The aim is to create a simple and beautiful living garden on the walls of a Georgian laneway in the city centre.
The laneway we have selected is Jesuit Lane off Hartstonge Street Limerick. We will install a metal repoussé decorated trellis to the walls of the laneway and ll the trellis with CO2 soaking plants.
We will decorate the trellis with panels of recycled metal (coke, beer cans etc) that have had images of Hunt or Limerick City Museum artefacts stamped into them using the technique of repoussé. We will bring the history of Limerick and the Hunt Collection into the city centre in an innovative way
We will aim to reduce the C02 of the city by lling the trellises with CO2 soaking plants which bloom at different times during the duration of the project. CO2 soaking plants can soak up to 25% of CO2 emissions in an urban environment.
Another part of the project will be the collaboration between business, culture and community groups. The project lead will be Limerick Mental Health Association Le Cheile Mens Shed working with Friends of the Hunt Museum and GBM Limerick. We will work with a designer to monitor the eectiveness of the CO2 soaking plants. The Le Cheile Mens Shed will maintain the plants and trellis over the project.
The at nature of the trellises make them very suitable for attachment to walls along the laneway. The use of plants that have high CO2 consumption will improve the environment and overall air quality of the lane, which remains a motorised lane. Plants will need to be accommodated in earth or be similar to those used for rooftop gardens.
Sensors developed in the +CityXchange project will be used to monitor air quality will be incorporated into the trellises and the results monitored for environmental impact over the course 2020.
This collaborative project brings community, culture and design together in a people focussed project. This project will build a people focused network of both by makers (primarily Sarah Gough, Silversmith and The Hunt Museum),Designers (GBM) and maker groups/Community Groups (La Chéile Men’s Shed and LMHA Women’s groups). The proposed project will address ways to encourage equity in the use of public space by creating positive public association with Georgian Laneways. It will respond to the common problem with the Georgian Laneways that they are underused and the negative association of laneways with anti-social behaviour. The trellis repousse project on a basic level will stimulate positive social activity within the laneways themselves. The combination of materials used in the wooden trellis, metal repousse panels and the green planting will create living corridors that will draw people into the laneways, encouraging pedestrians to use the laneways as shortcuts through the city. Secondly, the trellis walls of plants encourage the absorption of Co2 from the cityscape, the eectiveness of which will be measured through, pre-project and during project monitoring of Co2 levels. Therefore the project will prioritise encouraging the public use by incorporating items of cultural interest and enjoyment of the laneways with the objective of also improving air quality.