Vertical Garden: Green Life in Concrete Structures

Who doesn’t want a nature-friendly, generous, calm, cosmopolitan environment? Instinctively we feel comfortable staying close to the green. When there are plants around us, we feel less pressure. The green color also relaxes the eyes. We all want to live in a piece of beautiful green, unadulterated breath, simple natural environment. At this time of the recent coronavirus epidemic, we feel it more intensely. A little bit of pure oxygen, being able to breathe in the open air, a filtered airy atmosphere – everything we want now.

According to environmental scientists, people are born with a desire to be close to nature. When you have to stay out of nature for too long, people get short of breath. Nothing feels good. It starts to feel boring for no reason.

But day by day, we are moving away from nature. We are turning green and deforested to build various infrastructural developments of urbanization, construction of industries, roads, ghats, bridges, etc. Our civic life is becoming noisy, dusty, smoky, and lifeless like brick and wood. In the life wrapped in the sheet of mechanics, we have confined ourselves to an unnatural brick-and-stone environment. Elements such as civic life, polluted gas and dust have poisoned our air. However, we can use nature to the advantage of modern architecture without doing the damage we are doing to nature. One such eco-friendly solution in the field of architecture is called ‘Vertical Garden’ or ‘Vertical Garden.’

Any place decorated with trees, shrubs and vines is always very attractive. And from this realization, the idea of ​​vertical gardens can be said to be a kind of relief in various structures arranged in a dense green atmosphere in the urban life of brick-wood-concrete. Through indoor or outdoor landscaping, architects have unveiled another aspect of the architecturally vibrant and eco-friendly architecture as an adjunct to nature. Let’s read the whole article to know the art and technique of establishing a natural connection of our modern society with the beginning and end of Vertical Garden and architecture.  

Behind the scenes

In modern society, the ‘gardening mind’ is more or less present in all of us. The greenery on the walls and the various species of trees-shrubs-herbs-flowers standing vertically like a garden in a building structure make everyone feel good. This love of nature has been going on for ages, from ancient civilization to the present day. In urban life, when we are facing a shortage of greenery, the vertical garden concept has emerged as one of the solutions.

This is not a new concept. The concept dates back to the 1930s and is a modern version of the science fiction reality of that time – today’s vertical garden. It has become more popular in recent times. In any wall, partially or completely covered with vegetation, soil and integrated water supply system, a self-contained system for sewage drainage is attached to the building or any installation. 

The theme is implemented in modern designs and plans to maintain the natural environment in large installations, office buildings, residential areas, hospitals, shopping malls, just like the general garden in architectural design. Perfectly using engineering techniques, vertical gardens are created in any building and installed in biophilic design, where routine maintenance of garden plants, automatic water supply system and other maintenance can be done. The green color is predominant and the entire garden system is designed to be able to fight air pollution by filtering dust and absorbing carbon dioxide. Other benefits include heat control and noise pollution.

What is a vertical garden?

Vertical gardening is a technique for raising plants in vertical panels using hydroponics. The structures used in this technique are either freestanding or attached to a wall. One of the wonderful things about vertical gardens is that they can be attached to small niches or various modular panels, space dividers, PVC pipes, partitions, etc., on the inner wall of the main vertical structure or on the exterior wall, and many species of plants can be planted in it. Vertical gardens are supplied with water using an automated drip irrigation system, which saves water and manages wastewater in the same system.

Biophilic design and our health

Biophilic design is the natural integration of specific projects with nature by integrating natural materials and processes into the building environment within the building industry. Biophilic is the unnatural connection of nature with man; nowadays, in architectural design, we can create an aesthetically eco-friendly installation in green cover by incorporating biophilic concepts. I can present the lifeless building of the brick-wood-concrete structure in a unique scene of vital natural beauty with the twist of green revitalization. Biophilic design has a positive role in maintaining the natural environment in any installation, with beautiful views of the exterior of the building and the occupants. Studies have shown that the green or natural surroundings of residential or commercial buildings significantly improve the health of occupants and office workers. 

In 2011, a research paper by the American National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) was published. Several of the world’s best scientists took part in that study. The main point of the research paper was that a little natural touch in the workplace reduces the interest of the workers in their work, increases their motivation and reduces their stress. In addition to NCBI research, there has been a lot of research on the benefits of the natural environment in the workplace. In short, the concept of vertical gardens in biophilic design greatly impacts our physical and mental activity and mental health.

The largest vertical park globally is located in Bogota, Colombia and is known as the Santaliya Building. The building is completely covered with a few dense green layers of 8,500 plants, covering an area of ​​3,100 square meters (33, 368 square feet). The vertical garden can produce more than 3,100 tons of oxygen per year; Can process 1,708 pounds of heavy metal; It can filter more than 2,000 tons of harmful gases and capture more than 881 pounds of dust. These parks are taking creativity to a unique level around the world.

Green walls or vertical gardens are keeping our environment better, healthier and more natural by keeping people close to nature as well as cleaning the air and fighting pollution. They are used on indoor or outdoor walls, in different corners of the building or even in open spaces. In addition to maintaining the natural environment, it also reflects architectural beauty in various ways.

The father of the vertical garden is Patrick Blank. About thirty years ago, French landscape architect Patrick Blank pioneered the implementation of vertical gardens in Paris and later in other cities worldwide. Stanley Hart White first patented the concept of the Green Wall or Vertical Garden in 1938 but it was incorporated into the architectural design by the name of Patrick Blanc. After creating the most famous green vertical garden in the Museu du Cui Branli in Paris, he was nominated as the father of the ‘vegetable wall,’ spreading a revolution in sustainable architecture. He has made an incredible application of this natural vertical garden art, not only for city and public buildings but also for many private residences. 

Advantage

Vertical gardens offer economic, environmental, and structural benefits:

• Building profile and beautification
• Pure air
• Biodiversity and habitat
• Improved health
• Improving mental health
• Decreasing carbon dioxide levels 
• Decreasing the levels of certain pollutant gases like benzene and nitrogen dioxide
• Decreasing the level of airborne dust
• Keep the air temperature low 
• Acoustic buffering

Environmental support

Plants naturally absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen-rich air, which plays a vital role in our survival. Vertical gardens also keep the environment alive in the same way. Plants clean the air, help reduce noise pollution, normalize the atmosphere, and act as a sound and heat buffer, making the air and temperature conducive to the environment. Vertical garden plants, like other plants, reduce the amount of carbon monoxide in the air and filter out polluting gases in exchange for clean oxygen.

How does a vertical garden work?

The green enclosed walls of the vertical garden are constructed in the same manner as the ordinary wall of construction. These are erected on the wall’s surface through various modular panels or frame attachments. The whole system is improved by arranging plants and flowers in various blocks with partitions or space dividers. The green walls contain large vegetation in relatively small horizontal areas. The trees are attached by making maximum use of the surface of the walls and extending or hanging upwards. There is a self-watering system to keep the plants healthy, which keeps the water supply pipe equipment covered with a green wall.

What kind of plants are used in vertical gardens?

Since each green wall is individually designed for a specific project, the vegetation characteristics of the plants are considered separately for each wall. Each part of the wall is affected by the weather. Indoor plants are chosen based on the climatic zone of the indoor or outdoor area, which is completely different from the use of the outdoor wall because it is important to use the right plants in the right area. Plants are selected so that they can withstand even the slightest adverse conditions in a climate with a higher climate than the local climate. With the biophilic design, different species of flowers, shrubs, algae and leaf and flower color patterns are matched and each panel is placed in the right place on the wall according to the design.

Connecting with nature is conducive to our well-being and, at the same time, is essential for increasing productivity in the workplace. In his poem ‘Towards Civilization,’ Rabindranath Tagore expresses his grief over the desire to get back to the forest and the negative effects of urbanization on wood and stone.

“Give back that forest, take this city,

take as much iron as wood and stone.”

Even though we are keeping pace with urbanization nowadays, there is no way for us human beings to deny the pull of the roots or the love of the original unnatural nature of our creation. At present, people are rising to the top of development. Gradually surpassing the various challenges of nature. High-rise building structures of various sizes and types, inclined, floating, and cantilever hanging, constantly evolve. Modern urban civilization has indeed brought a lot of progress in human life. But this civilization today has taken hold of the human heart in such a way that human beings are gradually becoming the inhabitants of the artificial habitat of an inert-dense environment surrounded by brick-wood-stone structures.

In the womb of this civilization, man has lost the simple beauty of a quiet cosmic life in the web of materialism. Lost the opportunity for free and relaxed development of body and mind in the open space of nature. People trapped in the stone cages of modern civilization are eagerly awaiting liberation to regain their natural lost life. So even after millions of years, people still feel the pull towards the forest, wanting to return to the simple natural environment left behind. This vertical garden or vertical garden of architecture is a timely attempt for him.

May this industry continue to flourish and may nature survive everywhere from forests to our urban areas inspired by green revitalization.