Vertical Greeen Systems as a Means of Implementing Green Into Vertical Built Forms and Study Its Performance within the Context of Ahmedabad City

Abstract

Vertical Green Systems (VGS) are getting popular in congested urban cities around the world. In recent decades, there has been an ever-growing number of pressing climate change challenges. Architects and urban planners have been proposing sustainable building designs as an approach that can contribute to the problem’s solution, as it has the potential to reduce energy demand, minimize environmental impacts, and alleviate the heat island effect. Vertical Green Systems are one such sustainable building design element that are steadily gaining importance and being increasingly widely applied. The thesis seeks to comprehend Vertical Green Systems (VGS), understand their basic characteristics and to develop a broad nomenclature for them. The analysis of the thermal efficiency of Vertical Green Systems is an important part of the study, and in order to better understand this, the thesis looks at how effective is Vertical Green System in establishing a thermally stable working atmosphere for the case of Ahmedabad. The study organizes and summarizes literature on VGS when used as a sustainable design element to establish its important aspects like history, definitions and typologies. A series of existing cases were studied for accumulation of both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative aspects of secondary cases were organised and analysed to comprehend how Vertical Green Systems were implemented using various design strategies and what benefits were associated with them. The experimental study for a primary case of Ahmedabad demonstrated the perks of Vertical green systems when used as an energy efficient design element while the simulation study of a hypothetical building module gathered extensive statistical data to deduce the thermal performance of Vertical Green Systems. The key takeaway here is that VGS are highly successful as a sustainable design factor because they benefit both on an environmental scale (benefits for the urban environment outside the building itself) and on a building scale (benefits for building users/owners). The findings demonstrate how VGS can improve a building's thermal efficiency when properly applied