Leading green screen company Mobilane is breathing fresh air indoors and out with the launch of its latest innovation, LivePicture – a framed arrangement of plants that can be hung on either interior or exterior walls.
The living ‘picture’ creates a striking, space-saving focal point, as well as offering a natural way to improve air quality.
Mobilane has created LivePicture to meet the increasing demand for inventive ways to use plants, which have long been valued for the health benefits and sense of wellbeing they bring but which, in traditionally planted schemes, can take up valuable space.
Sean Farrell, director of Mobilane, commented: “Indoor planting no longer simply means potted plants; our LivePanels – living interior walls - have been well received by the interior design and construction sectors, and orders for our Living Walls – living exterior walls – are strong. Now LivePicture offers something similar but in a more concentrated way that can be used in a diverse range of spaces offering a sustainable, cost effective way of incorporating greenery into the built environment.”
Each LivePicture features a specially developed nutritionally balanced mineral substrate able to support a wide variety of plant types, depending on available lighting and level of maintenance needed. Measuring 112cm wide (plus 0.5cm for the frame), by 72cm (plus 0.5cm for the frame), the frame is 10cm deep and incorporates a built-in reservoir. The picture, which weighs around 30kg, is attached to the wall with three bolts; it requires no power, no water supply or drainage system, and only needs watering once a month.
For a compact product, the health benefits of LivePicture are broad. Inadequate air conditioning, ventilation, emissions from computers, printers and paint all contribute towards indoor levels of carbon dioxide and particulate pollutants, while outdoor levels of pollution can be exceptionally high in urban areas. To counteract this, plants can provide a pleasant humidity; remove carbon dioxide and particulate pollutants. In addition, research has shown that plants can reduce stress, improve mood and, in the case of indoor planting, increase productivity in the workplace.
Sean Farrell added: “As well as providing cleaner air and health benefits, LivePicture also creates an immediate, and ongoing, talking point. The long-lived display offers a complete sensory experience through touch, taste (in the case of herbs), sight, sound (rustling leaves) and smell as the plants grow, flower and fruit. By lifting people’s mood, and creating the very air we breathe, LivePicture can enliven practically any bare wall.”
