In the 1980s, NASA began studying the effects of houseplants on indoor air quality. Researchers were looking for ways to improve the air inside the closed environment of a space station. Results, published in 1989, said that “plants can play a major role in removal of organic chemicals,” including benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde, from indoor air.
This means that in addition to extracting carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen—as all plants do—some plants can pull more fumes and pollutants from the air. It’s an exciting promise that few companies are taking full advantage of.
Around the same time as the NASA study, a French botanist named Patrick Blanc began developing the concept of the “vertical garden”—a collection of green plants, artistically arranged on the face of a wall or other vertical structure. The vertical garden is also known as a green wall, ecowall, green façade or living wall.