Green instead of grey and hot: the innovative greening of buildings

摘要

An innovation laboratory for greening buildings is driving the local market ahead, with the aim of making our cities greener and, as a result,cooler and richer in biodiversity. Climate change is advancing, and increasing temperatures are already putting us to the test. In addition, cities are spreading and becoming denser in structural terms. A problematic combination that leads to a phenomenon already widely noticeable: the heat island effect. Sealed building and road surfaces heat up enormously as the result of solar radiation and then give off this heat late into the night. For quite some time we have known that plants can effectively combat the heating up of surfaces. They evaporate water, which takes heat from their surroundings and produces a cooling effect. In comparison to building materials the surfaces of leaves hardly heat up any more than the surrounding air, while they also provide shade. Greening can reduce the felt temperature of the surroundings by up to 13℃. Roof greening in particular offers considerable potential in terms of cooling and retaining rainwater and, thanks to technological advances, facade greening could increasingly play a role on the market.