While vertical gardens rise as a key pathway towards decreasing buildings’ environmental footprint and creating healthier urban environments, one-third of the world’s population is facing “high” or “extremely high” water stress. Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Portugal, Greece or Italy are currently facing challenges to expand and maintain urban green infrastructure due to the shortage and lack of water resources.

Integrating nature-based solutions in the built environment and more specifically in residential and commercial buildings depends not only on the availability of water resources to maintain green infrastructure, but also on a paradigm shift where buildings will become more autonomous following decentralised approaches.

This transformation into “green buildings”, taking advantage of refurbishment and renovation processes in existing buildings, represents a huge opportunity to apply decentralised and innovative approaches such as circular economy, nature-based solutions or hydroponic farming.

Bioazul and Biotonomy AB will join to design and build an innovative prototype consisting of a greywater recycling station and a vertical hydroponic garden, characterised for lower water consumption than conventional vertical gardens.

This innovative technology will also include elements for the automated and telematic management through phyto-irrigation with nutrient control, minimizing human intervention in its maintenance.

This prototype will be tested in a real and operational environment, counting with the support and commitment from a 4-Star Hotel (end user) located in Malaga offering its facilities for this purpose.