apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The living wall at Pure Yoga on E. 86th St has seen better days, too. I think the scaffolding covering it for work on the tower above has had a harmful effect.

The Living Wall looks rather dead. Pretty grim. Maybe a backup irrigation system would help. I imagine this didn't happen overnight. It's too bad something wasn't done earlier.

No one ever said it was easy. Plants take a lot of love and care. I had a feeling these green vertical walls would be a nightmare!

What did they think would happen? Unless they have a lot of money, an expensive irrigation system, and have people come by weekly to maintain the wall, then of course it's going to die. Another good idea gone bad.

so much potential for beauty too :(

I was toying with the idea of installing a "living" wall somewhere around the house. Thanks for setting me straight on that.

With all the muss and fuss and care requirements, I don't know if you can really call this technology "sustainable" anymore. I also wonder how they chose the plants palette, and if their individual root systems and water requirements would prevent them from surviving a "vertical" environment anyways.

Leave it to building architects, all form over living thing function. {Take with a grain of salt, as this is coming from a bitter landscape architect (:}

the living wall is dead...yikes.

Beautiful, even in disrepair. If I was given such a gift I would do everything possible to keep it healthy and thriving.

forget the irrigation system, it sounds like the building is suffering from faulty or improperly working architects.

There's a lot of mis-information here on living walls.The reason for failure is all speculation without knowing the construction details and specifications of the wall design and maintenance. Yes, living walls require irrigation and it would be completely imprudent to install a wall such as this without irrigation (still don't know if that were the case, but I doubt it). Secondly, perhaps the irrigation failed and maintenance were done accordingly, but again I cannot fathom an irrigation system failing on such a large scale, let alone without proper and quick remediation. Any maintenance failure falls on those responsible for such.

Now, green walls, like green roofs, can be sustainable if designed and maintained properly. They can prolong the life of the buildings they are installed on and provide increased insulation along with environmental benefits of added plant life. They can use gray water for irrigation or even collect rainwater in cisterns, therefore they help eliminate run-off and strains on the storm/sewer system.

Ultimately, this failure has greater impacts on the use of these living systems. It'll be interesting to see what the result of failure truly is, but needless to say, whoever is at fault has negatively impacted sustainable design through their negligence. This should never have happened.

I wonder if this indicates green walls are simply not sustainable in the long run? I would love to know more!

it doesn't rain enough in the uk to keep these plants alive? i used to live there. it rains alot. ;) plant selection may also have been an issue. but if the irrigation failed, bye-bye greenery!