What is a Living Wall? And Does Your Office Have One?

We’ve talked about the benefits that indoor foliage can provide for a workplace, such as increased employee morale and productivity, here on the Foliage Design Systems Jacksonville blog. There’s no better way to enliven a space and all those living and working within it by maintaining a healthy assortment of green fauna across many rooms.

Lately, more and more research has been going into applications of indoor plants not just as decorations but also as biotechnology that can actually improve building conditions. In areas around the world, living walls are being installed in office buildings and homes as a way of reducing indoor pollutants, improving temperature control and more.

This article published by Sourceable discusses facilities in Canada and Australia, which are leading the global charge in the push towards living wall installations. A recent prototype for a public living wall was unveiled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Center of Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE) in New York City. This mobile living wall can be scaled in size to serve buildings of various sizes. Each six-foot-by-seven-foot panel is packed with 30 plants, and one will be installed soon on the CASE campus.

These living walls can absorb harmful pollutants traveling within a space, including the volatile organic compounds that slowly leech away from all of the synthetic building materials that make up most hotels, libraries, doctor’s offices and any other type of building. These plants have shown the ability to be powerful temperature regulators, greatly cutting down on the costs for heating and cooling. These panels have been designed so that a building’s plumbing system can keep the plants well watered, or the panels can be connected to a separate tank for this purpose.

Everyone knows that it’s a good idea to keep some greenery indoors, but we’re still finding out how interior plants can keep costs down and rooms more comfortable. Call Foliage Design Systems Jacksonville for all of your indoor planting needs in the region of northeastern Florida.