Vertical Gardens Grow Up

by Katherine Gustafson · 2010-02-03 10:00:00 UTC
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If you thought the small-scale vertical gardens I wrote about recently were cool, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Those are neat, yeah, but they don't cover an entire side of a building. They don't form 200-foot structures that the New York Times calls "vegetated fins," which is the unlikely innovation in the plans for $133-million renovation of the federal General Services Administration (GSA) building in Portland, Oregon.

Can you conceive of how big and how vertical this garden will be? It will rise up the western facade of the 18-story building, shading that side completely with vegetation during warmer months.

“They will bloom in the spring and summer when you want the shade, and then they will go away in the winter when you want to let the light in,” Bob Peck, commissioner of public buildings for the GSA, told the Times. “Don’t ask me how you get them irrigated.”

While this garden won't grow food, as do the vertical gardens by Urban Farming that I discussed with Taja Sevelle, it is a step down a path that could lead anywhere. We already have great models for vertical, urban farms to produce food inside buildings. Soon maybe one day it'll grow outside, and office workers will be able to simply lean out the window to gather their healthy victuals at lunchtime.

Photo: laurenatclemson via Flickr

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations.
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