The Impact of Orientation on Living Wall Façade Temperature: Manchester Case Study

Yun Gao (), Ensiyeh Farrokhirad and Adrian Pitts
Additional contact information
Yun Gao: Department of Design and Built Environment, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
Ensiyeh Farrokhirad: Department of Design and Built Environment, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
Adrian Pitts: Centre for Urban Design, Architecture and Sustainability, Department of Design and Built Environment, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 14, 1-24

Abstract: Living walls are a nature-based strategy to enhance climate resilience in urban areas. There is a need to study the possible influence of living walls on the thermal performance of building façades, given the rising temperatures in 2022 across the UK. This study aims to analyze the impacts of living walls on façade temperature based on orientation variation through simulation Envi-met 5.0.3. software. The living wall studied is attached to a multistory building located in Manchester city center consisting of seven evergreen plants. An environmental simulation was carried out linked to the 2022 climate, including extremely hot and cold days. Four scenarios of façades with and without greening on the northwest and southeast orientations in summer and winter were analyzed. The results highlighted the living wall’s ability to reduce the surface temperatures on both the northwest and southeast façades on a hot summer day. There is no significant evidence of improvement for the northwest façade in the winter climate, but a modestly increased temperature is shown in the southeast compared to the bare wall. These findings indicate that living walls provide measurable advantages in the building envelope, leading to energy saving.

Keywords: living wall; orientation; façade surface temperature; nature-based solution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11109/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11109/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11109-:d:1195570

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().