Could it be the owners are not involved in greening up their offices? And are not aware of the advantages for the employees having green in offices?
Almost 20 years have passed since the botanist Patrick Blanc realized his first brilliant indoor Vertical Gardens. Since then the concept of Plant Wall developed offering more flexible and less “demanding” solutions.
Today is possible to literally frame a corporate garden and hang it on a wall, and also to create an office vertical vegetable garden.
We asked Hans Westerduin, Mobilane manager and commercial partner of Suite Plants, to tell us about the benefits of a “green office” and specifically of an original sistem named “Power of Plants” which is cleverly able to integrate the office needing of walkable area and a green environment. (The italian supplier is HW Style).
On which studies is Power of Plants based?
Studies by famous institutes like NASA, University of Harvard and other Universities have shown how the presence of plants in a work environment brings a lot of benefits and in particular a productivity gain, less absenteeism, less health problems and a better sense of well-being.
The problem so far was that it was impossible to increase this green presence in the offices because of the lack of walkable areas.
Can you give us an example of this studies?
This studies include different fields. NASA, for example, has run air controls in indoor environment where plants where arranged, founding that several common species of indoor plants have the ability to remove compounds such as benzene and hexane in the range of 50% to 75% of the total volatile organic compounds. Other experiments have focused, instead, on a social-anthropological aspect of the problem, showing that both women and men demonstrate more innovative thinking, generating more ideas and original solutions to problems in a office environment that includes flowers and plants.
What is your opinion about this results?
Humans have a natural love for plants and green environment. The Biologist Ed Wilson of Harvard University has named it “Biophilia”. It has been demonstrated by several experiments run by Steelcase, Inc., a popular manufacturer of office furnishings, that the 42% of office employees brings their own plants to personalize their workplace.
LifePicture, LifeDivider and LifePanel, the three “shapes” of Power of Plants, are not just about making the office more green. It’s also about design.
Absolutely yes. We have thought about giving the chance to our customer to choose among different kind of plants and to personalize the frames. Most of all LifePicture: I think it can be considered a bridge between art and plants.
Text by Gabriele Masi
