Pittsburgh gets its own Green Monster

PNC's green wall in downtown Pittsburgh.

(Credit: PNC)

On Tuesday PNC Financial Services Group unveiled what it claims to be the "largest green wall in North America."

Certainly, the wall is taller and "greener" than Fenway Park's famous 37-foot-high Green Monster in Boston.

The PNC wall is a living, breathing wall of plants spanning 2,380 square feet on the south side of the bank's Pittsburgh headquarters, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Wood Street. The wall is made up of 602 two-foot square panels. Each panel contains 24 evergreen plants.

"The vertical garden, similar to a green roof, will help to cool the 30-story building. Preliminary studies show the south-facing living wall will be 25 percent cooler behind the wall than ambient temperatures," PNC said in a statement.

Currently, the wall is shades of green with darker green plants placed to create the bank's logo, but this spring some of the evergreen plants will bloom creating more color and changing the design.

The wall, similar in functionality to a green roof, was designed by Kari Katzander of Mingo Design, and built by Green Living Technologies and Cenkner Engineering Associates.

[ywkhgqo]

I go to Pitt and walked by that building the other day, and its quite impressive. I'm interested to see how it gets watered though.

[Electro_Fox]

Or the "Mission: Impossible" style of gantry-based landscaping... Look! It's a vertical Guatemalan gardener!

[ledhead1962]

How cool is that (pun intended)?!?

[cloudmatt]

lol just in time for the G-20.

[ArtInvent]

Interesting, but greenwash. A nice R50 layer of dirt cheap closed cell insulation on that building wall would probably be cooler (and warmer in the winter) and cost a tiny fraction of a vertical garden and have zero maintenance.

Let's be green, but let's be smart about it.

[DontDrinktheKoolAid]

"A nice R50 layer..." = more oil-based products and it certainly would not have the aesthic qualities of this green wall nor would it have the life-giving properties of living breathing plants. In my opinion this solution of the green wall is being smart about it...

[SlimGem]

I'm gonna do this to my house.

[shootfirst]

So question what happens to said wall when winter hits? Seems like a lot of upkeep to keep a building cool when an actual tree could do the same thing.

[markhh1]

what does 25% cooler actually mean or is it just one of those made up figures to sound like it is scientific? Say it is 30 degrees Celsius (degC), which is 303 degrees Kelvin (degK) outside is it 25% less than 30degC or 303degK? Does this wall magically reduce the temperature to 22.5degC or 227degK? If the later then please advise the workers to bring their ski jackets and gloves and turn the heater.

[GreenApplePie]

I would direct interested readers to an important article written about the PNC Green Wall.
The URL is: http://greenapple.ca/blog/2009/10/29/green-wall-or-green-wash/