Influence of green walls on thermal performance of buildings

• Grant number: 12/18717-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2012
• End date: August 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Architecture and Urbanism Technology
• Principal Investigator: Lucila Chebel Labaki
• Grantee: Fernando Durso Neves Caetano
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FEC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The awareness of environmental problems arising from the strong urbanization process has led to a search for cleaner technology alternatives in favor of sustainable urban development. In this context, the use of vegetation as passive comfort strategy assumes a central role in view of its ability to thermal mitigation due to shading and evapotranspiration. However, due to high speculation and disputes over urban land use, it is not always possible to create spaces to facilitate deployment of vegetation with a significant environmental impact, so the search for alternative possibilities that enable easy insertion of vegetation in cities brings out a niche for building technologies that utilize the envelope of buildings to add to greenery to promote environmental comfort in urban and building scale. From this perspective, and aware of its global expansion and high thermal mitigation potential for tropical climates, the subject of this research is the technologies for green walls, with the objective to assess their influence on indoor thermal comfort. The research will be held in Campinas, at the University campus. The proposed methodology comprises a comparative experiment, where two similar buildings will be chosen at the Campus, one of them will receive a living wall system, while the other will have only its envelope of conventional masonry. Measurements of environmental parameters will be performed, and calculated thermal comfort indices, comparing the results for the two environments. The expected survey results will allow to demonstrate the efficiency of the system to promote thermal comfortable and energy efficient environments.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

CAETANO, Fernando Durso Neves. Influence of living walls on the thermal performance of buildings. 2014. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo Campinas, SP.