A stunning interior living wall installation by GSky Plant Systems Inc.
Who doesn’t want more greenery in their lives? Plants enrich our lives in a multitude of ways; they help to clean our air, they beautify our interior and exterior environments and aid in our general well-being to name a few. A growing trend is incorporating living or green walls to both indoor and outdoor environments. Speaking from a commercial interior design point of view, living walls enhance healthy indoor air quality, reduce energy costs when applied to the exterior facade or roof of a building, and have been proven to increase employee productivity.
Part 5 of our locally manufactured materials series introduces you to three great companies manufacturing products to green up your spaces.
If you’re behind, read up on parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Green Roofs
Green roof technology has come a long way. Not only do they beautify our cities, they also have many ecological and economical benefits. One of the obvious advantages is the cooling and humidifying effect they have, reducing energy use and utility bills.
Architek
Architek, with offices in Vancouver and Seattle, offers a variety of sustainable building systems including solar power, rainwater harvesting, and, as we will focus on, green roofs. They use a tried, tested and true system by ZinCo Green Roofs Canada which can be implemented in just about any Canadian climate. Not only do they design the systems, they also offer installation and maintenance to provide their clients with a product they 100% stand behind.
Architek supplied the materials and expertise to complete this complicated green roof design for VanDusen Visitor Center.
Living Walls
Living walls have been gaining popularity over the past 10 years and are a great addition to interior or exterior environments. Plant selection is done based on the application, but we really like the idea of sticking to those native to your area, especially for outdoor installations. You can be as creative as you want with living walls; introduce different colours, design a custom pattern, or keep it simple with minimal plant variety.
GSky Plant Systems Inc.
GSky, located in Vancouver, has been in the living wall business since 2004 and have completed several large installations for some pretty big name companies. Their mission is “to enrich people’s lives and improve the quality of the urban environment by integrating plants into space in which we live, work and play”.
GSky has completed many beautiful interior and exterior living wall installations.
Living Frames
A really cool and unique option for greening up your interior space is to hang it on the wall as an art piece. We think this is a great option for those who cannot commit to the full living wall concept.
Urban Foliage
Urban Foliage is owned and operated out of Vancouver by a horticulture engineer/designer who understands the importance and benefits of introducing plants into the spaces we live and work. They manufacture “Green Modules”, the first of its kind in North America. These Living Frames are fully customizable and all materials are sourced locally. You can plug in a variety of plant species, even moss and fungi, to create a living piece of art. They are relatively easy to maintain and are designed to easily tell the occupants of the space when water is needed.
Above are a couple of living frame installations by Urban Foliage in commercial settings.
Have a favourite local manufacturer? Let us know and we may feature them in an upcoming entry.