Green facades and roofs have become a popular option for modern buildings.
June 30, 2011
Green facades and roofs have become a popular option for modern buildings.
Facades provide numerous benefits for buildings. Marc Ottelé, a researcher from Delft University of Technology, found that green walls can improve the insulation properties of buildings and reduce the number of air pollutants such as fine dust and carbon dioxide.
“With image manipulating software and recordings taken by an electron microscope, we succeeded in investigating fine dust particles directly on the leaves,” Ottelé states in his thesis “We can also identify the size and the number of particles.”
Smaller dust particles are often inhaled deep into the respiratory tract causing health problems. Ottelé believes that this accumulation of fine dust particles on the leaf surfaces has the ability to improve public health by keeping dust out of the air.
Ottelé's research also showed that green walls reduce ambient wind speed and have the ability to insulate buildings.
“Although applying vertical green is not a new concept, the integration of vegetation could be a sustainable option for the envelope of new and existing buildings,” says Ottelé.
