The Challenge

Comprising 56 apartments and eight penthouses, as well as ground-floor retail and hospitality and two levels of basement parking, The Victor redefines the skyline of this village-suburb and, as such, the design needed be mindful of the impact on it would have on its immediate surroundings, as well as the living environment for its new residents.

The addition of green façades, both on the exterior and lining the inside its full-height atrium helps to visually break down the ‘mass’ of the building, and softens the overall look.

“We were brought on board by The Victor’s developer at a very early stage of the design process,”. “His big vision, from the outset, was for a landmark building, with a plant-filled atrium and cascading plants draping the exterior. Our brief from him was simple… here’s the render, how do we make this happen?”

The Solution

The defining feature of this building is the incredible, full-height ‘living’ atrium that forms a pedestrian axis at ground level, and is criss-crossed by sky bridges above.

In total, over 2,000 individual plants were required, 90 percent of which were propagated and grown at GreenAir’s greenhouse nursery in Kumeu. This process has involved a huge amount of planning and took eight months to complete, to ensure that all the plants are well-established.

“The media that plants are sitting in is very important, too,” says Simon. “A newly developed hydro-culture media, not soil, is being used, so it is semi hydroponic, which allows us to use a system that requires a lot less water. The other advantage of media we are using is that it is very lightweight, which is an important factor when you consider the complex structures and the engineering required for large planstcapes. Consequently, at 60kg per square-metre, saturated, our green wall systems are undoubtedly one the lightest systems on the market. And that’s a huge advantage when it comes to designing and engineering the building itself.”

‍The engineered balustading system that GreenAir developed works in with the standard glass balustrading to produce sections of foliage that cascade and drape down into the atrium below. Fully rated and engineered, this is a product that can be used across future developments where this solution is required.