Paredes Verdes ( Green Walls)

Green walls.

 

 Function or fad? As cities and buildings all around the world are being covered in green, we take a look at the phenomenon of green walls. The first example of green walls may be found in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, even if they may have been more roof gardens than green walls. Later, from Scandinavia to Japan, numerous civilizations used climbing plants to cover buildings, making what is now called ‘green façades’.

 
 

Photo credit: Patrick Blanc

 
 

Green façades were very important in the Art and Crafts and Modern style movements in Europe. For instance, in the beginning of the 20^th century, the ‘Jugendstil’ movement used climbing plants (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) on the buildings to make a seamless changeover between the house and  garden. In England, the Garden City movement showed great examples of green façades. William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll designed outdoor vegetated rock walls used for screening & boundaries in gardens. You can still see such examples in Griftpark (Ultrecht, Netherlands). The use of climbing plants declined in the 30′s, due to new building techniques and people’s concern about possible consequences on wall stability.

Patrick Blanc, a French botanist, is noted as the first to design the ‘modern’ pattern of green walls, with a full hydroponic system, an inert medium and numerous exotic species. His first green wall is at the Museum of Science and Industry.

 

http://landarchs.com/vertical/

 

Beatriz M, Karoline M, Ivana M, Paulina M.