Impact of Green Wall Facade on Residential Building Users in Hot Climates - Famagusta Case

Today cities have fewer green areas because of newly constructed facilities thus the surfaces of our existing and upcoming buildings should integrate more vegetation. Integrating vertical green systems is advantageous for improving aesthetic, mental health and indoor thermal comfort. The use of a well-designed and managed green surface systems provides thermal regulation for energy saving buildings with passive thermal insulation for interior spaces. The aim of this study is to find innovative and meaningful ways to increase useful vegetation by implementing them into architectural design processes. Green walls are vertical constructions that are cladded with various types of plants or other vegetation. The walls frequently have built-in watering systems since they contain living plants in them. Integrating green surface systems will decrease energy consumption and increase thermal comfort throughout the year. With the use of Ladybug and Honeybee in Grasshopper, running with EnergyPlus, it allows us to simulate the indoor thermal levels of a residential building in North Cyprus by creating a virtual energy model of the building in Rhinoceros 3D. By running simulations, the effects of integrating green surface systems to the exterior walls of the building will be predictable. The simulation was run three times, the first was to simulate the existing building before integrating green surface systems to serve as a control, whereas the second and third were to simulate the same existing building but after integrating green surface systems to the exterior walls. The average total thermal comfort percent of Döveç Apartment 20 Building with no wall insulation, AC nor HVAC systems was around 35.8% throughout the whole year. After integrating green surface systems to all the exterior walls of the building the average was about 45%, which is a 25.7% increase in the thermal comfort felt by the users of the building. In conclusion adding green surface systems to exterior facades of a building would increase the time spent in the thermal comfort zone of a building, which would decrease energy consumption of thermal regulating systems due to less usage of those thermal regulating systems by the users throughout the year. Keywords: Vertical Green Systems, Thermal Comfort Zone, Sustainability, Residential, Karakol, Famagusta, North Cyprus, Hot Climate