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The plants in a new medical school building in Lebanon are not there simply for aesthetics; they are part of a unique filtration system that detoxifies the air coming out of the HVAC system.

In the first building of its new satellite campus in Lebanon, installed a 300-square-foot living wall. The system created by draws air from the HVAC system through the plants in order to clean the air.

鈥淎 lot of people doing these just make a wall of plants, but this system is really part of an integrated approach to use natural materials to truly purify the air in the building,鈥� said Marcus Schiff of , the Portland-based firm that designed the facility.

In the 鈥渢rue living wall,鈥� as Schiff called it, a water reservoir at the bottom of the wall lifts water to the top of the growth media, and then water flows down at the same time that air is drawn through the plants. When contaminated air goes through the roots, chemicals and toxins such as benzene and formaldehyde are removed by microbes in the wall.

鈥淚t’s like a self-cleaning sponge,鈥� said Alan Darlington, president and founder of Nedlaw Living Walls, a Canadian company. 鈥淭he garbage is pulled out and biological components break it down into benign constituents.鈥�

Over the course of its life, the living wall can remove pounds or gallons of toxins, Darlington said, and ultimately reduce contaminants in buildings by up to 30 percent.

Darlington began working on the idea for the living wall system as a researcher at the Controlled Environment Systems research facility at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada. He then started his own company in 2000. Nedlaw Living Walls’ first West Coast project was the one in Lebanon, but the company is taking on projects around the U.S.

鈥淭hese aren’t just pretty plants,鈥� Darlington said. 鈥淎s far as I know, we’re the first ones taking living walls and trying to make them into a machine that really works to clean the air.鈥�

鈥淕reen Spotlight鈥� is a weekly feature on local firms’ best sustainable projects. To submit a project, email [email protected] or call 503-802-7226.