Increasingly, the term “office landscape” is also being used by landscape architects to describe the physical landscaping of corporate grounds.
Landscape architects work designing the exterior appearances of many corporate office parks and executive campuses. They choose plants, create walking paths or recreation areas, and design aesthetic elements like fountains or rock walls on the land immediately surrounding an office building.
The practice of interior landscape design is devoted to the strategic placement and appeal of plants and greenery indoors. Decorative trees in building lobbies, for instance, or potted plants and shrubs in corporate hallways, are usually the handiwork of interior landscape designers.
Planting is increasingly becoming part of interior space design. Bringing the outdoors in, not only through large glass openings, but actually creating elements of planting design within the interior space, and this has shown to have a lot of positive psychological impact on occupants. This is now usually prevalent not only in residential designs but offices as well.
Aside the fact that plants offer aesthetic appeal depending on how these are configured within the space, they have been shown to reduce glare within the space and offer psychological feelings of relief.
Plant expert Butch Deedman owner of Deedman Plants said: “We have been asked to look at planting in various call centres and offices, to create better working conditions for the staff. The main problem for us to impact on the office Landscaping is that we are often called in after the design. When architects are designing an office they are often dedicated to getting the optimum space allocated to desks and work areas, this leaves little room for us to work in the landscaping, trying to identify dead spaces, which are few and far between. I can understand that space costs money but more has to be done earlier in the process to see the benefits.”
He continued: “We are ever moving towards more synergy between planting – buildings and the people that use them. The plant wall I feel is just one of these ideas to create interest in the possibilities of synergy between buildings, plants and people.
“An example of this is the Snowhill office block in Birmingham, which has unveiled 220 metre long, seven metre high partition which includes 604 sq m of plants. Work to create the giant wall started early last year with the construction of the huge steel frame. This was followed by the installation of the panels containing thousands of plants which were pre-grown in purpose built panels in a nursery in Holland. I look forward to seeing what patterns and movement are in the ‘living’ wall and the benefits it has on the work force and surrounding community”
If you would like any advice on Office Landscaping, then you can contact Butch Deedman at Deedman Tropical Plant Specialists
