University of Guelph-Humber Biowall

Here is a biowall (aka green wall, living wall) similar to this one. The photo is from the University of Guelph-Humber website. Why is it that we have no leading edge research in this field here in the U.S.? Canada does. 

Why is it that we have so-called green buildings with no plants, or what I call urban greenscaping? For example, the GreenBuildingsNY trade show will be at the Javits Center in June. At this time there are over 125 exhibitors with just one that is plant or urban greenscaping related. 

There are many in the media who have ranted and raved about the White House garden. In my view, we have much bigger problems than that. To paraphrase a famous quote by a White House oval office resident..."It's our education stupid!" 

Walking into the University of Guelph-Humber is like a breath of fresh air, which isn’t surprising since the institution works hard to care for the four-story living plant wall located in the University atrium. 

Officially called the bio-wall, it spans 10 meters by 17 meters  and has been a part of the building since its inception in 2002. In 2005 the bio-wall won an award of Excellence for Innovation in Architecture from the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada. 

Besides purifying and cooling the air the bio-wall cuts the University of Guelph-Humber’s energy consumption by ten per cent every year.  On top of that studies have shown that greenery in indoors spaces can reduce absenteeism and increase productivity - how’s that for getting an A plus advantage! Read more...

Comments

[Nathan]

But here in the US, we DO have at least one LEED certified building with some greenscaping (albeit, a relatively small area). Check out http://www.rit.edu/fa/ritgreen/leed_initiative.html .

A second building is scheduled to open this coming weekend. I'll provide more information and photos sometime after it opens.