Union Station Gateway

Union Station Gateway 

The Woolly School Garden program officially launched on Earth Day (April 22, 2010) with a Woolly Pocket living wall garden in Union Square, New York City on April 25. A freestanding gateway composed out of living walls created a temporary outdoor destination for teachers and families to learn more about the Woolly School Garden program.

Design Challenge

The challenge was to create a large temporary gateway, in the form of a freestanding wall that could be installed quickly with a small team. A lot of careful planning went into this design so that that the actual installation, onsite would be relatively quick and easy. A lightweight steel frame was custom made and pre-drilled so that is would be easy to install and cover with Pockets. Custom deep Pockets were created specifically for this project to hold Willow trees, on the ends of the wall.

Date of Install

April 22, 2010 – Earth Day

Owner

Woolly Pocket 

Designers

Woolly Pocket

Billie Cohen, Ltd. is a landscape design studio based in NYC that focuses on campus and educational landscape, public parks and green roofs.

Press

Featured on Woolly Pocket Blog.

Access

Public

Climate

New York City is in Zone 6. The installation was outdoors at ground level and received a lot of natural sun light.

Pockets

The gateway required (124) Chocolate Wally Ones and (54) Wally Threes with reservoir. The gateway is 80’ long and 8” high. The frame of the wall was made out of 2x2” light gauge steel tubes, with supports spaced 22” apart to make it easy to install Pockets. The frame was pre-drilled so that it was easy to attach the Pockets.

The frame was lightweight and easy to install. The entire installation took 10 people ½ a day to install, including setting up the frame, screwing the Pockets onto the frame and planting the Pockets.

Plant List

The south facing side of the wall was covered in edibles from the local farmers market in Union Square. The north side of the gateway was covered in native plants. A series of custom deep Pockets, hung on the edges of the gateway held small Willow trees.

Irrigation

This temporary installation was hand watered.