Hello, everyone, and welcome to our last Business Forum for this year. Our last, but a very special one with our guest, Patrick Blanc, to tell us about his internationally acclaimed Vertical Gardens.
I’d like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional custodians of this land. And I extend a warm Sydney welcome to Patrick. I know we’re all looking forward to his talk.
Patrick is a botanist by training, working at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research since 1982. He has won a number of awards as a botanist, but he is also an artist and a green innovator whose work arouses curiosity, delight and sometimes controversy.
He has worked with architects and designers such as Jean Nouvel, Andree Putman, Herzog de Meuron and Marc Newson, adding richness and depth with his lush, soil-free vertical gardens.
In Sydney, he’ll be working with Fraser’s on the Jean Nouvel-designed building at the CUB site, which will be Sydney’s first large-scale exposure to the sort of work he has carried out at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, and in buildings in Madrid, New York, Bangkok and Melbourne.
His Vertical Garden System brings a new dimension to architecture, and I am whole-heartedly in agreement with Patrick’s desire to see utilitarian buildings such as parking stations greened in this way.
Since this is our final Forum for 2009, I would like to thank you all for your support and the work we’ve been able to achieve together this year. And I would like to wish you, your families and friends a very Happy Christmas.
I’ll look forward to meeting with you again next year. I have great pleasure in introducing Patrick Blanc.
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