Nottingham Trent University

Our award-winning planting scheme has helped to create lively and welcoming spaces in a new business hub.

The Dryden Enterprise Centre was built in 2021 to offer flexible and collaborative workspaces to emerging and expanding businesses. The Centre is part of Nottingham Trent University (NTU), and the university offers support and resources to help enterprises based at the centre to scale up or gain a foothold in their markets.

Urban Planters Nottinghamshire has a long-standing relationship with NTU and was approached to tender for the planting contract at the new centre. The planting was an instant hit with people using the spaces and gained industry recognition with a Gold Leaf award from Plants@Work.

“We were able to design something more varied and unusual for the Enterprise Centre, to differentiate the building from the rest of the university,” explains Joshua Vollum, who designed the scheme.

“The client asked for scheme with lots of visual impact, so we decided to use a wide range of planting and containers to bring variety and interest to each area.

“They were also keen to use live planting, so the displays helped to create a healthier working environment by cleaning the air as well as boosting wellbeing with views of nature.”

Using all live planting, the scheme ranges from free-standing displays on legs, hanging plants, live pictures, troughs and displays on an industrial-style trolley. The containers were selected for their various natural textures and muted colours, to bring a sense of informality.

We also selected four olive trees for the terrace, which break up the expanse of brick wall and tie in with the trees in the background.