Demolition turned Delight

The environmentally-minded designers at Barcelona firm Capella Garcia Arquitectura take the idea of “green living” to heart. Their latest project is a makeover of an unsightly building demolition.

The progress at Green Side Wall

Completed in March, the “Green Side-Wall,” promoted by the Barcelona City Council, is a foray into what the firm has christened “vegitecture,” or a vertical garden with emphasis on the structure's original architecture.

The main material responsible for bringing a breath of fresh air to the residential area: 
Plants—oxygen-producing, living green that cascades down the once plain wall.

What if all buildings of the future look like this?

Read more via Good Magazine here or on Capella's site here.
-Katie @KatieGMG

Urban farming meets Cyber-Gardening

Image via EcoLogicStudio

A decaying fishing industry in the Baltic sea and two digitally obsessed architects from EcoLogicStudio have created an interactive exhibit, "The Hanging Algae Garden," aimed at educating people about the benefits of algae.

GOOD describes how this interactive exhibit works: 

Image via EcoLogicStudio

"Each bag connects to a blow-tube, where visitors can exhale to feed the system carbon dioxide and help the plants grow. Using smartphones, participants in this strange experiment scan QR codes on each bag to discover information about the nine different types of algae, and can tweet about their actions. The digital engagement is mapped out on a nearby screen in real-time, a 3D visualization referred to by the project's creators as a "cyber-garden" that demonstrates the evolution of the ecosystem and the relationship between plants and humans." 

Claudia Pasquero, who helped create the exhibit says "the project makes you think about farming and gardening, but there is another level where knowledge can be disseminated and exchanged, and it's a virtual cultivation of knowledge."  

Read more about how the physical and virtual worlds collide here. And let's discuss, do you think this is a good teaching tool for how we can help effect the growth of plants?
@KatieGMG Garden Media Group