An urban jungle with NTRLK and Carolijn Slottje



After reading lots of positive reviews, thank you so much! I think i can say that building an atrium filled with plants was a really good idea! Wow what an urban jungle it was at the back and let’s not forget to mention the air plants, according to imm the! most photographed item of the fair probably.


At my first meeting in Cologne with the imm team somewhere late november, we mainly exchanged ideas, had a look at the different spaces on paper and talked about the project in general. The space the team had in mind for me was a fourteen by three meter meter kind of storefront window, I went home with a head full of information and the sentence: “We have 60 days to finish this project’ in the back of my mind and no clue where to start. And I am not even talking about the long Christmas break most company’s had 

Back home the ideas followed rapidly… not one, but a whole lot more. One thing I knew for sure: I needed an impressive center piece to bring this long space to life. Thinking about the 3d design of a bathroom and an indoor garden I wrote about on the blog: A must see urban contemporary bathroom with lots of greens, I thought an atrium filled with plants, and beautiful lights would do the trick!

I will post some more about the lights and designers this weekend to finish the imm project … but first it’s plants! 



Plants plan
I have been asked about the different plants provided by the green company of the Koelnmesse, who I think really understood it was a different project then the single green plant most stands have in a corner of their space as they really tried to make a beautiful mix in different terracotta pots.

The different plant types I choose based on some of the plants I have at my own home, but mostly I wanted to make a connection between the dry plants of Sardinia and the Icelandic Vulcanian landscape. I got NTRLK, a Dutch kind of rent a plant styling company you can rent for all kind of events, to write me down a list with some names that would fit this idea and just before handing over the list I added the huge strelizia’s and the air plants which I found through the exhibitioners list of the blickfang event.


Here is a list for the plantlovers of some of the plants I used in the stand: Aloe Arborescens, Crassula Arborescens, Euphorbia Tirucalli, Euphorbia abyssinica, Lepismium Anguliger, Rhipsalis Cassutha, Bamboo, Strelitzia, Sansevieria Zeylanica, Aloe Aristata, Kalanchoe Thyrsiflora and a mix of different cactus in different heights.



Studio Carolijn Slottje
Before traveling to Cologne I made 1000 postcards, which finished after 2 days including other info sheets, yep I definitely underestimated the amount of interested visitors, Imm welcomed 150.000 visitors this year. Same for the cards of Carolijn Slottje who’s air plants hanging in the back of the atrium caught a lot of attention.

The studio loves to combine craft with nature and uses what nature has to offer, like ingeniously adapted plants. Air plants have an cleaver leaf structure instead of roots, so they aren’t stuck to a pot. Especially for the stand they made a black edition, if you love it you can order them in different colours at the website of Carolijn Slottje 

pictures ©vosgesparis | 1st by ©carolijn slottje last by ©Frederik Löwer