Green Wall Designs – Inside and Out

What’s the best way of creating a green wall? Painting it green? Sticking a recycled wallpaper on it? Or alternatively you can approach this question like the french green wall designer Patrick Blanc did. He’s one of the most prominent figure when it comes to green wall designs. He’s been at it for years and there’s a solid method behind his art.

He mounts a steel frame onto the façade of the house to create an air insulation between the vertical garden layer and the house fabric. Then PVC panels are mounted onto the steel frames (and this is the bit where you start questioning whether this method is 100% green because the PVC doesn’t come across as a green material), which then holds a high-durability felt layer.

The plants are rooted directly into the felt. The spongy material also delivers moisture and nutrients to the plants – it’s called hydroponics – plants are grown without soil. This living building created by Patrick Blanc in central Paris – the Quai Branly Museum is a major landmark and tourist attraction.

Green wall designs look great and they transform the living space. In cities where it is difficult to allocate space for a park or allotment, a vertical garden is just about the only way to get any vegetation around.

There are certain creeper plants that you can plant at the foundation and make them creep up the building wall, however, this approach in many cases damage the building both mechanically and through the damp.

Vertical gardens can also be created indoors, like the greenfortune.com has done. They are a Swedish company specialising in urban cultivation. They seem to be concentrating on indoors installations.