Big city, smaller footprint: Our friends at EcoSalon explore a trend that's blurring the line between landscape design and modern architecture. 

The trend of vertical gardening is up, as is the rise of the jolly green skyscraper. Easy on the eyes and easier on the planet, the trend ofupward greenery is transforming our concrete jungles into ivied oases.

The Musee du Quai Branly in Paris is one such example, with some 8,600 vertical square footage dedicated to more than 170 different species of plants.

London’s Athenaeum, its tendrils and blossoms looming high over Piccadilly Circus, is another.

As watchers of modern eco architecture, of course, there does come a point when we ask what it is, exactly, we’re looking at. “Is it a man, or a plane,” spectators once wondered of Superman. “Man, or Astroman?” punk relics wondered way back in the 90s.

Similarly we ask: is it architecture, or vegitecture?

That’s what the Barcelona City Council and one Spanish firm are calling this, the Green Side-Wall, "represent[ing] the birth of a novel type of construction in the field of vegitecture.” Constructed upon the eyesore remnants of a demolished building, the green supporting protective façade was ...

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The Green Life is a Sierra Club Blog, featuring ideas for living well and doing good from Sierra magazine.