARDEN

Crown St Plaza - Wollongong CBD

Wollongong City Council approached us with a request to design and build a garden on the pedestrian thoroughfare in Crown Street Plaza.  The one design constraint was that there were to be no square edges.

We had previously installed two small Modular Parklets in this area and council wanted to recycle as much as possible into the new garden.  The issue we faced was that the orginal urban parklets were designed out of square componentry.

Arial view of mall and location of floating garden

 

With these constraints we needed to develop a complete new way of growing gardens.  This led to the development of our floating garden system.  The main issue was water supply to the plants. With only a shallow soil profile and sitting on top of pavers on a hot day the plants could 'cook'.

To overcome this we recycled the Turf Trays, bought in our new Garden trays and then designed a number of other smaller water reservoirs and wicking trays.

To create the curved edges we developed a stitching method to combine coir logs. We designed and built an internal structure off site for the topography changes. 

Build of floating garden showing topography with water reservoirs underneath geotextile.

Floating garden one year on.

Original Urban Parklet that was in Crown Street Plaza that council wanted to recycle.

 

The site for the proposed garden was surrounded by two to four story buildings that during winter provided minimal direct sunlight. The surface was bluestone pavers that readily absorbed heat in summer.  The brief also stipulated that they could not be damaged.  Wind tunnelling down the plaza was also an issue.  

Organic design for new floating garden

 

Another element required in the brief was 50 planters to connect the floating garden to the rest of the plaza.  To do this using traditional planters was cost prohibitive.  We proposed converting 200 and 100 litre metal drums into planters.  We painted and installed a water reservoir and wicking system into each one.

After placing drums, reservoirs and topography we brought in 20 cubic metres of soil via bulka bags to form the garden beds. A hessian netting was pinned into place to prevent soil movement.  The planting design was a mixture of exotics and native grasses.  An irrigation system was installed over the entire floating garden.

Floating Garden planted out and ready for opening 2020

Floating garden three years.  The turf was converted to synthetic grass due to too much wear and tear.