Thermal Performance of Living Walls for Passive Cooling in Contemporary Buildings

Abstract

A passive cooling strategy such as living wall can be applied to reduce the microclimate’s temperature. Rumah Turi Surakarta is one of the contemporary hotels that applies living wall in its corridors, to create a cooler microclimate as a response of air temperature increment in Surakarta. This study aims to determine how the performance of the living wall as a passive cooling, by comparing air temperature reduction by living wall elements and sun shading elements. Observations were carried out to retrieve visual and measurement data, then the data were processed using quantitative descriptive methods and comparative analysis. The result showed that several factors that affect living wall’s performance as a passive cooling are orientation, the distance of the living walls to the corridor, the distance between plants, and the types of plants. Krokot Merah and Sirih Gading which are leafier and have a darker leaf color, are capable to reduce the temperature by 0.9°C, while Lili Paris which are have a fewer leaf and lighter leaf color are able to reduce by 0.2°C.