FLORABELLE

Not sure what to get them for their birthday this year, or a friend’s wedding or a sudden date, flowers are always a present they’ll love to receive.

Humans tend to seek out natural and are often in a relentless pursuit to incorporate nature into their habitat.

The people who pave the way to this dream of mankind, in every second of their daily lives are florists.

They are the means to educate people about flora and help us dive into the realm of greenery by floral arrangements such as bouquets, centrepieces, corsages, wreaths and other arrangements.

The king of green spaces in the world in Europe, the best green spaces in Europe is found in Holland and the best places of greenery in Holland are found in, some say , Zunbert a municipality and town in the south of the Netherlands bordering Belgium, in the province of north Brabant, the birthplace and childhood home of famous post-impressionist painter, Vincent Van Gogh. The flora - human relationship in zunbert goes to a whole new level . One of largest and most grandiloquent flower parades is annually hosted in Zunbert.

Concept

The concept comes from the English alphabet g which stands for gardens, the key element of landscape architecture, that undergoes geometric evolution to develop into our structure.

The Retail Store 

The exterior wall is made out of hempcrete , a biocomposite material with a negative carbon footprint made up of hemp hurds, lime and sand, good for construction and insulation. No plaster is used, leaving the store with exposed hempcrete exterior, which is also traditional to Netherlands.

Transparent glass panels are used for showcasing the floral display to every passerby and potential customers.

A vertical aquaponics garden with goldfish is displayed at the very entrance of the store. The store has a retail corner, a workstation, a lounge area with coffee machine, a storage room, a toilet and a cash counter.

The open workbench makes the floral designing process more tangible and visible taking the mundane retail experience to a whole new level, where all the process of making fragrances, bouquets, etc. can be seen and experienced in first person. The retail corner acts as a nice display unit, displaying everything sellable inside the store from flower to the modular growth wall. The storage wall are lined with bubble plastic for insulation, starting flower pats and selective flowers. 

The lounge area is decorated with bamboo floral decor hanging from the ceiling with various decorative flowers.

Succulent green roof keeps the structure cool. A sprinkler water the green roof and clean and cool the solar panels. Power generating paving slabs and solar panels power the entire structure. A sliding back door makes the way from the retail store to the greenhouse.

Greenhouse 

The greenhouse is made out of a wooden frame with polycarbonate covering installed with proper nuts bolts and brackets making the structure as strong as possible even under the harshest weather conditions such as snow and wind, with just another just another shutter door for deliveries and other transactions, heat cannot escape the greenhouse.

An exhaust fan brings hot air from the retail store into the greenhouse, automated temperature controlled vent openers keep the structure at optimum temperature and a recycled car radiator and water tank serves for all temperature regulation and heat exchange. Using a gas or electric heater can be costly so a solar powered car radiator does the trick. The heat exchanger absorbs the heat from air during the day and stores it in winter, at night it gives back that heat to the ambient air. Since we already had a aquaponic tank as thermal mass and a pump to filter the water, all that was needed was to connect the radiator in sequence after the filter. So the water would be pumped through the radiator after being filtered and then flow back into the tank.

The reflectix technology or north wall insulation helps keep the greenhouse cozy during the long winter nights and reflects light evenly onto the plants during the day for maximum growth, and in combination with the above ground aquaponics tanks, prevent overheating solar powered HAF fans circulate air inside the greenhouse all day long.

A natural gas powered CO2 generator keeps flowers healthy.

The greenhouse has three living systems for mass production, the vertical farming system in which a XPS foam sheet is put over a PVC sheet which is then fixed on an aluminium frame and plants are put in cuts on the foam sheet which is watered by drippers and pipes from the aqua phonics tanks housing koi and goldfish whose poop provide nutrition for the plants and the system thereby also provide reflectix and evaporative cooling.

The second is the honeycomb growth wall which is a modular structure for plant growth, it is watered in the same process and the water percolates from one hexagonal unit down to the other until at the very bottom to the gutter which then pumps clean water back into the tank. These modules are made out of plastic and can be sold at a convenient rate to customers, small flowers and herbs can be groin them which can be decorated and used in homes.

The third system is the bamboo vertical cultivation in which bamboo is fixed in gravel which act as a growth medium and filters water plants are grown inside bamboo, watered in the same way and the water pumps back into the aquaponics tank.

All these systems save a lot of space and maximise production and contribute to a lot of key aspects in a greenhouse such as heating, cooling, shade , display and is very cost effective and saves a lot of water. The greenhouse grows roses, tulips, daisies, orchids, gardenia, delphinium, camellia, anthurium, protea, irises, peonies, birds of paradise etc.

Florabelle is a self- sufficient fully sustainable florist store with its own greenhouse that has the most pedantic floral displays on the outside and most efficient growing medium for maximum production. The retail store and the greenhouse combine to give a whole new experience to all the shoppers as they can see and engage with all the cultivation processes and workshop with three unique systems that help educate the consumers regarding flora and its every product and the space is inspired by this very context , flora.