by Brianna Crandall — February 17, 2017 — With the brand new Golden 1 Center, the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Sacramento Kings set out to build the world’s most sustainable indoor arena, establish new standards for energy efficiency and water conservation, and re-define how a downtown arena relates to its surroundings. Designed by AECOM, Golden 1 Center is now the world’s first LEED Platinum certified indoor sports venue.
The main entrance to the arena is bookended with stretches of green wall.
As living symbols of the Kings’ commitment to sustainability, the team selected components from LiveWall, the green wall subsidiary of Hortech, Inc., Spring Lake, Michigan, to create a green wall system visible as fans approach the arena. Seven green walls totaling 4,800 square feet were constructed with the LiveWall system.
AECOM says it chose the LiveWall system for its “tried and true system with well-engineered components that could scale up,” and for its design that provides “adequate soil depth and volume to protect the plants and keep the walls from drying out in the heat of summer.”
The Sacramento office of landscape services company BrightView installed the green walls. The installation includes 2,700 LiveWall planter modules attached to a unique aluminum rail and mounting track system, which is affixed to the structural wall and secures the planters and integrated irrigation components.
Florasource Ltd. (San Clemente, CA), an independent horticulture supply company and LiveWall distributor, provided 5,400 plants in LiveWall’s planter inserts so that the plants would be hearty and ready for installation into the modular planters in September 2016. AECOM and Florasource selected 18 different types of plants, with all flowering plants bloom in shades of purple, the Kings’ signature color.
For an authentic look, they chose plant species that are native to the area, or that have similar aesthetic qualities. To minimize supplemental irrigation requirements, all the plants are appropriate for the climate. Varied plant mixes for individual green wall sections account for differences in sun and shade around the arena. Many of the selected species will grow large enough to cover much of the green wall components.
More information about the LiveWall system is available on the company’s Web site.
