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ASI-Intrex and Allied Fiberglass both used to offer metal and/or fiberglass versions of the wall sconce planter (half-bowl or quarter-sphere) you’re searching for. I don’t see any such items in their current websites or catalogs, however.
One possible reason, other than the standard "we don’t get much call for them anymore", is that the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) made it very difficult to legally install one of these babies in a trafficked interior space.
The ADA has specific parameters for the allowable intrusion of wall-mounted objects into an "accessible route or maneuvering space":
"4.4 Protruding Objects.
4.4.1* General. Objects projecting from walls
(for example, telephones) with their leading
edges between 27 in and 80 in (685 mm and
2030 mm) above the finished floor shall protrude
no more than 4 in (100 mm) into walks,
halls, corridors, passageways, or aisles (see Fig.
8(a))"
Since one of the best applications of the wall sconce planter is to put greenery near eye level in long, boring, undecorated stretches of wall space (ergo, walks, halls, corridors, passageways, or aisles, of course), this puts a major cramp in our style! The underlying idea, of course, is not to place obstacles to navigation in the way of handicapped people trying to walk or wheelchair their way down a walkway or corridor. The practical result for us as interiorscape designers is to force us to mount such sconces 6 feet, eight inches above the floor, so what we are left with is a neck-craning view of the underside of the planter. One might argue that the view from a distance is still better than nothing, but when one considers that a planter hung with its upper edge around 7 feet from the floor will have its foliage very close to normal ceiling height, in that no-plant’s-land where heat accumulates nicely, the negative effects on the live plants are immediately apparent. Worse yet, an 18-inch-wide sconce planter would be about 9" deep from its leading edge to the wall, so it would have to hang even higher than the standard NewPro or Picapotamus plastic sconce, which is about 6" deep at the rim. Nesting barn swallows would love it, but something that massive hanging near the ceiling is not likely to gain acceptance from the architect or client.
If you’re not placing the planters in a passageway and so don’t have to be concerned with ADA, you can be a little creative with the available plastic sconce and still fill your design niche: clustering three 12x6" sconces in a group in various configurations gives a novel effect at a relatively bargain price, considering the fact that the old fiberglass and metal versions were fairly pricey items. We’ve done them in diagonal lines, in pyramid arrays, etc., with good success. They cover wall space, introduce greenery into areas where floor, hanging or tabletop plants don’t work for space and safety reasons, and get you thinking outside the design box. Plus, they let you sell more stuff in small, congested spaces.
I haven’t been able to find any manufacturers or distributors who still do the larger sconces in fiberglass or metals...I’m sure some high-end container makers, like Architectural Brass, can make them, but at what cost? Good luck, this is a challenging assignment.
Clem
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