Green Walls

Almost every architect today is creating building designs that conserve energy and incorporate more natural features.  One of these new trends is to create green walls, a.k.a. living walls, for both the interior and the exterior of buildings.

Some of the benefits to green walls go far beyond aesthetics.  Green walls are natural insulation that can help to maintain the temperature in some buildings.  This is a plus considering the rising cost of energy in Southern California.

Living walls used on the interior of a building can help to maintain humidity levels as well as assist in the air filtration, which can be a problem for some commercial buildings in the Los Angeles area.  According to the EPA, poor indoor air quality is ranked forth on a list of thirty-one of the worst environmental threats that the average worker faces each day.

In most cases it does not matter if the purposed area for a living wall is in full sunlight or if the area is typically hot.  Green walls can be designed for all kinds of environmental applications; there are even some green walls that thrive in near darkness.  It all depends on the chosen organic materials for the project.

Interior and exterior green walls are most commonly designed as simple free standing façades on the exterior of the building.  They are more frequently composed of climbing plants, but there are other options that some designers have incorporated in which the plants are grown in specially made support structure.

Green walls have expanded from their urban art roots into a viable way to cure sick building syndrome.  With a nationwide push to be more environmentally friendly, these beautiful creations are bound to become common place in most new commercial and residential buildings.