Vancouver airport (YVR) featured in Metropolis magazine

We enjoyed seeing Vancouver's airport in Metropolis magazine. We like the new 'living' wall.

OCTOBER 2010 • METROPOLIS OBSERVED
Green Monster
To beautify an airport eyesore, all it takes is 27,000 plants, a high-tech maintenance system, and constant vigilance.

By Tim Newcomb
Posted October 20, 2010

DESIGNERS: Sharp & Diamond Landscape Architecture
www.sharpdiamond.com

PROJECT: Vancouver International Airport Living Wall
Vancouver, British Columbia

Flying is a fairly miserable experience even in the best conditions, and the drab, confusing, and downright ugly architecture of many airports certainly doesn’t help. Which is why Randy Sharp, the landscape master planner of Vancouver International Airport (YVR), in British Columbia, felt compelled to do something about a massive blank concrete wall confronting international travelers arriving via the city’s new light-rail system. For this 56-foot-tall, 39-foot-wide eyesore, Sharp envisioned a vertical landscape that would create “a more soothing, relaxing environment for passengers,” he says. “Airline companies want people relaxed, so this is a piece of environmental art.”

Sharp is no stranger to creating living walls. He and his firm, Sharp & Diamond Landscape Architecture, built Canada’s first one, at the Vancouver Aquarium, in 2006. But that piece spanned about 500 square feet. The YVR wall is more than four times that size—indeed, at 2,173 square feet, it is the biggest green wall in Canada and one of the largest in North America. More daunting than its sheer size, however, was the location—facing north. “Heavy shade on a north-facing location is a limiting factor for most green-wall plants,” Sharp says. “Climbing plants in the heavy shade are too thin and do not produce lush, dense foliage.” And fruiting plants were out of the question, since the airport does not want to attract birds. So Sharp, inspired by a lush canyon wall he saw on a trip to nearby Saturna Island, selected a range of hardy native species—including green and silver versions of Japanese euonymus and licorice fern—and arranged them in long curving patterns that reference the flight paths of planes.

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