‘Living Pillars’ are making their appearance around London but you may be asking yourself, what are they exactly?
Many of you may have heard of ‘Living Walls’. They are often found in urban environments on the sides of houses, hotels, office buildings, and are walls covered with plants. Living walls have numerous benefits – not only do they improve the air quality by trapping pollution at street level, but they also increase biodiversity. Cities by their nature are covered in concrete, which traps heat and exacerbates increases in temperature. Living walls mitigate this heat by removing solar radiation, and make for a cooler & more comfortable urban environment.
Finding walls to accommodate a living wall can be hard to come by, but Living Pillars aim to make this concept easier to implement. The company Scotscape Limited is behind the brilliant engineering idea of the LivingPillar™. The wall of plants is wrapped around a lamp post rather than a wall and, although smaller in square meterage, has the same advantages as a living wall. The living pillars increase biodiversity and provide living corridors within cities. Furthermore these living pillars trap fine particles and mitigate air pollution. They help make our cities greener, which is known to benefit mental health and general well-being.
As you can see, Living Pillars are a wonderful addition to our cities, and we are thrilled to have two about to be installed in Balham on Bedford Hill! You can see more of Scotscape’s work through their website here.
Have you seen any Living Walls or Living Pillars recently? Send us your photos of your favourite Living Pillars through the hashtag: #BeautifyBalham.
– Justine and the Beautify Balham Team