Living Wall

La Jolla Country Day School. This is a living wall designed to house native desert succulents outdoors to support local wildlife and learn about the local ecological community. It's a fantastic exercise in geometry and gardening! I learned quite a bit from this project, but primarily I found that the align tool in Fusion360 was extraordinarily helpful in lining up many of the components so that I could extrude the holes in the correct places.

Mallet, wood glue, painters' tape, Spar Urethane (outdoor), M4 16mm screws, M4 heated inserts, 3mm Allen key, plastic for a 3D printer, 3D printer (or access to a company that can 3D print), baltic birch plywood (3mm and 6mm), laser cutter with at least a 4'x6' bed (if not use a router and some small files), plastic sheet, window screen, drip irrigation kit, 25psi gauge, automatic watering timer with filter, Inkscape Vector Graphics Editor program, soldering iron, safety glasses

Lasercut or route the faces of each segment from the attached .svg files. Cut all pieces twice, minus the rectangles (i.e. the bases for each tier), the paraboloid back piece, and the rounded isosceles trapezoids (the pieces that slide into the slots), which you will cut once. All pieces cut twice and the paraboliod will be made out of 6mm wood, while the bases and trapeziods (the single cuts) will be out of 3mm wood. The brackets (the.stl files) should be 3D printed; the bRacci twice, the Xometry once, the v6 5 times, and the v7 7 times.

Coat the plywood segments with two layers of spar urethane and sand between each coat to prevent rot. Wait 24 hours between each coat to have it fully dry, and be mindful of the amount of moisture in the air where you leave your pieces to dry, as it may induce unwanted warping.

Probably the simplest step, use a soldering iron to push the heated inserts into their corresponding holes in the brackets. Remember to wear safety glasses!

Construction! Now that you have your pieced well-treated, here comes the most challenging and rewarding portion of the build. I suggest first screwing your brackets and fitting your support pieces (the duck-looking things) to the base piece and inserting that lower assembly into the back. Here the mallet is your friend, so hammer away! You know you have successfully fit this assembly into the back piece if the back of the plastic v6's is flush with the back of the back piece, and if the non-leading edge of the rectangular slot is also flush with the back. I suggest also malleting the isosceles trapezoid pieces into the slot on the back of the support piece at this point.

Whew, that was tough! At this point, you can begin adding the side panels and slotting in the trapezoids (Note: prior to slotting in the side panels for the top tier you should insert the Xometry bracket). Somewhere in there you can prop up the back piece with the two leg assemblies, which should fit intuitively barring no warping. Next, slide in the front panels and screw the panels into place.

Thankfully, a simple step: tape the panels flush with each other: there should be little to no gaps.

Glue the crevices of the panels together using wood glue by lightly squeezing the bottle and running it along the inner edges of each tier/planter. Wait a day to have it fully dry. Also, feel free to add glue to where the bottom support pieces (the duck-looking things) meet the large piece, as they will be bearing much of the weight of the dirt.

Measure the perimeter and depth of each planter and cut a strip of plastic lining corresponding with those dimensions for each planter. It should loosely wrap around the inner edge. For the bottom, cut out a rectangle of window screen exceeding the dimensions of the respective base by about an inch for both length and width. Place the screen before you line the edge with the plastic. No adhesive is necessary as the pressure from the dirt will be enough to secure it. Try to avoid gaps between the screen and plastic. If there are some, however, it is not fatal.

Slide the irrigation tubes through the back of the wall so that they stick out the front. Depending on the size of the tube, you may have to drill larger holes where there have been holes cut in the original design. Connect the sprinklers to the tubes that stick into the planter, and set up your automatic timer and pressure gauge according to the instructions provided by the product. You should have two separate irrigation assemblies: the one involving the timer connected to your hose, and the tubing on the back of the wall.

Simply relocate your wall to the desired location, preferably in a sunny spot receiving shade in the afternoon near where you have set up the timer.

Theoretically, you can plant whatever plants you would like in the design, but given it is made of wood and designed with the intent of housing desert succulents, that is the recommended kind of plant and corresponding soil. But again, you can do the research for which plants you would like to use (dirt type, mulch, when to plant, etc.). As an environmentally conscious person, I highly encourage the planting of native flora. The best information on how to plant will come from asking a Facebook group dedicated to your state/region's native plants.

Test if your irrigation system is connected and set it on an appropriate timer.

If you used native plants, you may need to prune weeds in the initial stages, but over time you will find that the weeds don't pop up anymore. That is because they have established a community with chemical defenses! Check on your plants from time to time, and that should be it! The above picture is of the prototype wall, which is only a single tier (the file given is for the 5-foot, free-standing wall).