Urban farming and vertical gardens are popping up throughout cities across the world. Wild designs featuring green walls can be seen in the top architecture magazines, some standouts being the Vertical Park by Jorge Hernandez de la Garza and Daniel Libeskind’s Sky Garden condo building. The designs are exciting because they bring vegetation to the forefront of design, as opposed to an afterthought by an unappreciated landscape architect.

Lifewall. Designed by Emilio Llobat.

Ceracasa is a Spanish company that is working to make literal “green” architecture easier. Created by architect Emilio Llobat of Maqla Architects, Azahar Energy and Ceracasa, Lifewall building facade tile is a system of 1 sq. meter panels that support plant life to create a vegetated facade. If you’ve ever wanted to grow Chia Pet of monumental proportions, Lifewall makes that possible.

Lifewall is meant to be paired with another Ceracasa product called Bionictile. Bionictile is a ceramic facade tile that’s available in shades of white, ivory, tobacco, and gray. The porcelain Bionictile tiles work to soak up polluting nitrogen oxide from the air by using the sun’s UV rays and moisture. Bionictile is designed with a patented smalt component which transforms harmful NOx particles into nitrate fertilizer, which can be used by the plants supported by the Lifewall tiles.

Test have concluded that an estimation of 200 buildings coated by ceramic BIONICTILE, would decontaminate an equivalent volume of 2,638 million of m3 of air per year. Or in other words, more than 400,000 people could breathe, within one year, air free of harmful NOx from vehicles and industries. Together Lifewall and Bionictile create a mini ecosystem which has the potential to solve many current issues with green walls. I have questions about maturation time and climate restrictions, but overall this is a product to watch.

via Jetson Green