Green wall systems: A literature review

Abstract

Sustainability today is creating an important and interesting approach combining the architecture and the environment. Such an approach is taking place in different forms and with different degrees of intensity. Within the challenges of energy crisis and climatic changes, architects started to develop new approaches to address the energy demands of buildings. One of these approaches involves green walls. Green walls are self-sufficient walls that are attached to a structure along a building’s exterior making room for vegetation growth. During the last decades, several researches were conducted proving that green walls can contribute to enhance and restore the urban environment and improve performance of buildings. The aim of this paper is to review all types of green wall systems in order to identify and systematize their main characteristics and technologies involved, and the main differences between systems in terms of their composition and construction methods used. In this context, this paper focuses on the analysis of the green wall systems, and underlines a number of criteria that should be considered for successful applications in Turkey.