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A wall of living plants designed by Patrick Blanc at Caixa Forum near Atocha station, Madrid.

A green wall is a wall, either free-standing or part of a building, that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and, in some cases, soil or an inorganic growing medium. The concept of the green wall dates back to 600 BC with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The green wall was invented by Stanley Hart White at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1931-38. White holds the first known patent for a green wall, or vertical garden, conceptualizing this new garden type as a solution to the problem of modern garden design^[1]. More recently, the larger green walls concept has been utilized with innovative hydroponics technology. The vegetation for a green façade is always attached on outside walls; with living walls this is also usually the case, although some living walls can also be green walls for interior use.^[2] For living walls there are many methods including attaching to the air return of the building to help with air filtration. They are also referred to as living walls, biowalls, vertical gardens or more scientifically VCW_V^[3] (vertical vegetated complex walls).

Types[link]

An ivy-covered house (green façade) in Gießen, Germany.

"Vertical garden" in Fraisse-sur-Agout, France.

A green wall (mat media) in a children's museum, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

There are two main categories of green walls: green façades and living walls. Green façades are made up of climbing plants either growing directly on a wall or, more recently, specially designed supporting structures. The plant shoot system grows up the side of the building while being rooted in the ground. With a living wall the modular panels are often made of stainless steel containers, geotextiles, irrigation systems, a growing medium and vegetation.^[4]

There are three types of growth media used in living walls: loose media, mat media and structural media.

Loose media[link]

Loose medium walls tend to be "soil-on-a-shelf" or "soil-in-a-bag" type systems. Loose medium systems have their soil packed into a shelf or bag and then are installed onto the wall. These systems require their media to be replaced at least once a year on exteriors and approximately every two years on interiors. Loose soil systems are not well suited for areas with any seismic activity. Reparations are only achieved by re-stuffing soil into the holes on the wall, which is both difficult and messy. Loose-soil systems should not be used in areas where there will be a lot of public interaction as they are quite messy and lose their soil little by little over time. Most importantly, because these systems can easily have their medium blown away by wind-driven rain or heavy winds, these should not be used in applications over 8 feet high. There are some systems in Asia that have solved the loose media erosion problem by use of shielding systems to hold the media within the green wall system even when soil liquefaction occurs under seismic load. In these systems, the plants can still up-root themselves in the liquified soil under seismic load and therefore it is required that the plants be secured to the system to prevent them from falling from the wall. Loose-soil systems without physical media erosion systems are best suited for the home gardener where occasional replanting is desired from season to season or year to year. Loose-soil systems with physical media erosion systems are well suited for all green wall applications.

Mat media[link]

Mat type systems tend to be either coir fibre or felt mats. Mat media are quite thin, even in multiple layers, and as such cannot support vibrant root systems of mature plants for more than three to five years before the roots overtake the mat and water is not able to adequately wick through the mats. The method of reparation of these systems is to replace large sections of the system at a time by cutting the mat out of the wall and replacing it with new mat. This process compromises the root structures of the neighboring plants on the wall and often kills many surrounding plants in the reparation process. These systems are best used on the interior of a building and are a good choice in areas with low seismic activity with small plants that will not grow to a weight that could rip the mat apart under their own weight over time. It is important to note that mat systems are particularly water inefficient and often require constant irrigation due to the thin nature of the medium and its inability to hold water and provide a buffer for the plant roots. This inefficiency often requires that these systems have a water re-circulation system put into place at an additional cost. Mat media are better suited for small installations no more than eight feet in height where repairs are easily completed.

Structural media[link]

Structural media are growth medium "blocks" that are not loose, nor mats, but incorporate the best features of both into a block that can be manufactured into various sizes, shapes and thicknesses. These media have the advantage that they do not break down for 10 to 15 years, can be made to have a higher or lower water holding capacity depending on the plant selection for the wall, can have their pH and EC's customized to suit the plants, and are easily handled for maintenance and replacements. They are the most robust option for a living wall for both exterior applications and for interior applications. They are also the best choice in areas where high-winds, seismic activity or heights need to be addressed in the design. Structural media are superior to the other media for their longevity and high-level of performance in a variety of circumstances. Depending on the installation, they do tend to be more expensive to install, but lower cost to maintain.

There is some discussion also around "active" living walls. An active living wall actively pulls or forces air through the plants leaves, roots and growth medium of the wall and then into the buildings HVAC system to be recirculated throughout the building. A problem with these systems is that building code still requires that all the standard air filtration equipment that would have to be installed anyway, despite the living wall's installation. This means that active living walls do not improve air quality to the point that the installation of other air quality filtration systems can be removed to provide a cost-savings. Therefore, the added cost of design, planning and implementation of an active living wall is still in question. With further research and UL standards to support the air quality data from the living wall, building code may one day allow for our buildings to have their air filtered by plants.^{[citation needed]}

The area of air quality and plants is continuing to be researched. The majority of the research cited is from NASA's studies performed in the 1970s and 1980s by B.C. Wolverton.^[5] There was also a study performed at the University of Guelph by Alan Darlington.^[6] Other research has shown the effect the plants have on the health of office workers."The Effect of Indoor Foliage Plants on Health and Discomfort Symptoms among Office Workers". http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=24583. Retrieved 2010--12--23. .

Function[link]

An indoor green wall in an office in Hong Kong.

A green wall of bitter melon shading a primary school in Itabashi, Tokyo.

Green walls are found most often in urban environments where the plants reduce overall temperatures of the building. "The primary cause of heat build-up in cities is insolation, the absorption of solar radiation by roads and buildings in the city and the storage of this heat in the building material and its subsequent re-radiation. Plant surfaces however, as a result of transpiration, do not rise more than 4–5 °C above the ambient and are sometimes cooler."^[7]

Living walls may also be a means for water reuse. The plants may purify slightly polluted water (such as greywater) by absorbing the dissolved nutrients. Bacteria mineralize the organic components to make them available to the plants. A study is underway at the Bertschi School in Seattle, Washington using a GSky Pro Wall system, however, no publicly available data on this is available at this time.

Living walls are particularly suitable for cities, as they allow good use of available vertical surface areas. They are also suitable in arid areas, as the circulating water on a vertical wall is less likely to evaporate than in horizontal gardens.

The living wall could also function for urban agriculture, urban gardening, or for its beauty as art. It is sometimes built indoors to help alleviate sick building syndrome.

Green façades[link]

Some popular plants (for temperate climates) include:

See also[link]

• Biofiltration
• Building-integrated agriculture
• Living wall
• Green roof
• Folkewall
• The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Hydroponics
• Musée du Quai Branly
• Roof garden
• Vertical farming

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Green walls

• Vertical and verdant, living wall systems sprout on two buildings, in Paris and Vancouver, Architectural Record
• Green Infrastructure Resource Guide
• Vertical Gardens of Patrick Blanc. Lecture delivered at the California Academy of Sciences. 2009

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2010)

Patrick Blanc

CaixaForum Madrid

Halles, Avignon

Patrick Blanc, Centre commercial des quatre Temps, La Défense (Puteaux), Hauts-de-Seine

Patrick Blanc (born June 3, 1953, Paris) is a botanist, working at the French National Centre for Scientific Research,^[1] where he specializes in plants from tropical forests. He is the modern innovator of the green wall, yet recent scholarship on the subject suggest that the veritcal garden (aka. Green Wall, Botanical Brick) was invented by Professor Stanley Hart White at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1938. Professor White patented the first known Vertical Garden, or "Vegetation-Bearing Architectonic Structure and System", as a treatise on modern garden design, predating Patrick Blancs contemporary patents by nearly 50 years ^[2]:^[3], Blanc describes his vertical garden as follows:

This type of achievement exemplifies Blanc's ideas as an ecological engineer and also the 15th target of the Haute Qualité Environnementale ("High Quality Environment") project, although the latter gives particular stress to use of more local species, at least outdoors.

Works[link]

Green walls

• 1988 : First green wall, made at the Museum of Science and Industry in Paris
• 1998 : Fondation Cartier in Paris
• 2000 : Aquarium of Genoa, Italy
• 2001 : Perhsing Hall Hotel in Paris
• 2003 : Marithé & François Girbaud boutique in Manhattan
• 2003 : French Embassy in New Delhi
• 2004 : Green façade at the Administrative building of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris
• 2004 : 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan.
• 2005 : North face of the shopping centre in Avignon
• 2005 : Vinet Square in Bordeaux (with Michel Desvigne)
• 2005 : Siam Paragon shopping center in Bangkok
• 2006 : Weleda, 8th arrondissement of Paris
• 2007 : BHV Hommes shop (BHV for men), 4th arrondissement of Paris
• 2007 : CaixaForum Madrid
• 2008 : Arch at the roundabout at the Grand Theatre of Provence at Aix-en-Provence
• 2008 : Galeria Przymorze, shopping centre in Gdańsk, Poland^[4]
• 2008 : Melbourne Central Shopping Centre, Australia
• 2008 : Galeries Lafayette, Berlin Friedrichstraße, Germany
• 2009 : Athenaeum Hotel, Piccadilly, London, UK ^[5]
• 2010 : Ronald Lu & Partners, Hong Kong

Other works

• 1994 : Garden Festival of Chaumont-sur-Loire

Bibliography[link]

• 1990 : Biologie d'une canopée de forêt équatoriale : rapport de Mission Radeau des cimes, octobre-novembre 1989, Petit Saut, - Guyane française, ("Biology under an equatorial forest: report of Study Radeus, October–November 1989, French Guyana, a collective study under the direction of Francis Hallé et Patrick Blanc, Departement of Industry and xylochemistry
• 2002 : Être plante à l'ombre des forêts tropicales ("Putting plants in the light of tropical forests"), Éditions Nathan
• 2005 : Le bonheur d'être plante, ("The pleasure of being a plant"), Éditions Maren Sell (ISBN 2-350-04018-6)
• 2007 : Folies végétales ("Plants' follies"), (lecture, Paris), éditions Chêne
• 2008 : Le Mur Végétal, de la nature à la ville ("The green wall in town and country"), éditions Michel Lafon

See also[link]

• Green roof
• Living wall
• Urban agriculture
• List of gardening topics
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Patrick Blanc

• Patrick Blanc's homepage
• InFrame.tv video interview with Patrick Blanc which includes footage of the construction of his vertical garden in Melbourne, Australia
• 'All His Rooms Are Living Rooms', New York Times, 3 May 2007
• Interview with Patrick Blanc by Ping magazine.