15 Living Walls, Vertical Gardens & Sky Farms
Wed, May 21, 2008
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A living wall, also referred to as a green wall, vertical garden, or sky farm, is usually part of a building and consists of some sort of vegetation. These types of gardens are sometimes referred to as urban gardening, because they are well-suited for an urban environment where space on the ground is very limited but vertical space is plentiful. These vertical gardens can be quite spectacular in appearance, and in some cases, they even work to filter clean air into the building in which they are growing upon.
Vertical gardens can be grown on just about any type of wall, with or without the use of soil, and they can be placed both on outdoor and indoor walls. As long as there is not shortage of water for the living wall, no soil is required. These amazing sky farms are able to literally bring life to an old rundown building in the middle of the city and they are becoming increasingly popular inside office buildings, homes, and retail stores because of their outstanding beauty and their natural air purification properties.
Living walls have fast become an art form for many people, and one of the pioneering vertical garden artists is Patrick Blanc. He observed how plants were able to grow vertically without the need for soil in the wild, and soon developed a way to create artistic looking vegetation walls that were both lightweight and needed little maintenance. Since these living walls only weighed approximately 30 kg or less per square-meter, he noticed that just about any type of wall would be able to support the weight of a vertical garden. There are many amazing examples of vertical gardens around the world. Here’s our list of some of the most creative and beautiful living walls in the world. We may have missed some of course, but please feel free to drop any we’ve missed in the comments.
Musee du quai Branly, Paris, France
This popular French museum near the Eiffel Tower in Paris is home to one of the best examples of vertical garden work by artist Patrick Blanc. The living wall here is about 200 meters long and 12 meters tall. The museum’s living exterior was at one time healthy and vibrant, but today you can see signs of the inadequate support for irrigation and drainage of the garden – although it still remains breathtakingly beautiful.
Sky Farm, Las Vegas
A proposed $200 million sky farm in the city of Las Vegas would be the world’s first 30-story vertical farm. This building would have 30 floors of indoor farm land, and it is estimated that a vertical farm such as this one could produce enough food to feed 72,000 people per year. This proposed vertical sky farm would grow approximately 100 different crops, and would bring in an estimated $40 million in annual revenue via produce sales and tourism to the one-of-a-kind structure. This sky farm is only in the preliminary stages of design, and it could quite a while before this awesome vertical farm is actually built (if ever).
SkyFarm, Toronto, Canada
A new vertical farm in the downtown area of Toronto, called SkyFarm, could help to feed 35,000 area residents each year. The advantage of the SkyFarm is that the proposed building would only require about 1.32 hectares of land for the 58 story building to sit on. However, it will have about 8 million square-feet of growing space for crops, bringing in the same amount of produce as a 420 hectar farm. The 714 feet structure would bring in an estimated $23 million of revenue each year.
Residence Antilia, Mumbai, India
This new eco-building is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008, and upon its completion will hold the world record for the largest and tallest living wall, not just in India, but on the planet. This 200 meter tall building, called Residence Antilia, will feature vertical gardens all the way up its exterior walls. Costing, $1 billion, the revolutionary design will make it not only the world’s greenest skyscraper, but also one of the most unique and beautiful structures in the world.
NEXT: See the amazing living wall system in Japan and the spectacular vertical farms of paris
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3 Trackbacks For This Post
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Business of Life Says:
May 24th, 2008 at 4:18 amLiving Walls, Art of Green by Blanc …
Patrick Blanc, an unusual combination of artist and scientist, pioneered the art of living walls, or vertical gardens in Paris. “He’s a curious character because he is the symbiosis of a scientist, an artist and a communicator,” said Stéphane……
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BHV Homme Vertical Garden | Truth Dare Double Dare Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm[...] back entrance to stock up on agnès b. Definitely something we would like to see more of in the cities. Gridskipper has a nice couple of links to other vertical gardens in [...]
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10 Incredible Living Walls Says:
March 11th, 2009 at 2:48 pm[...] SkyFarm [...]
May 21st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Ahh, love this post! Thank you! :)
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:07 am
newyork could really use some of this ideas…
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 am
I don’t see how some of those skyscraper farms would work.. how would they get light to all of the levels?
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Maybe you could grow some weed on one of the levels and noone would notice?
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Uhm, where would the roots go?
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
so beautifull stuff :)
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Here is a vertical garden at the Caixa Forum in Madrid, Spain:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9167719@N07/2288963522/
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:05 pm
now thats what i call the future.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:01 am
the process with the plants that produces the cooling effect is not “shade” although the shade does provide some cooling, it actually is called “transpriation”, it is the process of the plant taking in water and air, and exhaling thru the leaves that causes the cooling, kind of like a living “evaporative cooler”
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:03 am
Wow! This is really th future! Simply love this especially the Toronto Sky Farm.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:53 am
it looks like design is preempting the post-human world. gorgeous stuff, makes traditional vine coverings look oh so passe…
May 24th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Hehe, the Musee is quite awesome!
May 24th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I love this idea. I’ve been trying to promote its use in the city I live in but so far no one is willing to try it.
I guess I need to do more research on techniques and such. I’ll definitely be looking into the one company that was mentioned.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:22 am
salams (peace) this technique is definitely the way forward, as more and more people from rural populations in the developing world as well as all the overpopulated cities we have over here, are in dire need of an overhaul of the land use, all those old buildings could be ’spruced up’ bringing our cities into the 221st century. harry this is one idea i am also hoping to implement as a project-funding and all, pray it happens.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
super!!
check out singapore changi airport terminal 3 — green wall 50 ft high by 1,000 feet long is the centerpiece of the terminal building.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
And that’s what the future should look like! Let’s eliminate polluting and cruel animal agriculture - launch ourselves into the 21st century with plenty of sustainable (and healthy) food for all! Go Vegan!
July 24th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I really want to see this project succeed because I think this is could be a solution to are rising food shortage…I am trying to get the first working tower built: http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/vertical-farm-in-new-york-city
November 7th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
awesome article,love this idea
March 21st, 2009 at 4:50 am
That is absolutely amazing. So finally we have an alternative to a grey wall – green wall art.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
The walls with living plants are pretty, but can be distructive to the brick, morter and other construction of the buildings. I know as English Ivy can grow right thru the grout on windows.
March 26th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
This is Great Chris, thankyou for your outstanding work. I am so excited to have found so much info all at once.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:53 am
amazing. i think urban farming like 99problems would do amazing things if it was developed correctly Bebo.com/99ProblemsDotOrg
June 21st, 2009 at 4:57 am
I have fifteen Living Walls mint for trade… Oh wait, wrong thread.
July 1st, 2009 at 11:43 pm
This is a good sign towards the future and technology is here today to get the first steps going. Today we have fish farms that leave natural populations of fish alone while supplying humans with the fish consumption that they need. Check out this high-tech fish farm off the coast of hawaii that’s making some headlines:
http://www.americasheartland.org/episodes/episode_117/aqua_culture.htm