article · Results in Engineering
This research evaluates the use of vertical green walls in educational buildings, using the campus of the Universities of Canada in Egypt as a case study. By integrating living walls into indoor corridors and inner courtyards, the study investigates ways to reduce heat, enhance indoor air quality, curb noise pollution, and support student engagement with natural environments. Using the Design-Builder simulation software, performance was modelled during the peak heat of August at 2:00 p.m. The simulated installations reduced building cooling loads by 10.95 to 19.14 percent and heating loads by 4.8 to 12.94 percent. Furthermore, the green walls lowered carbon dioxide emissions by 13 to 28.43 percent and decreased monthly electricity bills by 35 to 41.5 percent, demonstrating their viability as a sustainable intervention for managing energy demands.
Educational facilities consume substantial amounts of energy to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures during extreme heat. Installing vertical green walls provides a nature-based solution that noticeably cuts electricity expenses, cools interior spaces, and reduces emissions. Additionally, introducing accessible plant systems into corridors fosters healthier learning environments, helping students connect directly with ecology and sustainability in their everyday surroundings.
This research provides applied simulation data relevant to architectural designers, green building contractors, and university facilities managers aiming to reduce operating costs. While tested on a specific university campus through software modelling, the quantifiable reductions in energy consumption and carbon emissions offer clear performance metrics for commercial living wall providers. The work represents an applied concept ready to guide technical retrofits and new institutional designs.
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Developing Green Walls (GW) within the architectural realm involves integration of diverse functions to optimize the indoor performance of the GW, and outdoor in campus buildings. The methodology is fundamentally rooted in the selection and fulfillment of strategic incorporation of additional function-based GW design to various performance aspects through contextual design solutions. This approach is particularly crucial in the education sector, on utilizing GW to educate students as occupants in integrating gardening, ecology, botany, and beyond in their studies for decreasing the environmental pollution for new generations, to feel by environment indoor in accomplishing way for sustainability perceptions. The aim of the study is to assess the effective resources influencing vertical green walls needed for educational buildings to reduce the effect of indoor heat, to upgrade its air quality, simultaneously decreasing noise pollution to avoid the energy consumption. The Educational GW should be accessible easily, either by installing them naturally in accessible locations with appropriate heights or by designing the facilities to increase the student's integration with GW natural environment that will reflect on their academic progress and health. The study aims to assess the effect of green wall installation in the universities of Canada in Egypt campus in the heat gain reduction, energy consumption, CO2 emission reduction by using the Design-Builder simulation program to measure the effect of green wall installation in corridors and inner courtyard at the hottest period of the year (August 2:00 p.m.) and how it can decrease the cooling loads by 10.95 %:19.14 %, heating loads by 4.8 %:12.94 %, CO2 emission by 13 %:28.43 % and the monthly electricity bill by 35:41.5 % measuring the vertical greening cost in relative to short and long period as a needed sustainable technology to reduce building demand significantly.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.rineng.2024.101838
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