The ''Back to Eden'' living wall by Michigan horticulturalist Dave MacKenzie stretched 11 ft. by 130 ft. (1,430 sq. ft.) on the Big Old Building in Grand Rapids. The LiveWall system ''mural'' was on display from Sept. 18 to Oct. 6. The plantings included hot pink New Guinea impatiens, red double-begonias, pineapple coleus and even ripe strawberries and green peppers.

The public vote grand prize went to Ann Loveless for ''Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore,'' a landscape art quilt of the Lake Michigan shoreline. The work is four individual panels depicting a beach scene as a panoramic view.

The living wall system displayed in Grand Rapids, Mich. for the ArtPrize 2013 competition by horticulturalist Dave MacKenzie took about two and one-half weeks to construct and another week to plant. It comprised over 2,500 plants and about 60 different varieties of plants, with the various colors and textures tied together with a tendril of purple vining running through it.

MacKenzie, president of Hortech, the Spring Lake-based nursery and plant wholesaler that designs and manufactures LiveWall and LiveRoof, said the wall was intended as a ''colorful, beautiful, thought-provoking tribute to living-architecture visionaries like Will McDonough, John Todd and Malcolm Wells.''

The wall was also meant to showcase the benefits of living architecture in the urban setting. A living wall sequesters carbon, purifies air, muffles noise, energy consumption, can be a stress reliever and can provide food for people and wildlife. It can accomplish all that, while transforming a building or wall into a living canvas.

MacKenzie said ''Back to Eden'' was perfectly aligned with his ''gray to green'' philosophy, rendering the restaurant's refuse dumpsters behind it invisible from sight and smell.

The wall was lighted at night, and automatically watered once a day for one minute.

''Back to Eden'' was voted by the public in the Top 25 of over 1,500 entries.

ArtPrize (www.artprize.org) is an annual international art competition. For 19 days, three square miles of downtown Grand Rapids, Mich. becomes an open playing field of art that is free and open to the public. ArtPrize distributed $560,000 in total cash prizes"?u$360,000 awarded to the public vote winner, and $200,000 to the jury awarded art piece.