To live our life to the fullest we all need two solid foundations- a home where we can feel happy and secure, and a workplace that inspires us. The atmosphere of social distance, which has been going on for almost two years now, is increasingly drawing attention to our connection with nature and the need to transfer it into our daily lives. To learn more about the opportunities and trends in this field, we met with the founders of Botanic Lab - a cohesive team of professionals whose mission is design, implementation, maintenance, and technological innovation in the field of interior landscaping.
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Has the demand for your services increased in the last two years?
Since we have been present in the Bulgarian market, we have a steady growth in the number of clients by about 30% per year, and in the current 2021, it will reach nearly 50%. These are mainly companies with large office space, more than 20% of which are in the IT and BPO industry. This dynamic is mainly due to the pandemic situation, which has necessitated a global transformation of workspaces not only in terms of interior, zoning and functionality but also due to the search for more sustainable and healthy solutions to build a better work environment. This trend makes landscaping a new priority in investment projects.
Apart from "sustainable fashion", we are already talking about sustainable interior and exterior. What is the philosophy of this trend?
Sustainable design is on its way to taking a leading position in building an interior environment. This mindset manages to be transferred to office spaces, mainly in the use of ecological (from certified sources, recycled or recyclable, compostable, and other) materials, natural colors, and natural materials, and vegetation manages to complement them as an important part of the green concept. Sustainable management of interior spaces now extends from the smart management of resources used, such as optimizing water and energy consumption, to the choice of antibacterial flooring from natural raw materials and wall paint that purifies the air.
What vision do clients with large office spaces usually rely on? What is the role of plants in the workplace?
COVID-19 has certainly had a strong impact on the way office space is inhabited. One of the main solutions (applied to existing interior spaces) is the creation of multifunctional or flexible areas. Here a very important emphasis is placed on the specialists who consult the managers of companies, such as architects and interior designers, who must show fast, functional, customized, and budget-friendly solutions for the transformation. Plants are proving to be a crossroads between functional design and a healthy environment, so more and more office architectural projects include much more landscaping than ever before. Vegetation is integrated everywhere - walls, separation modules, furniture, and more. The easiest way to get closer to nature in a work environment is through plants. Their benefits to humans are not limited to improving air quality and increasing humidity. In addition, they have a beneficial effect on the mental and physical condition of people – increasing productivity, concentration, and even the level of happiness. Studies show that plants can reduce the feeling of fatigue by 25%, and increase concentration by nearly 20%.
In addition to an individual landscaping concept, you also offer support
for an already implemented project. Tell us more about this service.
This is a way to assist our clients (offices, restaurants, private homes) with the care of the vegetation in which they have invested. After the completion of each project, we provide a free digital guide for landscaping maintenance, but very often the volume or complexity of the vegetation requires more specific care. In the last two years, this service has been in great demand not only by our clients. This is because the lack of full presence of teams in office buildings after the start of the pandemic necessitated someone to take responsibility for the maintenance of vegetation. With such a service, managers are confident that the plants will be healthy for a long time. The number of our clients (mostly offices) for this service has grown by 200% in the last two years.
What budget should we set aside if we want to freshen up our home and be consulted by a landscaping professional?
Our company offers consulting and project preparation completely free of charge and allows the whole process to take place online to save time and effort. We always prepare projects according to a pre-specified budget, always providing a more expensive and cheaper option, which differs in volume, positions, and solutions. Since the establishment of the company, we offer design and manufacture of customized solutions from various materials, thanks to our network of subcontractors - furniture, structures, pots, and more. This way we guarantee that we create unique landscaping for our clients and a final project that matches perfectly their requirements.
What solution would you suggest to clients who want greenery in their home and have children and/or pets?
These circumstances usually require the use of more vertical landscaping solutions - stands, hanging pots, macrame, wall frames and structures, and more. There are also specific types of plants that we do not recommend in such cases, but their choice also depends on the choice of greenery according to the design of the space.
Are there any specific plants that you recommend to clients who are prone to allergic reactions?
In our projects, we often use a species composition of plants that has the maximum effect on the degree of air purification, but also one that would not adversely affect allergies. We rarely offer flowering plants, as some of them can cause allergic reactions in the respiratory tract. There are also plants that can provoke skin reactions when touched, and we rarely use them in private homes.
In recent years, many people have stopped choosing the so-called "living walls". What are the risks and benefits of such a vision?
We live in smaller and smaller spaces, among the growing shortage of greenery in urban areas, and we certainly need to spend more time outdoors. All this leads to the idea of creating a small urban jungle in your home, combined with practicality in terms of the utilization of space in the interior. Here comes the decision for vertical interior gardens or how a wall can achieve maximum effect on the living environment - a green, healthy and beautiful home. Vertical gardens require more specialized care, which is why in recent years there has been a tendency to create easy-to-maintain solutions such as landscaping with the so-called Scandinavian or deer moss. As a plant species, it grows in forest or mountainous areas in the northern countries, has very slow growth and after specialized technological processing and coloring can be used in interior decor. It achieves good coverage and requires almost no care, except for higher levels of humidity in the rooms.
You offer many interesting products, including hanging vegetation, an
option for volumetric landscaping, as well as items for smaller spaces. Is
there a product that is universally preferred by most customers?
Our interior landscaping items offer the opportunity to be customized - material, color, size. Therefore, many of the product designs are often replicated in interior projects, especially those for vertical landscaping.
This month Botanic Lab presented its new product Complex Planter, which was created by the talented team of the Bulgarian brand Ironic Fair. Our product was part of the exhibition "Review of Bulgarian design" with the theme "The value of design", part of the fourth edition of the only design festival in Sofia - Melba Design Initiatives.
Complex Planter combines comfort, modern and sustainable design. Its creation is dictated mainly by the need for multifunctional but compact furniture to build a unique working environment at home, in the context of the so-called home office. The functions of Complex Planter are basically 3 - a pot for vegetation, enclosed storage space, and a storage rack.
Our company also develops smart products for interior landscaping, including Botanic room - a multifunctional system for landscaping open spaces, which became a nationalist finalist in ClimateLaunchpad - the largest competition for green business in Europe, organized by KIC climate, EIT (2018). We are currently working on Botanic Wall - a smart separation module for landscaping offices. The main thing with them is that they can be controlled remotely as a watering mode, and the system provides information about the state of the environment in the office - humidity, lighting, temperature, air quality. We believe that such products will be of great benefit to managers of large office spaces to create and maintain a healthy work environment.
What will be the future trends in interior and exterior landscaping?
Future trends in landscaping will be determined by the change in the way we live and work after the start of the pandemic. Our homes are becoming more complex, we spend more time in them and this makes us look for ways to build a good living environment for us and our loved ones.
On the other hand, offices are becoming more flexible, zoned, and cozy to attract employees back to a safe, pleasant, healthy, and social work environment. Plants are part of this transformation. Over time, we will witness more and more solutions for vertical gardens, technological products, growing edible plants at home, and other micro trends.
In terms of exterior landscaping - there are very impressive dynamics in the creation of new solutions for facade and roof landscaping as an effort to build small oases in the urban environment, where green spaces are rare. Suburban residential complexes are becoming more and more popular, providing just such a green living environment because of their beautifully built park areas.
