Hendon children helped bring to life a ‘living wall’ as part of a university’s efforts to keep urban spaces green.

Middlesex University’s Ritterman building, unveiled earlier this month, is draped in a variety of plant life along one side as well as an environmentally-friendly, bio-diverse green living roof, solar panels to generate electricity and energy efficient lighting controls.

Pupils from St Mary’s & St John’s and Sunnyfields primary schools were invited on to the university’s Burroughs campus to plant seeds for a ‘gutter garden’ which will accompany the living wall.

The garden will be grown and then moved to the two schools so the pupils can continue to learn about urban gardening.

The university’s bioscience and biomedical science senior lecturer Dr Dirk Wildeboer led an interactive session to show how plants help to clean urban air and prevent flooding.

Treebox, the company who provided the living wall, hosted the event.

Armando Raish, managing director of Treebox, said: “The living wall, containing some 3,500 plants, provides a visual representation of what the building stands for, exhibiting how technology can combine with nature to achieve smart sustainable design.

“We look forward to watching this wall change with the seasons and become more established as the years progress.”