Low-carbon design towards sustainable city development: Integrating glass space with natural greenery

Abstract

The rapid urban development has caused serious problems such as high energy consumption and carbon emissions, especially under the context of climate change. Buildings are particularly energy-intensive, generating about one third of global energy-related carbon emissions. Compared with active solutions (like mechanical systems), passive solutions offer the potential to balance energy consumption, thermal comfort, and ecological benefits. One potential solution is the integration of green glass space (GGS) into passive building design. GGS is a transitional building space with glass curtain walls that exhibit excellent insulation performance during winter. However, GGS is susceptible to overheating during summer, which limits its applicability. Therefore, this work proposes a strategy of integrating vertical greenery into GGS, leveraging the nature-based solution of greenery (i.e., flourishes in summer and withers in winter) to address this seasonal challenge of GGS. The results demonstrated that the strategic application of vertical greenery can effectively mitigate the overheating in GGS and improve comprehensive benefits. By using full coverage of vertical greenery in a linear layout, the air temperature of GGS and cooling energy consumption were largely reduced by 8.02°C and 12.2%, respectively, while the carbon abatement was enhanced by up to 101.11 tons. Based on a comprehensive evaluation of energy, economy, and environmental benefits, it is recommended to use a greenery configuration with 50% coverage in a vertical linear layout for GGS. The integration of greenery into building design can mitigate adverse environmental impacts, reduce energy consumption, and contribute to the sustainable development of low-carbon cities.