How do Living Walls Improve Air Quality in Urban Environments?
With expanding metropolitan areas and populations comes an increased need for pollution control solutions. Living walls - vertical gardens that transform building walls into lush, green surfaces - are an innovative strategy to combat air quality problems in cities. They add aesthetic beauty while improving air quality, making cities healthier and more eco-friendly places.
Living Walls: What Are They?
Living walls (a type of green wall also referred to as vertical gardens) are composed of vegetated panels, modules, or pocketed-fabrics affixed to a structural wall or free-standing frame. Most commonly found indoors, they can also be installed on the exterior of buildings provided the right technology is used according to the local climate. Living walls often use integrated irrigation systems in conjunction with hydroponic growing mediums like felt, foam or rockwool.
Benefits of Using Living Walls to Improve Air Quality by Reducing Pollutants in the Environment
Plants act as passive air filters and naturally remove toxins from the air. Vehicle emissions and industrial activity release pollutants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter. Left unchecked, this can lead to smog, acid rain, and respiratory health issues, not to mention contributing to global warming by increasing greenhouse gas levels.
Indoors, pollutants like toluene, ammonia, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, benzene and styrene can be found in common products like furniture varnish, detergents, printing inks, facial tissues, carpet backing, nail polish, packaging and home insulation.
Indoor plants help purify pollutants by absorbing these harmful substances through their leaves and roots, and by breaking down toxins through metabolic processes, thereby improving air quality.
Read more: Plants, A Powerful Prescription For The Quarantined
Living Walls Save Precious Footprint
Living Walls make more sense in cities that have high property values. It all comes down to footprint. Property in a city like New York is very expensive. Further, there isn’t any room left for another Central Park. But if the goal is to increase the amount of greenery available to purify the air, improve aesthetics, manage stormwater, create habitat and sequester carbon, nothing says that greenery has to be laid out flat. It will perform all those ecological services perfectly well in a vertical orientation such as on the side of a building, and take up virtually zero precious land footprint in the process.
An outdoor living wall on a penthouse terrace in Chelsea, New York City.
Improving City Living
In addition to enhancing air quality, living walls provide several other advantages that improve urban living:
Aesthetic Attractiveness - Living Walls are Living Art
The visual attractiveness of buildings and public areas can be greatly enhanced in urban settings by the addition of greenery. By using plant life to cover bare, boring walls - indoor or outdoor - green walls give city dwellers and tourists a visual break from steel and concrete. We at Urbanstrong consider ourselves artists. Our canvas are walls and our medium is greenery. We work with a variety of plant species, colors, textures, growth patterns and even blooming periods to create unique, vibrant and even dynamic art. As the plants grow and bloom with time, the design changes!
Living Walls Improve Mental Health
The theory of Biophilia says that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with Nature and other forms of life. Having a connection or even a sightline to natural elements like plants, trees, animals, the ocean, etc. helps boost mood, lower stress levels, and improve productivity, creativity and mental wellness in general.
Read more: Enhancing Spaces: The Vital Role of Living Walls in Higher Education
Biodiversity and Habitat Creation
By creating homes for a variety of bird, insect, and other animal species, living walls support urban biodiversity. The introduction of green spaces into highly populated regions helps to preserve ecosystems that urban expansion may otherwise displace.
Read more: Green Roofs, The Urban Habitat Oasis For Birds
Energy Efficiency
Living walls can reduce heating and air cooling needs throughout the year by insulating structures. Of course the impacts will really only be felt at scale; a tiny living wall will not do much to move the needle. Also, for greatest impact, the living wall should be placed on an exterior wall rather than an internal one. Not only does improved energy efficiency result in decreased greenhouse gas emissions, but financial benefits accrue to building owners and occupants as a result of lower utility bills and possible fine avoidance under programs like New York City’s Local Law 97. And hey, a living wall sure is a more attractive looking energy efficiency retrofit than triple pane windows!
Implementation Challenges
Although the advantages of living walls are obvious, there can be difficulties in putting them into practice. A living wall requires careful planning right from the start. Not all sites or client goals or budgets support a Living Wall. Even when they do make sense, a Living Wall’s design phase is critical to the final system’s success. The right technology should be specified because not all solutions fit all projects. For this reason, clients should be wary of dealing with a Living Wall designer who only offers one solution. Lighting selection is also important since light are the Living Wall plants’ food. Once they’re installed, Living Walls require a certain minimum amount of care and attention. Ideally this is taken care of in a maintenance contract with monthly visits at the minimum. But as awareness grows of the health benefits plants offer and environmental concerns and technologies evolve, more towns and developers are recognizing the long-term benefits of green infrastructure like Living Walls and making the investment.
Read more: Why Green Walls Get a Bad Rap
In summary
Urbanstrong offers aesthetically pleasing solutions to the urgent issue of air pollution in metropolitan areas with our Living Wall design-build-maintenance services. Urban environments can be made healthier and more sustainable by integrating Nature into the fabric and structures of our cities. We are getting closer to a day when urban living blends with Nature, benefiting both people and the environment, as more cities adopt this living, vibrant natural art technology.
