The Living Urban Matrix: Ivy on Brick Walls

“Look at the ivy on the cold clinging wall,

Look at the flowers and the green grass so tall;

It’s not a matter of when push comes to shove,

It’s just an hour on the wings of a dove.”

                        --Van Morrison

Photo: Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is used by many birds and mammals for food and habitat. (Brzuszek, 2016)

Bricks are fired handfuls of soil that once nurtured generations of grasses, shrubs and wildflowers. Now they lie dormant in plumb level rows between thin sheets of cold building mortar. Do they dream of a day to once again nurture life for an emerging seed? Maybe the ivy, used here as a general term for ivy-like things, senses this time-honored plant + soil relationship and creeps across the brick in a lover’s touch. Bricks support ivy so that its leaves can reach the sky and in return ivy drapes the building in a lace skin, cooling it to the touch in the hot summer sun.

Living Urban Matrix Element: Ivy on brick walls

Habitat: on buildings everywhere

Ecological services: the cooling of structures (2014 research by C. Bolton, et al, found that ivy coverings averaged 1.4 degrees Celsius warming at night, with 1.7 degrees Celsius cooling in day—resulting in an 8% energy savings ((Building and Environment 80:32–35, October 2014)). Plants also absorb rain water that ameliorates stormwater flooding (Living Architecture: Green Roofs and Walls, 2011, CSIRO Publishing).

Biodiversity values: creates excellent habitat and nesting for wildlife throughout the year for “many species of birds, insects and small mammals” (http://www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org/sites/default/files/ivy_0.pdf)