An Atrium for Plants

Plant-Friendly Atrium

• An atrium that grows long term, healthy plants should mimic nature in some important ways. A skylight will provide good light but only at an angle that will change with the seasons. Plan to compensate with additional lighting, and factor it into the atrium design so it won't scream "grow-light" when it is on. The humidity and temperature require control, based on the types of plants. Tropical plants can handle temperatures up to 90 degrees very happily and need high humidity year round. All plants that are set in the ground will appreciate a garden plot constructed with a layer of buried insulation. Winter ground will get cold and could damage roots, even when the atrium is surrounded by the house walls on all sides.

Indoor Forest

• Turn a loft or unconventional space into a wild place with an atrium that merges living and growing areas without a real divide. The atrium is open on at least one side and flows into the common areas of the home. A "floor" of river rocks edged with boulders marks the green space, but the boulders spill over into the living room, dining room or kitchen. A mass of trailing green plants hangs from exposed pipes or a catwalk high up in the atrium, and thick foliage covers the rocky ground and creeps across the boulders. The indoor forest creates all-season humidity in the house, and a hidden waterfall adds a musical note.

Tall Green Wall

• Borrow an idea from a skinny public space to make the most of your enclosed balcony or a central atrium open to the sky. Indoor malls make use of narrow corridors to add some light and relaxing greenery. Plant hanging vines at the top of the atrium, drape them over metal grids so they grow to blanket a wall. Espalier a few more plants or a small tree from the ground up on a spreading trellis. The plants will fill-in to give you a graceful vertical green wall in the atrium that leaves the rest of the space free for a small bench or an open expanse of bleached stones.

Show the Seams

• Celebrate the architectural bones of an atrium by leaving the support structure uncovered. Set planters with green and flowering shrubs at the base of a column, or fasten planters to overhead beams. Instead of a simple tube of glass, the atrium becomes something arresting and unpredictable, showing off its construction and adding an edgy industrial feel to a modern home or a classic loft. Overhead greenery should spill out of its container and hang down freely. Grounded containers could hold ornamental grasses or bamboo.