Planning permission has been secured to build what is claimed to be the world’s largest living wall, with the wall set to be installed at Pure Data Centres’ campus in London.
Pure Data Centres, backed by funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, will install the 7,400 sqm vertical garden as part of a second building that is currently under construction on its campus in Brent Cross, North London.
The company’s living wall, created by specialist firm Viritopia, is set to surpass the current record of 7,000 square metres held by The Khalifa Avenue in Qatar. It will feature more than 750,000 individual plants, aimed at absorbing noise and filtering out air pollution. The design also aims to enhance local biodiversity, potentially benefiting birds and insects, while helping reduce solar gain on the new structure.
Construction work has already begun adjacent to Pure DC’s existing data centre, taking overall capacity at the London site to over 90 MW. This increase is intended to help meet the growing demand for cloud services and AI processing. The UK’s data centre market, and London specifically, continues to expand rapidly, with the national market expected to grow by over 60% by 2029.
Dame Dawn Childs, Chief Executive Officer for Pure DC, commented, “The data centre industry is facing a critical challenge of building the digital infrastructure needed to support the demands of global data growth in a way that also takes care of the local environment. Gaining planning permission for the living wall is an exciting step in our effort to meet this challenge head-on.
“Alongside our subsidiary, A Healthier Earth, who play a significant role in helping us to accelerate nature-positive projects like this, Pure is committed to researching and developing innovative solutions which support long-term biodiversity projects and ensure our data centres make a positive impact in the areas where we work.”
A Healthier Earth will oversee construction of the living wall, which Pure DC states is part of broader research and development aimed at decarbonising digital infrastructure. The new development aligns with Pure DC’s stated goal of reducing construction and operational carbon footprints, including by limiting water usage and operating closed-loop cooling systems where feasible.
