The Seminole Hard Rock is a resort and casino property in southern Florida, owned by the Seminole tribe. Located on 100 acres (40 ha) of the Hollywood Reservation of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the world-renowned entertainment, gaming and hospitality destination is the flagship casino resort of Hard Rock International.  The AAA Four Diamond-rated, Green Lodging Certified hotel is characterized by authentic memorabilia that surrounds stay, play, and dine resort amenities.

The $1.5 billion Guitar Hotel & Casino Expansion, “designed for guests to relax and recharge like rock royalty” by Rockwell Group, opened in October 2019. Designed to resemble back-to-back guitars, the iconic engineering masterpiece rises 450 feet into the sky. 638 new, luxury guestrooms are offered at the first-ever, guitar-shaped Guitar Hotel and 168 upscale guest accommodations, including unique swim-up suites, are found in the adjacent Oasis Tower at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood.

Now boasting a combined total of 1,271 rooms, the property also unveiled a lush “Bora Bora” style lagoon with private cabanas and butler service; a 42,000 square-foot Rock Spa®; a 13.5 acre recreational water experience for swimming, kayaking, and paddle boarding; 19 dining outlets and 20 bars and lounges; an expansive gaming floor housing 3,100 slots, 193 table games and a 45-table poker room; 120,000 square feet of premier meeting and convention space including a 38,000 square-foot, carpeted exhibition hall; and a 26,000 square-foot retail promenade. The highly anticipated Hard Rock Live entertainment venue with a 7,000-person capacity showcases A-list entertainers, comedy acts, Broadway performances, sporting events and live broadcast productions.

Design elements were to tie in the relationships between nature and the guest experience, in addition to providing softer visual backgrounds and reducing noise bounce in large spaces within the integrated resort. A series of stunning interior and exterior greenwalls complement the $1.5 billion Guitar Hotel & Casino Expansion. Its largest project to date, AgroSci installed 41 greenwalls — including 36 multi-story systems, and dozens of interior plant installations.

Guests arriving via the new grand main entrance and hotel lobby at the South East Porte Cochere enter into the “Oculus” – a sight and sound extravaganza combining elements of water, holograms, and technology in a series of floor-to-ceiling shows choreographed to music. The signature entertainment attraction is a collaboration of Mark Fuller of WET Design and architect David Rockwell of the Rockwell Group.

“This is one of the largest accumulations of greenwalls in the world with over 6,250 sq ft of interior walls over 30’ high flanked by waterfalls in the main entrance and Oculus location, to the 55’ long wall adjacent to the spa, and the smaller double walls inside the spa. Combined with over 2,000 sq ft of exterior greenwalls in the secondary main entrance and exterior pool areas, there is over 8,000 sq ft of greenwalls using over 28,000 individually potted plants of 14 varieties.” ~ AgroSci, Inc.

In addition to its signature greenwalls, AgroSci supplied all plantscape installations, including in the spa, the promenade, the executive offices, the Oasis Tower balconies, the Guitar Tower elevator banks and balconies, two executive penthouses with pools, and the Grand Suites. The Rock Spa® installation includes more than 500 flowering and foliage plants.

Many of the greenwalls have compound curvatures, both sloping out as they extend down to flair outwards, and side-to-side convex curves as they wrap around curved walls. Using a sealed horizontal channels system, the Aerogation® panel system allowed AgroSci to adapt the panels to convex wall curves and segmenting the channels horizontally, enabling the creation of a staggered flair at the lower parts of the wall to provide the image of a curve at the bottom.

The systems are 100% automated and based on the Aerogation® unique system of micro-humidification irrigation technology, which uses a fraction of the water typically used by this quantity of plants. Combined with a proprietary engineered soil mix that promotes drainage and air movement while holding water and reducing substrate degradation, the root zones of the plants within the greenwalls are managed continually and consistently 24/7.

Installation of the 41 greenwalls took over three months for all areas to completion, with three teams of four technicians each.

“I want to thank Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood for the unique opportunity to be a part of this amazing project. This project highlights our flexible and innovative design capabilities. Angles, confined spaces, quirky curves, AgroSci’s experts can accommodate them all with designs that are both practical and aesthetically pleasing. I am very proud of what we have accomplished here.” ~ AgroSci President and CEO Chris Pianta

After opening, the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood greenwalls and site was toured by a group from the 2020 Tropical Plant International Expo (TPIE) convention. The interior plantscapes and greenwalls were also prominently featured in a commercial for the resort airing during the NFL championship game in February, 2020.

AgroSci successfully integrated the greenwalls into a water-plant-air design concept that recreates the soothing sensations of nature, and working with Seminole Hard Rock, a showcase for biophilia was created with the holistic renovation and expansion. The winners of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood will be the complex’s guests and employees who will be playing and working in a healthier, cleaner and more hospitable nature-filled environment.