About BEEOTOPIA
BEEOTOPIA is committed not only to cultivating plants in urban spaces, but also to bringing them to life. BEEOTOPIA supports complex planting projects from the initial idea to financial advice, planning and tendering through to implementation and maintenance.
Owner Tom Thies, project manager Anja Thies, and site manager Timo Rössler lead the team, developing projects for wall and ground-based planting. They specialise in advising on product and plant selection, with a focus on recycling and sustainability. BEEOTOPIA actively supports the Climate Alliance and the Green Deal.
Challenge
During the 2023 Federal Garden Show in Mannheim, Germany, horticultural companies designed ten gardens on the Spinelli grounds of the Baden-Württemberg Garden, Landscape and Sports Ground Construction Association (VGL).
BEEOTOPIA implemented a ten-metre-high VGL pergola. The structure offered almost 50 square meters of vertical space for no less than 1700 plants. In addition, BEEOTOPIA installed 30 square meters of ground-bound climbing plants in sustainable textile pockets.
The task was to network BEEOTOPIA’s automatic irrigation and fertilisation system in a fail-safe manner without being able to use an existing WLAN.
Solution
Using the Teltonika RUT240 IoT router, Wireless Logic mdex provided a SIM solution with fixed IP for networking the plant sensors. This meant that the entire project could be managed remotely via the cellular network. “It was important for us to be able to rely on a self-sufficient and stable data connection”, said project manager Anja Thies”.
The Future
Vertical planting is not only an important component in urban planning due to the visual enhancement of city districts, but can also have an energising effect. “Depending on the area, vertical planting has an enormous cooling and insulating capability”, explained Anja Thies. “There are projects in which the ambient temperature has dropped by three to five degrees due to evaporative cooling. The plants and materials used for the wall-mounted greenery can also reduce wind permeability and have an insulating effect. Thanks to the preconditioned air, it was possible to eliminate the use of air conditioning in summer.
In addition, the entire climate in the district can be improved by the vertical green spaces. “When it comes to ventilation, plant walls provide updrafts where trees would be counterproductive”, said Anja Thies. “In particular, using the entire height of the building promotes the chimney effect in order to achieve complete cooling and absorption”.
Currently, BEEOTOPIA is developing a prototype for mobile planting squares. The team is confident that this innovation will renovate areas between existing buildings for summer use with minimal conversion work.
It was important for us to be able to rely on a self-sufficient and stable data connection. With Wireless Logic mdex, we not only have the right connectivity for planting the VGL pergola at the BUGA, but it is also seamlessly scalable for future projects.