Façade planters, Kala Ghoda

The brief was to bring planting to the façade of a shopfront building in Kala Ghoda, Mumbai's heritage and arts district. The scheme combines planter troughs with stainless supports, so plants can grow from the troughs across the face of the building. Acier delivered the complete system in 2023: troughs, ropes and mesh, drip irrigation and planting.

Heritage districts call for a light touch. Anything added to a façade should be discreet, fixed with care and respectful of the building's features. Planters at height also need secure fixing, drainage that does not stain the façade, and access for watering and care. The shopfronts below must stay visible and open to the street. And all of it had to be built above a busy pavement, to a tight timeline.

Planter troughs run across the façade and hold the soil and roots. Brackets on the planter system carry two kinds of support above them: Jakob Ø6 mm vertical ropes at 150 mm, and panels of Webnet in Ø2 mm rope with a 200 mm mesh width on a framework of Ø6 mm ropes. Ropes guide twining plants upward, while the mesh gives tendril climbers support across a whole surface.

Stainless ropes and mesh are thin enough to sit quietly against an old façade, and they need no painting. Because the fixings are small, the system adds green without hiding the building's details. Drip irrigation, supplied by Acier, waters every trough, and the whole installation took about four weeks on site.

The building now carries planting across its shopfront façade, adding green to a busy heritage street. The same combination of planters, ropes and mesh can work on many older buildings where a heavy structure is not an option.