We saw so much more potential for this former derelict hot-tub house to become a temperate plant house.
We chose to create a heat sink system which should increase the ambient temperature inside the building by at least +2 degrees without using lots of energy; pictured here you can see the existing pit with guttering and piping wrapped around a thermal mass that will retain any heat generated during the day and transfer that energy to the air flowing through the pipes, and consequently the rest of the room via a small fan system.
Once the heat sink system was in place, and the brick supports had been built to support the final boardwalk, the pit was filled with our engineered soil mix:
(wormcast, coconut coir, vermiculite, mineral rock dust and seaweed meal). The boardwalk was a custom design to fit the space. We repurposed the original decking and stained it to increase the longevity of the wood.
Custom trellises were built and an automatic drip irrigation system was implemented to finish the infrastructure of the project.
Suitable plants were researched extensively, with the specification that all had food, medicinal and/or ornamental value.