Living Walls in Public Spaces. A Conversation on the Accessibility of this New Art Form.

Living Walls are one of the 21st century’s great new art forms, representing a future where nature, technology, and humanity thrive together. Over the past 10 years these living murals of plants, some covering entire walls, have been making an appearance in new developments, offices, and shopping centers around the world.

These vertical gardens are a physical representation of the beauty and harmony that can be created when Nature, Technology, and Human Ingenuity come together. When located in public spaces, living walls serve to inspire any onlooker to the possibility of a greener, more sustainable future, while also cleaning the air and acting as a hub of biodiversity.

However, the cost of these installations is often a limiting factor, making it unrealistic for most communities to afford. Living Walls feature fully automated irrigation systems that keep thousands of plants alive, from a wide variety of species, specially chosen for that climate. These installations can be hundreds of feet tall and wide; some are free-standing, while others are integrated parts of the building. The specialized nature and combination of skills required for a successful large-scale installation can be daunting. Knowledge of Botany, Engineering, Construction, Building systems, and an artistic touch are all vital to the success of a large living wall project.

Due to this complexity, only a few number of companies will even attempt, not to mention, successfully pull off, a large living wall installation. This has kept the price of living walls high and rising in most areas. As a result, living walls are most likely found in wealthy communities and where cost is not as much an obstacle. While it is important for these parts of society to support this new artform and be inspired towards a more sustainable future; it is equally as important that those who are not as fortunate, be exposed to this form of art that presents nature in an exciting and accessible way.

When access to this art form is emphasized as opposed to the amount one can charge for their installation, it does become possible to make these public living walls accessible lower-income areas. However, to do this effectively, providing the highest quality installation at the lowest price, the accessibility of this unique art form would need to be the mission of a charitable nonprofit organization. This is exactly what we did at Urban Blooms.

In order to focus on the quality of our living walls and the accessibility, we founded Urban Blooms in 2014 as a nonprofit organization focused on bringing living walls to communities of all types. This approach has led us to becoming a full service living wall company that: designs the living wall, constructs the wall custom on-site, installs the plant material, and maintains the wall. Keeping all of these services in-house allows us to keep the price of the installation down and to develop a mastery over all aspects of our installations. We do some outsourcing for the maintenance of projects in other cities. As a result, we can offer our living wall installations at about half the cost of for-profit competitors.

This low-cost high-quality solution for custom living walls has become very appealing to customers of all types across the Midwest and has led to the request for commercial and residential living walls. These commercial projects represent a revenue source that allows Urban Blooms to cover its operating expenses. This success has allowed Urban Blooms to offer even more affordable public living walls to communities through our GROW matching funds program. Through this program, communities can have custom living walls constructed for the low price of around $60/sqft about 1/4th of what these walls will be sold for by for-profit competitors.  Best of all, they get to decide where in the community the wall is built.

The response from the low-income neighborhoods where we have brought these public living walls has been incredible. Schools in the area use the living wall as an outdoor classroom to teach about nature, while the beautification committee brags about the wall and all of its butterflies to other neighborhoods. Words of encouragement and thanks came from community members who could see the value the living wall brought to their community and who were glad that some attention was being paid to their neighborhood.

This “matching fund” model has led to three large public living walls over the past few years. The low-income neighborhood of Bond Hill, the college neighborhood of Coryville, and the rebounding City of Covington, KY. This model has been limited in growth due to the lack of funding in midwestern cities for public art installations, beautification, and sustainable improvements. We are actively seeking foundations and individuals who would like to help support this program and help us bring Public Living Walls to communities across the US.