Sustainable design of vegetated structures: Building freshness

Abstract

City revegetation strategies seem appealing to mitigate urban heat island effects through shading and transpirational cooling. Moreover, other potential benefits that may derive, e.g. biodiversity enhancement, the reduction in buildings energy consumption, stormwater management, acoustic insulation or air purification, earned them the designation ‘no-regrets approaches’ for adapting to climate change. However, the lack of understanding and quantification of green infrastructures’ environmental impacts prevents urban planning policies to be consistent and to turn attractive initiatives to effective implementations. The monitoring of existing green infrastructures is required to evaluate their cooling effect. For this purpose, an elastic gridshell in composite materials has been designed as a support for climbing plants at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (Champs-sur-Marne, France). The life cycle assessment of the vegetated structure is performed in order to develop sustainable design strategies. Based on an energy balance approach, the collected thermo-hydric data can be used to determine which mechanisms are the most suitable for urban vegetation to enhance outdoor thermal comfort.