Experimental study of the thermal performance of living walls under semiarid climatic conditions

Abstract

Each year, urban populations become larger and new buildings are needed to house them; consequently, urban green areas are reduced and hard surface density in cities is increased all over the planet. This increase in hard surfaces, such as concrete and metal, is one of the main responsible for the increment of urban temperatures, also known as the urban heat island effect, and its associated problems. Nowadays, many studies focus on searching solutions to this issue, and living walls arise as a potential answer to reduce urban temperatures. This paper presents a comparison of the surface temperature behavior of two living walls and two traditional walls construction systems under semiarid climatic conditions. The results show that reductions of wall surface temperatures up to 30 °C are achieved when using living walls. Therefore, this technology presents an interest potential to contribute mitigating urban heat island effects.