Hung on a custom-built frame, each plant module is lined with a layer of fabric and periodically watered by its own irrigation nozzle, which can be adjusted to suit the plants’ individual needs. The modules also include holes for easy drainage, and if a plant needs special maintenance or has to be replaced, a module can be removed from the frame with ease.

“Having an easy way to maintain these vertical walls is very important, so the unit itself, it’s almost like designing the body of a car,” Ali said. “In this case, if you have a dent in your door, you don’t have to replace the whole car but only the door.”

Thinking about cars also offered a solution to one of the metal’s major drawbacks: its tendency to heat up. Graduate students spent time in a hot parking lot measuring the temperature of different cars, which led them to choose the cooler white and grey-blue colors that adorn all of the modules. All but 12, that is.

“Sometime at the end of the process, I thought about the 12th Man and Texas A&M and then the maroon,” Ali said. “This is where the 12 maroon units came from.”

In addition to its aesthetic value and contribution to campus biodiversity, Dvorak said the wall provides other benefits similar to those offered by green roofs.