Inside Urban Green

Living Wall at Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Boston

What an impressive living wall. Awesome! It's hard for me to believe that it is at an elementary school in Boston. I'm curious to know if it is meant to live year round in cold climate Boston. In any case, these kids are learning some good earth science stuff.

A little bit of research about Josiah Quincy Elementary School reveals that it is one of the top public schools in Massachusetts.

The Josiah Quincy School, whose history of educating the children in Boston goes back to the mid-1800's, is ranked consistently among the top public schools in Massachusetts.  The school, with its striking mural, is a landmark in Chinatown in the very heart of the city.  Josiah Quincy draws upon the energy of its surrounding neighborhoods and the diversity of its students to create a vibrant center for learning that seeks to prepare young people for global citizenship. via website

via sampan.org

Josiah Quincy Elementary School (JQES) hosted an opening ceremony of its “living wall” schoolyard beautification project on Tuesday, June 12 from 1-2pm at the school. The “living wall” is a vertical garden installed on the Oak Street side of the school building, surrounded by recycled benches for public use. The living wall will serve as the anchor for an environmental project to support existing earth science curriculum objectives for JQES students.

U.K. » A School Garden in a New Dimension

Pupils of Saltersgate Junior School with Mandy Oxer, headteacher, celebrate as they offically open Saltersgate Junior School, with the living wall in the background. Picture: Andrew Roe

Here is an interesting new approach to school gardening. Apparently, it's a green roof growing vertically on a wall. Since it's in the U.K., I'm assuming the plants are typical green roof plants that are winter hardy. 



The article doesn't describe the planting method but it's a good guess it's some derivation of Patrick Blanc's fabric pocket creation.

In any case, these students will be experiencing a new dimension in urban gardening and will learn valuable urban greenscaping information for the future.

via www.southyorkshiretimes.co.uk

FORGET hedges, staff and pupils at a Doncaster school will be trimming its new green wall!

For Saltersgate Junior School has unveiled its new eco-friendly ‘living wall’ - believed to be the first of its type in a UK school.

The green addition marked the completion of a £2.3 million new-look refurbishment of the Barnsley Road school.

Staff are currently being trained up in how to look after the wall which uses harvested rain-water from the roof mixed with fertiliser that is then drip-fed electronically to the plants.

The 98-square metre striking architectural feature will help insulate the building and use surplus rain water from the roof to water plants.

The Scawsby school’s pupils have been involved in the creation. They will also be looking after it and use it as an educational area for studying different types of plants and insects. Read more...

Philadelphia » Turner Construction Sponsors Living Wall Educational Event at Drexel University

This is a most impressive green wall at the new science building at Drexel University in Philadelphia. It's great to see plant science like this in a university science building.

I was at Drexel on business a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, the building was not yet open. The opening was last September. 

This is not an ordinary green wall. It is a bio-wall that works in conjunction with the building's HVAC to provide outdoor-quality air inside the building.

The design and installation was by Nedlaw Living Walls of Ontario, Canada. 

It is believed to be the only bio-wall of its kind in a university. Nedlaw Living Walls does however have an impressive list of projects across Canada. 

The plant installation was done by Parker Plants of New Jersey. The late Leonard Parker, founder of the business was well known in the interior plantscaping industry years ago when I ran my business in L.A. His son Richard now runs the company. 

One of the memorable interior plantscaping events from years ago was the Washingtonia palm installation done by Parker in the Winter Garden Atrium at the World Financial Center.

Most of us did not think these high light desert palms would survive in the subdued light of the atrium. Leonard pulled it off, however, and the palms survived until the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center. Fortunately they have since been replanted by John Mini Distinctive Landscapes, another company founded back in the day. 

via www.turnerconstruction.com

Drexel University and the Delaware Valley Green Building Council hosted a networking event to teach guests about the 22-foot wide, 80-foot tall bio-wall Turner built in the lobby of the university’s Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building. The wall, which is the largest bio-filter in North America, and the only wall of its kind in a university, works in conjunction with the building’s HVAC system to achieve outdoor-quality indoor air.

The wall is made up of twelve varieties of tropical plants that grow in layers of woven material through which water and nutrients are circulated. The building’s HVAC system pulls air through the wall and microbes living on the plants roots break down airborne volatile organic compounds.

A Worldwide Collection » Living Walls, Green Walls, Vertical Gardens, Take Your Pick

This is a collection of living walls (aka green walls, vertical gardens) from around the world. There is no titling or other identification, only images. You will see much of Patrick Blanc's creativity. If there is, in fact, an inventor of green walls he is the man.

Incidently, I believe that the terms green walls or living walls are more accurate descriptors than vertical gardens. Vertical garden is an imprecise term that can mean a number of things, including "skyscraper" farms and greenhouses on building rooftops among others. They are all in play at this time so take your pick.

via www.youtube.com

Patrick Blanc: website, prior posts

Edmonton, Canada » A New Airport Terminal With a Living Wall

The new Edmonton International Airport expansion opened yesterday, February 11. This video animation from 2010 does an excellent job of highlighting its new features including a 2-story, 98 foot (30 meters) wide hydroponic living wall by Stantec (Canadian architectural firm).

The living wall, along with other passenger-friendly features, is very cool indeed. Have a look and you will see the living wall both near the beginning and the end of the video. Read more (and view a news video) about the terminal here.

Time flies too. Did you know that the Denver International Airport is the only major airport to be built in the United States in the last 25 years. It opened 17 years ago in February, 1995.

How are we ever going to find the political will and the funding to update our aging infrastructure in the divisive political climate we live in? We better figure out the answer soon or we're all in big trouble.

I have time to take a bus. Busy business people do not have that luxury. Neither does our economy.

via www.youtube.com

 

Patrick Blanc » Authentic Horticultural Genius

Every day doing my research, I see the word genius along with other undeserved superlatives tossed around indiscriminately. Hyperbole is the order of the day. In the case of Patrick Blanc, however, the word genius is well deserved.

In all my years as an interior plantscaping professional, I know of no other person who has scaled the heights of Monsieur Blanc. With that said, it was still a surprise to see him in a Wall Street Journal video.

In my view, he is largely responsible for breathing new life into the rather moribund, techno-averse interior plantscaping business. Call them green walls, vertical gardens, or living walls. I see Blanc type walls everywhere, most of them by new creative people in the business. There is hope for a new age of urban greenscaping founded on modern technology and that is definitely a good thing.

How would you like to have a view from your desk like his?

via online.wsj.com

Since Biblical times, gardens have been horizontal, with flowers and plants sprouting out of the ground. Patrick Blanc has turned that whole notion on its side, literally. Mr. Blanc is the inventor of the vertical garden, also known as the living (or green) wall.

Mr. Blanc, 58, is a botanist with France's National Center for Scientific Research, the country's giant science and technology agency. He also has a private practice designing gardens. Among the more than 250 he has installed around the world, his most famous are at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the Caixa Forum Museum in Madrid and the French embassy in New Delhi. A celebrity among horticulturalists, he's even got a new kind of begonia named after him, Begonia blancii, after discovering it two years ago while trekking through a rainforest in the Philippines. These days, a Blanc-designed garden commands well into the six figures.

When he is not on a plane to the Middle East or exploring a remote rainforest in Hawaii to study native plants, Mr. Blanc works at the home he shares with singer Pascal Héni just outside Paris's city limits. There, he has a desk placed on top of a large aquarium, about 20 by 23 feet. "I see the fish swimming beneath my legs," he said. "It is a dream." His office includes a lush living wall, covered with plants. Read more...

Paris » An Interview with Patrick Blanc

If you have not yet discovered Patrick Blanc and his work, this video is a good introduction. As an interior plantscaping professional, I am in awe of his plantscaping creativity. The man with green hair is truly a botanical genius and pathfinder. He has led the way into a completely new age of green walls, vertical gardens and urban greenscaping. Prior posts.

via www.youtube.com

Green Walls » Plant Connection Inc, LI, New York

The video is in a Plant Connection, Inc. greenhouse on Long Island, NY. Evidently, the plants are for a green wall project at New York University (NYU) in Manhattan. I will cover this project further after an onsite visit.

While the interior plantscaping industry declines, the green wall (aka living wall) business emerges.

This system appears to be very similar to, if not the same as, the Green Living Technologies (GLT) system.

It is going to be interesting to see how the marketplace reacts to the sheet metal box type systems versus the Patrick Blanc fabric pocket systems.

Let the green wall games begin!

See more project photos of green walls including plants grown by Plant Connection. It is an impressive project gallery.   

San Francisco » Living Walls by Plants On Walls

via GreenScene-YouTube

It is most refreshing to see innovation like this. What a great commercial application of Patrick Blanc's incredible green wall art. It was nice to hear homage paid to him. The founding partners of Plants on Walls in San Francisco have created an innovative business. I look forward to visiting them one day.

In my view, the fabric pocket method is the best of the entire array of vertical growing methods I have seen. It is very plant friendly and has an "organic" sensibility. It emulates natural environments that I have seen when trekking though tropical rainforests.  

London » FARM:shop Progress Video

The video was shot this past December. The FARM:shop is now open and apparently thriving.

It appears that there may be lighting issues regarding the nutrient film technique (NFT) hydroponics wall system and the indoor plant vertical garden in the stairwell. Time will tell as it always does when growing plants inside buildings. Light is the limiting factor. The best thing to do is to measure the light with a light meter before planting.

Also note that there are no solid media (artificial soil) based sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). In my view that is a significant omission in what I view as a very progressive urban food production project.

There is also a comprehensive Flickr photo set by AlexandraMPayne a New Yorker who worked at the FARM:shop as a volunteer.

via www.youtube.com