Children's Hospital at Oakland
Patricia O’Brien, Senior Landscape Architect at the firm that bears her name, POBLA of San Francisco, CA, was retained by the building architects to implement an indoor bamboo garden in the new wing of the Children’s Hospital at Oakland. One of her primary objectives was to make a 500 x 80’ garage wall “disappear” behind beautiful, live plant material.
This space, with its northwest exposure, came with various challenges, not the least of which was the limited available light (an average of 90 footcandles per hour for seven months out of the year). Few options were open, plant-wise: there were operating rooms on the uppermost floors with vestibules open to the space, so blooming plants (or anything allergenic) were out of the question.
Bamboo could certainly fulfill the height and width criteria, but would it be able to survive the low light levels? Further, local growers were found to have had little or no involvement with very large bamboo, and no experience whatsoever in growing these giant grasses indoors.
Ms. O'Brien contacted Tornello Nurseries, and Robert Tornello flew to the site; he determined that yes, it could be done.
Custom soil mixes, state-of-the-art irrigation systems and a thorough re-design of the existing lighting system (resulting in readings of 850 fc at the canopies and 100+ fc at the ground) meant the bamboo could not only survive, but flourish at Children’s Hospital.
The pictures on this page, taken over four years after the installation, confirm the wisdom of choosing bamboo for a challenging interior space. The photos don’t show the appreciable increase in ambient oxygen, but as one would imagine, its benefits are enjoyed.
And the children love the look, which is the best result of all.