Green Facades: Can Vertical Gardens Provide Insulation for my Home?

 

What attractive and cost-effective solutions are there in building claddings and facades that also provide environmental benefits? Some form of this question often appears on building websites and print magazines, so an attempt will be made to answer it here.

 

In an interview with Environmental Design & Construction, James G. Hague, president of a professional consulting practice for the commercial metal wall and roof markets, said, “Although often selected on the basis of desired aesthetics, a building's exterior components can incorporate everything from recycled material to cool roof coatings and integrated thermal, moisture and daylight management systems.”

 

Many homeowners opt for green facades, which use living plant material on walls to beautify buildings, improve air quality and reduce energy costs. Ivy covered buildings have sustainable facades that block summer sunlight, but admit winter sunlight after the leaves have fallen. Modern green facades provide the same benefit, but the plants are supported on a second, lightweight structure instead of directly on the building. Steel cables or trellis usually support the climbers, holding the plants away from the building surface. The plant shoot system grows up the side of the building while being rooted to the ground.

 

Green facades can radically decrease the maximum temperatures of a building by shading walls from the sun. Façade greening can cut the daily temperature fluctuation by as much as 50 percent, a fact of great significance in warm-summer climate zones. The practice of green façade architecture is deep-rooted in parts of Europe, mainly, but not entirely, for decorative purposes.

 

The development of green facades is a deliberate manipulation of Mother Nature to maximize vegetation cover for the purpose of visual relief, building energy savings and other benefits. Finally, these vertical gardens have a big advantage over their horizontal counterparts: they are visible to the public, where a rooftop often is not.