Living Walls: The Interior Design Trend That Makes You Happier, Healthier, And, Yes, Even Smarter!
The hot trend of installing living walls (aka: vertical gardens, green walls, plant walls, or live walls) in our homes, offices, schools and restaurants is sweeping like wildfire across cities the world over, and at the outset, it’s pretty easy to see why: they are utterly stunning! Just take a look at a few here in our hometown of NYC:
Mamasushi, New York City
Hogar Dulce Hogar Bakery (Mr Tod’s Pie Factory), Soho, New York City
Columbia University, New York City
But, did you know that these green installations not only look great, but also have massive health and wellness benefits?
1) Improve our physical health
Especially for those of us that live in cities, we breathe a ton of air pollutants, often without even realizing it. The good news for those that have living walls is the plants growing on these walls act as natural air filters. They clean the air that we breathe on a daily basis by absorbing pollutants like formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and other airborne toxins. The result? Better respiratory and cardiovascular health. Further, even brief exposure to nature during the day has been shown to lower people’s heart rate and systolic blood pressure. Not bad!
New Jersey Institute for Food Nutrition & Health at Rutgers College: New Brunswick, NJ
2) Make us more comfortable
You know those summer days when you just can’t keep your home cool? How about the winter nights when you can’t just keep it warm? What is great about green walls is that they act as natural insulation, keeping air inside the buildings cooler in the summer months and warmer during the winter months, making the occupants that little bit more comfortable.
3) Improve happiness
Being in close proximity with greenery has profound impacts on our mental health. Numerous studies have shown that being around plants – especially with as high of a concentration as is typically on a living wall – reduces stress by lowering our levels of salivary cortisol (a stress hormone) thereby making us feel happier! For this reason, filling our homes and workplaces with greenery is one of the many lifestyle changes people can make to with help with depression. Plants increase people’s levels of positive energy and have been shown to help them feel more secure. Who knew that a constant source of happiness could simply be installed in your home?
4) Make us smarter
Having a green wall can make you smarter by improving concentration and boosting creativity. In fact, studies have shown that when people perform mental tasks near plants, the calming influence of this “indoor nature” helps them perform the tasks at a higher quality and with better accuracy. Research has also shown that individuals that spend time near plants are better learners. Potentially even more impressively, being around a high concentration of plants improves the ability of children with ADD to focus and absorb information, improving long term educational outcomes. So why isn’t there a living wall in every classroom and boardroom in the country?
Coldwell Banker, New York City
Summary
In summary, living walls have some pretty magical benefits for building occupants. No wonder they’re taking over!
Start planning your living wall, check out Urbanstrong’s living wall solutions.
