What are EcoShields?
Blast EcoShield develops engineered living barrier systems; EcoShields, designed to reduce blast and impact effects in the built environment. Our products integrate explosive engineering, materials behaviour and horticultural design to create modular, vegetated physical barriers that provide measurable protective benefit while remaining visually appropriate and sustainable.
Over four years of experimental research, controlled testing has consistently demonstrated a significant* reduction in peak blast overpressure in defined threat-based scenarios. At these reduced pressure levels, the dominant injury mechanism shifts from life-threatening blast effects toward lower-severity outcomes such as auditory injury, representing a meaningful reduction in risk to life when applied within appropriate stand-off and exposure conditions.
Each Blast EcoShield system is designed as a fully integrated, layered structure, combining:
- Commonly available plant species, supporting local biosecurity and ecological compatibility,
- Vegetation selected for plant foliage, density and long-term resilience, and
- Structural containment and load-bearing elements to ensure predictable, repeatable behaviour.
The Principles
From a protective-engineering perspective, the systems influence blast behaviour through mass loading, energy dissipation, impedance mismatch and progressive material failure, reducing incident overpressure and moderating blast energy transmission into protected areas. Design also considers secondary effects such as debris generation, reflection and interaction with the surrounding environment. Development follows a structured engineering process:
- Threat characterisation informed by global incident analysis and current attack methodologies,
- Definition of protection objectives and site-specific constraints,
- Analytical modelling to inform geometry and configuration,
- Experimental testing to characterise performance, repeatability and limitations, and
- Assurance through documentation, configuration control and defined operating envelopes.
Applications of our EcoShields
Blast EcoShield systems may be deployed as a standalone protective solution for example in open, high-footfall environments such as marketplaces or used to replace or enhance existing physical protection measures as part of a layered security approach. This flexibility allows protection to be matched to the risk, space and operational context rather than forcing a single defensive model.
Blast EcoShield products are suited to environments requiring credible physical protection without overtly hostile infrastructure, including:
- Marketplaces and urban public spaces, where standalone protection can be provided without introducing visually intrusive barriers.
- Events and festivals, where temporary or semi-permanent systems must balance safety, crowd movement and public perception.
- Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and adjacent public areas, supporting replacement or enhancement of existing perimeter and stand-off measures.
- Transport hubs and civic spaces, where protection must integrate with everyday use, planning constraints and sustainability objectives.
Each deployment is context-specific, with system configuration tailored to the assessed threat, site layout and operational requirement rather than applied as a generic solution.