The First Green Wall

9/12/2012

This building is so strange, so ludicrous, that it’s become a bit of a tourist attraction in Osaka, but it’s special to Slow Life because it may well be the first attempt to create a “living wall” – that is, a wall of plants. It’s called The Organic Building, and the architects Oguraya Yamamoto say they got their inspiration from Mesopotamia, by which I assume they mean the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

If it was intended to be an object of beauty it fails completely because the plants are held in what looks like air-conditioning ducts, which is wholly incongruous. But, 20 years on, the plants are not only alive, they are well looked after. I wonder how many of the living walls which are being made now will survive for two decades?

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About Slow Life

The idea of Slow Life is to take the principles of Slow Food, which are “good, clean and fair”, and extend them to life in general.

Here in the Lake District, the air is clean, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is calm. If we don’t grow food ourselves, we can buy it in friendly small shops, where you know the quality is going to be the best.

This blog is a celebration of the Slow Life, with forays into the world of design, music, the arts, gardens, and my particular weakness, Japan.