Many big cities share the same characteristic of tight lots and side yards with little room to grow plants and unsightly views of neighboring homes as close as a few feet away. In the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, we found this amazingly graphic and clever solution - a vertical garden that changes with the seasons...
Taking inspiration from the vertical gardens of Patrick Blanc, this house has a formal style gridded pattern on the long south facing wall using modular containers. The garden has been designed so that the pattern will remain the same throughout the year, but the plants will change with the seasons, thus the garden will be ever evolving.
After the first year of establishment the garden will need very little maintenance, it looks great and provides a super cool green space for an urban lot.
(Images: Rachel Wray)
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Ugh. I grew up in Lincoln Park and, quite frankly, houses like this pain me. Yes, living walls are lovely...blah, blah, blah. But it would be so much greener to just renovate one of the many BEAUTIFUL (but, alas, not mansion huge) brick townhouses or apartments that give the neighborhood its real character. I have yet to see one of these new homes on the north or west sides look anything except out-of-place (the brick is never the right color) and soul-less.
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I'm in love with living walls ever since I traveled to England ages ago and saw them everywhere and anywhere that vines met housing structures. It looks so earthy and far more beautiful in my humble opinion than just using paint. If anyone questions the beauty, just take a look at this article which shows some more amazing pictures of highly structured living walls across the world (http://bit.ly/9KG1O)
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