Patrick Blanc: Converting Our City Walls into Vertical Gardens
How Does it Work?
As a child, Blanc was already a scientist. He discovered a love for plants and aquariums and that led to him experimenting with the idea of using plants as biological filters for aquariums to extract excess nutrients. This idea was the seed from which the concept of vertical gardens grew. When he was 19 years old he visited Malaysia and Thailand and was inspired by the way plants grew on the rocks, and from that point on he wanted to bring them from nature to cities. Blanc explained that the technique he uses is truly simple, and that the key to success is using only plants which grow on rocks and don’t need soil, and using the right plants in the right place, layering according to their optimal light, water and nutrient requirements. If you reaaaally want to see how he does it, here is a more technical explanation of how the planting process works [Courtesy Wikipedia]:
On a load-bearing wall or structure is placed a metal frame that supports a PVC plate 10 millimetres (0.39 in) thick, on which are stapled two layers of polyamide felt each 3 millimetres (0.12 in) thick. These layers mimic cliff-growing mosses and are support the roots of many plants. A network of pipes controlled by valves provides a nutrient solution containing dissolved minerals needed for plant growth. The felt is soaked by capillary action with this nutrient solution, which flows down the wall by gravity. The roots of the plants take up the nutrients they need, and excess water is collected at the bottom of the wall by a gutter before being re-injected into the network of pipes: the system works in a closed circuit. Plants are chosen for their ability to grow on this type of environment and depending on available light.
You might expect that architects would jump at the opportunity to integrate vertical gardening into their designs, but Blanc recalls that for the first two decades of his experimentation, architectural firms showed little or no interest. It was only decades later, after he had completed a multitude of projects tailored to private homeowners, hotels, museums and brands such as Chanel, that the architectural world has become interested in the true potentiality of vertical gardens. The most impressive architectural concept I’ve seen so far was a project for Architects Adrian Smith & Godron Gill called the ‘Hanging Canopies’ to be built in Dubai. Like most developments in Dubai, however, it’s been put “on hold”. Green Cities adorned on both the horizontal (vertical farming) and vertical plains still remain a figment of the imagination.
For the moment Blanc may be the one of few people in the world who has turned this practice into a viable business, but for the trend to catch on in a big way others will have to enter the fray.
A visualization of the Hanging Canopies in Dubai. For Architects Adrian Smith & Godron Gill. Project on hold.
Athenaeum Hotel, London. Complete 2009. Courtesy Patrick Blanc
Athenaeum Hotel, London. Complete 2009. Courtesy Patrick Blanc
Athenaeum Hotel, London. Completed 2009. Courtesy Patrick Blanc
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