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Why choose green walls?

     Green walls have many benefits to us and our environment. From the simple ones such as the aesthetics and improvement in air quality, to the not so simple ones such as reduction in energy consumption, improving people's health and wellbeing.

Green walls for the looks

     It’s a known fact that people like to look at things that are pretty and attractive. There’s a part of our brains that tells us to stop and appreciate the objects we see or the sounds that we listen to.
 
     In most houses these days, less features are more than enough. We try to minimise the number of furniture we have and the details of it to have a bigger space, or at least make the room feel more spacious. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having less features in the room. This doesn’t mean we can’t add something decorative in the room. Something like a green wall, perhaps?

Before and after Jasmine green feature wall was appllied to
timber fencing by Designer Plants
     Looking at green walls is much more interesting than looking at a plain wall. If you don’t like the having a green wall inside, then you can simply have it as an external feature. Even a simple green feature wall on a timber fence can be more appealing than just a normal fence. Your home would look more inviting and connected to nature; which makes it feel more welcoming.

Green walls for better air quality

     Whether we believe it or not, wherever we go in this world, we will always be exposed to different toxins, some are more harmful than others. From the road, the shopping centres and any other public venues we go to, and to our very own homes and workplace, we are always breathing in air toxins.

     As plants breathe in the carbon dioxide that we all breathe out, they release oxygen for us to breathe in; keeping us alive and well. During the day, plants absorb energy from the sun, which then allows them to convert carbon dioxide and water to carbohydrates and oxygen by going through a process known as photosynthesis. Plants don’t give us all their oxygen though. During the night, plants absorb oxygen and give off carbon dioxide back to our atmosphere.

Green wall cleaning the air at Edmonton International
Airport in Canada
     Wait, aren’t we supposed to be reducing the amount of carbon dioxide being released in our environment? Isn’t that why we’re choosing to build green walls, so that we have less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

     IT’S FINE! You can relax. Even though plants take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide, we will be okay because plants can give us up to 10 times more oxygen during the day than what they take in during the night. So, plants on green walls still improves the quality of the air we are breathing every day and night. They create a cleaner, more revitalizing environment that improves our health and productivity.


Green walls for a healthier you

Tallest indoor green wall at Tower 4, Collins
Square, Melbourne, VIC
Whether you believe it or not, greenery can help you maintain a healthier lifestyle. Having a green wall is just another option for you to be surrounded by greenery.

As I’ve mentioned earlier on this post, plants can filter the air we breathe by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing more oxygen for us. By this, they already make us healthier as we are breathing in cleaner air.

Another way that plants helps us live a better lifestyle is that they just make us feel more relaxed and connected to nature. Studies published in sites, such as Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine and Journal of Environmental Psychology, shows that connection to nature can reduce our stress level.

Being surrounded by nature allows you to disengage yourself from technology and social media. Leaving technology and social media behind maybe difficult for those who believe that they can’t live without them. But, deserting those things for a while won’t be so bad. Being closer to nature will allow you to focus on yourself, not the people you idolize or follow; wishing your life could be as good as theirs.

Green wall at Triptych Apartment, Southbank Melbourne, VIC
        In rural areas, it's not difficult to find a connection with your natural environment as you will most probably be surrounded by plants and trees, farms, mountains and forests. However, in an urban environment, it’s difficult to find a connection with the natural environment because we’ve got buildings being constructed everywhere, which means less space for greenery. For urban areas like Melbourne CBD, green walls can be used in buildings to allow people to have some sort of connection to nature. Green walls don’t have to take a lot of space and they can definitely make our buildings nicer and much more environmentally friendly.

Green walls for extra insulation

Green walls act an extra layer of thermal and sound insulation. Plants and trees are usually used for shading as they absorb the light and heat energy from the sun; which helps us stay cool during summer and warm during winter without needing to use the air conditioner too much.

Green wall systems help 'reduce the amplitude of the heat flow through the building envelope' preventing extreme temperature from spreading on building's surface.

On the blog of Quarto Knows, they state that "the surface of a planted green wall is 10 degrees Celsius cooler than an exposed wall due to the disbursement and absorption of solar radiation as well as the slowing of air movement and carbon dioxide absorption."
Sketch of Council House 2 in Melbourne using
vertical green shading  for the balconies
Looking towards the balconies of Council
House 2 in Melbourne, VIC


Understanding the physics behind sound energy and how it works is important in design. 

Different approaches to Sound Proofing 
People don't want to stay in a house near a freeway and all they would hear is the traffic noise from the freeway. People don't want to hear loud music from an 18th birthday party next door when they're trying to get some sleep at 3am because they have to be at work at 9am the next morning!

Without going into too much details about the physics of it all, here’s the simplified version of how sound works and how plants in green walls help reduce the noise level:
·        Sound travels through a vacuum. And no, we are not talking about the kind of vacuum that we use to clean our house or cars, but they are related in a way. In physics, vacuum refers to a space entirely devoid of air or matter; an empty space or nothingness.
·        Sound particles collide with air particles closest to them, then those particles bump into the particle next to them. The collision between particles goes on until the energy created by the source is lost as with each collision, little amount of energy is lost.
·        Sound travels in various ways depending on the materials they are travelling through. The thicker and denser the materials are the better as the particles of the materials are much closer together; making it difficult for the sound particles to travel through.
·        Plants can absorb sound through their leaves, stems, branches, etc. Rough bark and thick, fleshy leaves are particularly effective at absorbing sound due to their dynamic surface area.
·        Plants can deflect sound as they are flexible materials. When sound particles hit flexible materials, the materials will vibrate which transforms the sound waves into other energy form and deflects them in different directions.

·        Plants in green wall systems can absorb, deflect and refract sounds just like individual plants in different locations but better because the plants in green wall system are much closer together; making the area of the vacuum, in which the sound particles travel through, less than the area of the vacuum when plants are far away from each other.

Further information on sound:
Physics of sound | The Method Behind The Music
How Sound Works - The Physics of Sound Waves | YouTube
How Sound Works (In Rooms) | YouTube
Sound | Explain That Stuff
How Sound Wave Works | MediaCollege.com
The Sound Wave | Net Well Noise Control



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