GREEN: Living wall breathes life into historic building in Ohio City

Flip a rain garden 90 degrees and what could you get? Something both striking and functional.

One beneficiary of the District’s Green Infrastructure Grant Program is the Striebinger Block building on West 29th Street in Ohio City.

The 1919 building boasts a “living wall” that is fed by rainwater collected from the roof and held in ground-level cisterns. During dry weather, the water is pumped up to plants mounted on the brick façade. Catch basins at the bottom of the wall also capture and recirculate water back to the cisterns.

The Living Wall joins other District-funded green infrastructure projects in Ohio City, including rain gardens at Transformer Station (also on W. 29th) and the nearly-completed West Side Market parking lot. Together, these projects are taking advantage of Ohio City’s redevelopment activity and great soils to promote on-site stormwater management and reduce stormwater in the combined sewer system.

Story by Yolanda Kelly and Michael Uva

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• GREEN: 6 ways green infrastructure is taking root in Cleveland
• PROJECTS: 7 things to know about green infrastructure work in East Cleveland
• FUNDING: Funding opportunities for watershed groups and green infrastructure projects

NEWS: Green commitment in Cleveland's Public Square renovation improves drainage, manages stormwater

UPDATE 2015 03/09: It all begins today. Roads closed officially at 6:00 a.m. this morning. This story took a closer look at some of the green-infrastructure components of the work that will take shape under and on the surface of the Cleveland Public Square renovation scheduled for completion in 2016.

On October 2, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District Trustees approved a $3 million installment grant for the Public Square Renovation Project, a contribution that will increase the square's greenspace and sustainability.

"Public Square is the heart of Downtown Cleveland," said Julius Ciaccia, Executive Director of the Sewer District. "We’re excited to be able to connect our clean water work to the makeover of this historic, popular and heavily traveled area."

FLUSH: China has a waterfall made of toilet bowls. Of course it does.

We've seen toilet bowls turned into planters, tricycles, and bathroom mirrors, but in China, hundreds of recycled toilet bowls have been turned into a waterfall.



The construction of it looks amazing, and it's all operated by a single flush.

We see this as a great education opportunity to teach about the urban water cycle: The water that fills these hundreds of bowls flows down and through and back up to the top to be flushed again.