A Biomimicry Approach on an Architectural Design and Planning Case Study: The Application of Photovoltaic and Green Roof Technologies

Abstract

This paper presents the study of the integration of Photovoltaic (PV) module and green roof on a building. Essentially, this integration could be considered as an extend understanding of a concept, namely “Biomimicry”. Biomimicry, in brief, is an approach that mimics the philosophy of flora, fauna or entire ecosystems and these are emulated as a basis for design. The implementation of this approach in this project is to utilize photovoltaic and green roof as a part of a building in terms of imitating the plant biological activity. To accommodate the process of that implementation, a simulation study was conducted by using software called “EnergyPlus”. The simulation focused on investigating heat transfer over those two technologies. The deliverables of this study are the electricity production and the surface temperature reduction. A comparison study on energy transfer is also presented here to illustrate the application of the biomimicry concept on an architectural design.