A living wall is comprised of two basic parts; a community of plants trained to grow on a vertical surface, and a substructure that supports the root systems and in some cases waters them as well. This substructure also anchors the plants to the vertical surface, for example a building wall.

AKA

Green Wall, Vegetated Wall, Vertical Garden, Green Facade, Biowall

RELATED FUNCTIONS

Living walls may have human health benefits. They are aesthetically pleasing and help create attractive cities and communities, and may also improve human health through increasing contact with nature. Additionally, living walls that are designed with specific species in mind may create ecological stepping stones and potentially even increase biodiversity. Further, if appropriate plants are used in the creation of the living wall, they could improve air quality (air filtering plants) or water quality (using the root systems to treat water as it trickles down the wall).

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

No explicit performance metrics have been used consistently, however social metrics such as public opinion and ecological metrics such as the size of a target population or number of species present could be used depending on a project's goals.

ILLUSTRATION

A living wall in Madrid, Spain:

Closeup of the same living wall in Madrid, Spain.



CASE STUDIES

http://www.greeninfrastructurewiki.com/page/Goodwill-Milgard+Living+Wall

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Wikipedia article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_wall

Patrick Blanc, who has been designing vertical gardens for primarily architectural uses since the 1990s:http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/

Basic outline of how to build a living wall:http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Living-Wall