Hotel Grand Chancellor Auckland | Hospitality Plant Design

What if a hotel in the heart of Auckland's CBD could feel like stepping into a living landscape? Hotel Grand Chancellor is one of our most comprehensive green infrastructure projects: a complete integration of living architecture across the property, from facade to courtyard to interior.

Recognised with the 2024 Interior Plantscape Association Award for Large Installation, this project reflects what's possible when greenery is treated as essential to a building's identity, not applied as an afterthought.

The Space

The Hotel Grand Chancellor presented a series of distinct environments, each with its own conditions, sightlines, and role in the guest experience. The courtyard. The entrance. The facade. The interior spaces where guests gather, pause, and transition between the energy of the city and the calm of the hotel.

The brief wasn't for a single installation. It was for a cohesive green infrastructure approach that would connect these spaces through a consistent living presence.

Green facade and multi-level planters at Hotel Grand Chancellor Auckland

Our Approach

We began by reading the building: understanding the light, the airflow, the movement patterns, and how each space needed to function across different times of day and seasons of the year. Four distinct elements were designed to work together as one system.

Green facade

The property's living statement, visible from the street and grounding the building in nature before a guest even steps inside.

Courtyard green wall

A mature wall anchoring the heart of the hotel, dense and established, grown and evolved over time.

Circular wall planters

Integrated throughout the interior, adding texture and life to transitional spaces without competing with the architecture.

Floor-standing planters

Positioned to bring greenery into key moments: reception, gathering areas, and the thresholds between inside and out.

Every species was selected for the conditions it would live in, not just the effect it would create. The goal was planting that would thrive season after season, becoming more established and more integral to the space over time.

Courtyard green wall and circular planters at Hotel Grand Chancellor Auckland

Living Architecture

We maintain the green wall and plantscape year-round, keeping it healthy and full so it continues to greet every guest who walks in. This is an ongoing partnership, not a one-off installation. The planting evolves with the building, responding to seasonal shifts and growing into the space it was designed for.

Vertical garden by GreenAir at Hotel Grand Chancellor Auckland with lush planting visible across multiple levels

The Outcome

Hotel Grand Chancellor has become a reference point for what green infrastructure can achieve in New Zealand's hospitality sector. The installation doesn't sit alongside the hotel's design. It is part of it. Nature here isn't decorative: it's woven into how the building feels, how guests experience the transition from city to calm, and how the space performs over time.

This project was recognised with the 2024 Interior Plantscape Association Award for Large Installation. It is what happens when greenery is designed with intention: shaped by place, and built to belong.

GreenAir courtyard planting integrated into Hotel Grand Chancellor Auckland