Epsilon Open Archive

Abstract

The concept of green façades is not new (Koehler, 2008), but their reintroduction may offer benefits in the current urban design, which is increasingly focused on urban densification. The benefits of vertical greening include noise abatement (Van Renterghem et al., 2013), filtering of airborne dust and pollutants (Ottele et al., 2010 and Sternberg et al., 2010), and reduction of temperature close to the area of vertical greening (Onishi et al., 2010, Wong et al., 2010 and Perini et al., 2011a). The thermal aspects of vertical greening are, however, still under debate (Hunter et al., 2014). One particular type of green façade is living wall systems, which are vertical greening systems where plants are grown without the need for contact with the ground (Koehler, 2008, Francis and Lorimer, 2011 and Perini et al., 2011b). Living wall systems can be seen as an alternative way of introducing urban greening in dense urban areas in the same way as e.g. green roofs, which have shown to support a high arthropod diversity (Rumble and Gange, 2013 and Madre et al., 2013). Like plants on green roofs (Emilsson and Rolf, 2005 and Emilsson, 2008), plants in living wall systems must be able to cope with extreme conditions, such as high irradiation, considerable differences in temperature and possible water shortage. The main aim of this study was to determine whether it is possible to grow perennial plants in living wall systems in the Scandinavian climate and we hypothesized that perennial plants could survive in, and would be a viable option for, living wall systems in the Scandinavian climate.