Living-wall Integrated Facades: Incorporating Energy Performance Evaluation in the Design Process Using Digital Simulation
The study proposes a digital simulation-based workflow for assessing the energy performance of façade-integrated green walls to support the current practice of empirical knowledge based intuitive design. The study focuses on “living walls,” which are a specific type of green wall where the plant, substrate and structural support are directly integrated with the building wall. Studies prove that the thermal potential of vegetation integrated walls varies with climate type and context requiring case-by-case assessment and informed design decisions can significantly reduce building energy consumption. Due to the complex biological properties of vegetation, building information modeling (BIM) or building energy performance simulation (BEPS) programs do not yet include specific assessment tools for green walls. This limits the scope of performance-based evaluation at the early design phase. Most of the studies on thermal benefits are experimental or mathematical model-based calculations which are not suitable for architects and designers. Few studies have been done using building simulation programs where various modeling techniques are self-developed by researchers due to the lack of dedicated simulation tools. These studies are confined to simulation programs only and rarely combined with digital design platforms which is addressed in this study. In this regard, within the limitations of the current simulation tools, this study adapts the ‘Green-roof’ module of the widely used simulation engine Energy-Plus based on previous studies as this plug-in includes plants’ biological properties in the simulation. The workflow can be updated through future research with the advent of further developed dedicated simulation tool for nature-based design
Project Link
https://youtu.be/J0b8tPxVlxI
Advisers/Committee
