Green Office Building Wall…your kidding – right?

This has to take the cake…

An office building in Portland Or. that is planning to have an entire wall built as a vertical garden.  We first heard about this when one of our friends sent us a recent NYT article – “In Portland, Growing Vertical”

Now the truth is – I am not a green wall expert.  (I bet no one is….)  But I can say a few things off the top – (or side as the case may be…).  Green Building is an important notion.  Energy Efficiency as we all recognize is clearly a vastly under utilized tool in the fight against climate change.  Stopping the waste of energy and doing so in an economically responsible manor is a major goal of the Green building movement.  In our opinion – extreme – edge concepts are not helpful.  In fact they can have negative impacts never imagined by the folks (generally of good intent…) who start and promote them.  I am not sure of the cost for the green wall – or the up keep – but it will be far more then a conventional wall.  I am not sure how many homes in Portland could be put through a serious energy efficiency upgrade – for the same federal money – 5,000, 10,000 a lot.  I wonder what the actual energy cost savings is of the green wall vs alternative projects – homes or commercial energy retrofits.

It is hard enough to keep a horizonta lgarden healthy.  A wall on a large office building is not a single season exercise – it is 30 years, 50 years or more…

As a long time supporter of Green Buildings and the green movement – this seems like a bad idea.  And – especially if funded with tax payer money.  Should a commercial developer want to build green walls – Go For It!  But with tax dollars – please – no.