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giving back Sarah Beauchamp
Au Naturel
Flower walls, vine-entwined signage, and other living décor can breathe life into any meeting or event — and lives on long aſter everyone has gone home.
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or its 22nd Annual Casino Night Benefit at the Seaport Boston Hotel last year, Building Owners
& Managers Association (BOMA) Bos- ton, a leader in green building initia- tives, wanted its Monte Carlo–themed event to have a lively, eco-friendly vibe. Cityscapes, a Boston-based company that provides interior landscaping for major events — and many of Boston’s property managers — took care of that. “Attendees’ eyes were drawn to this
great wall of flowers behind the regis- tration table,” said Kayla Burmeister, membership and events coordinator for BOMA Boston. “With BOMA, sustain- ability is huge, and the living wall really set the tone for that event.” Added Jan Goodman, CEO of
Cityscapes: “People want to be around nature, it makes them feel better. Plants are proven to clean the air and remove the volatile organic compounds in oxy- gen, while decreasing carbon dioxide.” Unlike artificial decorations that
might get thrown away at the end of the night, sustainable adornments live on. After an event, the plants are main- tained in Cityscapes’ greenhouses and reused for future events. All the walls and other structures are made from organic materials that are later recycled or repurposed. Once flowers are no longer usable, they’re either composted, donated, “or end up in my backyard or at a friend’s house,” Goodman said.
“Nothing goes in the landfill.” Not only was BOMA’s living wall eco-
friendly, it also served a practical pur- pose, effectively directing attendees to the registration table, and helping draw their eyes toward a large banner dis- playing the sponsors of the event. “The
32 PCMA CONVENE JULY 2012
wall was not just beautiful, but great exposure for our sponsors, since their names were right next to it,” Burmeis- ter said. “People were standing in front of it and taking pictures; they loved it.” This past March, living signage
composed of synthetic materials and natural plant life was incorporated into EcoPoesis, a graduate-studies symposium at the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco that was dedicated to examining the rela- tionship between people and nature through various works of art. Graduate design student Miwa Ike-
miya planted small vines inside each letter of the “EcoPoesis” sign to visually demonstrate the intersection of human and nature systems. “People spent lon- ger looking at the signs, and came back day after day,” Ikemiya said. “It became an installation to observe, photograph, and be photographed with.” Like the living wall at BOMA Bos-
ton’s Monte Carlo benefit, the EcoPoe- sis signage lives on. Each student and teacher involved with the event took home a letter of the living sign. And all of the excess scrap material from the signage was used to make another installation in CCA’s gallery space. “The plants allowed the signs to be
more than about conveying informa- tion; it became a gathering place, a low-tech interactive installation, a series of desirable gifts, and a means for attendees to feel involved in the event,” Ikemiya said. “The environ- mental benefits were the result of a cohesive design campaign.”
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Sarah Beauchamp is an assistant editor of Convene.
Signage as Foliage Sustainable, functional — and pleasing to the eye.
BREAKOUT
Plant Yourself Don’t have the budget for a professional interior landscaper? Woolly Pockets is a company that provides breathable planting pockets with internal moisture control that are made from recycled plastic bottles. They are easy to attach to walls, and hold plants of all kinds. “They’re great for events, because they’re so quick to put up, and suddenly you have this thick, lush atmosphere,” said Woolly Pockets co-founder Miguel Nelson. Not only do they produce fresh oxygen, vertical gardens also can help disguise eyesores.
“A lot of people use plants to flank projector screens or to cover podiums.” The planter pockets and foliage then can be recycled for another event, or given out as gifts to volunteers and attendees.
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ON THE WEB To go behind the scenes at the California College of the Arts’ 2012 EcoPoesis, visit convn.org/ ecopoesis.
ILLUSTRATION BY BECI ORPIN / THE JACKY WINTER GROUP