Fig 5 - uploaded by Bruce D Dvorak
Content may be subject to copyright.
Plant health rating survey results -December 2019. Letters in the module correspond to plant codes in Table 1, and the number indicates plant health rating.
Source publication
The aim of this study was to determine if local or regional native plants might be suitable for use on a custom living wall system (LWS) located in a humid subtropical climate. Nineteen taxa of plants native to the ecoregion or adjacent ecoregions were installed into 297 custom-designed modules fabricated from galvanized sheet metal by-products. Th...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... minimal change in the individual health ratings between September and December (Fig. 6, Table 5) demonstrates that the majority of plant individuals experienced little-to-no adjustment in their health rating from early to late fall. Plants that show signs of decline over the four-month evaluation period are possibly suffering from controls such as those described above (e.g., uneven irrigation, location on the wall). Further ...
Similar publications
This study evaluates the performance of a user-defined combined hardening modeling method for advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) under monotonic and reversal loading conditions. The plastic behavior of TWIP980 and TRIP980 AHSS sheet metals is investigated using a cyclic plasticity modeling approach. The model incorporates an isotropic von Mises y...
The clinched process of heterogeneous materials is increasingly used in automobile, aerospace, and household appliances manufacturing. To investigate the forming quality of clinched joint for dissimilar sheet metal, the clinching experiments are carried out, and the cross-section morphology of clinched joints is observed. The finite element model f...
The need for regulation of residual distortion caused by welding in sheet metal structures is one of the urgent problems of modern welding fabrication. A promising approach featuring a low power consumption and not requiring metal-intensive equipment, is development of the method to lower welded joint distortion, based on application of electrodyna...
Multi-point forming (MPF) is an advanced and flexible method to form sheet metal workpieces. Although there are studies investigating different aspects of this method, the studies on the effects of pin diameter on sheet and pin contact on MPF are insufficient. In this study, pins with diameters of 10, 12, and 14 mm were used to investigate the dama...
Citations
... Even though irrigation is key for plant transpiration [88], previous research has shown that a dry substrate can also decrease heat transfer within buildings [89,90], decreasing the use of air-cooling systems and, consequently, reducing heat waste release. In a humid subtropical climate, some native plants with a high health rating, for example Brunneria Gracilis, Achillea millefolium, and Dicoria argentea [91], are suitable candidates. For a tropical climate, those plants with rapid growth and high percentages of coverage, such as Asystasia Gangetica and Melampodium Divaricatum, could produce larger amounts of shade [92]. ...
... To have better biodiversity, vegetation of multiple species can be used in green systems. However, maintenance could be more demanding in this case because the survivabilities of different species of vegetation vary considerably [91]. ...
Urban areas are experiencing excessive heating. Addressing the heat is a challenging but essential task where not only engineering and climatic knowledge matters but also a deep understanding of social and economic dimensions. We synthesize the state of the art in heat mitigation technologies and develop an 'ITE index' framework that evaluates the investment (I), time for implementation (T), and effectiveness (E) of candidate heat mitigation measures. Using this framework, we assess 247 multimeasure-centric solution sets composed of all possible combinations of 8 individual measures. The multidimensional ITE index is quantified for heat mitigation effectiveness based on different urban scales, investment levels, the impact of local climate zones (LCZs), and professionals' perceptions using the analytical hierarchy process. The top 50 unique solution sets consist of 4-7 individual measures across all LCZs, with the use of thermally efficient buildings and high-efficiency indoor cooling being the two recurrent measures contributing to the best solution sets. While every city varies in terms of its ideal solution sets, we provide a multimeasure-centric framework for decision-making in which different dimensions can be integrated, understood, and quantified.
... For those greening systems without in-situ irrigation or in dry climate, drought-tolerant plants could be the option. In a humid subtropical climate, some native plants with a high health rating, for example Brunneria Gracilis, Achillea millefolium and Dicoria argentea 79 , are suitable candidates. For a tropical climate, those plants with rapid growth and high percentages of coverage, such as Asystasia Gangetica and Melampodium Divaricatum, could produce greater shade 80 . ...
Beating excessive urban heat calls for a whole-system approach, where several individual mitigation measures have to be implemented together. We assess the use of green walls, green roofs, reflective roofs, thermally efficient buildings, high-efficiency indoor cooling, urban forestry, evaporative pavement, and constructed shade for directly reducing urban heat or indirectly reducing emissions of anthropogenic heat. An ITE-index is proposed to evaluate i nvestment ( I ), t ime for implementation ( T ), and e ffectiveness ( E ) of 247 multi-measure solution sets and the 8 individual measures. Solution sets comprising 4-7 different measures are found to have a higher index score and to be more effective for different types of local climate. The ITE-index is a universally useful tool for decision-making for individual cities.
... While there is little literature on the appearance and development of plants in LWs, we can obtain some indication by vegetation analyses. There are few studies dealing with plant development and performance which differ in climate zones, had various set up and tested various numbers of plant species (Mårtensson et al., 2014;Mårtensson et al., 2016;Riley et al., 2019;Dvorak et al., 2021). Integrating Itten's colour theory for creating the design of LWs can possibly by a suitable method (Thorpert et al., 2022). ...
Living walls (LW) are a way to increase urban green infrastructure. Previous research has mainly focused on microclimatic cooling effect or the technical functioning of LW, while the development of autochthonous plant species and visual plant aspects for LWs have largely been neglected. In this study we focused on the possibility of establishing LWs by seeding, which is not used very often despite obvious advantages such as low costs, low maintenance requirements, and a high species diversity potential.
Within a three-year field study in a temperate oceanic climate, we established a meadow-LW by sowing seed mixtures of >30 species on textile mats without soil substrate. After a pre-growing period with horizontal mats in the greenhouse, we placed the greened mats vertically on experimental walls exposed to the North, South, East, and West. We documented species coverage and visibility over time, growth height, and maintenance steps. After cutting, the vegetation recovered within a few weeks and we recommend one complete cut in summer and removing dead plant material after the frost period.
From April to October, we observed an increasing growth height and vegetation coverage reaching >100%, followed by a decline till December. Differences of plant species composition and development between different expositions and study years were observed especially after the cold winter of 2017/2018.
This study was able to demonstrate that seeded meadow-LWs can be easily established. The use of autochthonous plant species mixtures can create new biodiverse habitats, are aesthetically attractive and increase human wellbeing.
... These include greater building thermal performance, particularly cooling (Wong et al., 2010;Chen et al., 2013), improvements in thermal comfort and carbon sequestration (Charoenkit and Yiemwattana, 2016), reductions in noise (Wong et al., 2010;Azkorra et al., 2015) and air pollution (Weerakkody et al., 2017), opportunities for localised food production (Nagle et al., 2017;Mårtensson et al., 2014) and improvements to urban hydrology, including grey water reuse (Fowdar et al., 2017). Much of the research into living walls has focussed on plant growth and performance (Riley, 2017), including species across a range of groups and climates (Mårtensson et al., 2014(Mårtensson et al., , 2016Jørgensen et al., 2018;Dvorak et al., 2021) and the potential to support urban biodiversity (Collins et al., 2017;Filazzola et al., 2019). While there have been studies exploring the broader social benefits of living walls (Pérez-Urrestarazu et al., 2017;Bustami et al., 2018), the analysis of their aesthetic values remains a major gap in the literature (Radić et al., 2019). ...
... Living walls are also a useful experimental prototype to examine individual plant performance and different planting designs. Most living wall systems can be adjusted, in terms of irrigation and nutrition, to provide optimum conditions for growing less common species, including native plants (Dvorak et al., 2021) and those with high biodiversity values (Mayrand and Clergeau, 2018). The vertical layout of living walls means that novel plant communities can also be configured under what are fairly uniform conditions, with competition restricted to a few neighbouring plants, with growing conditions that are easy to manipulate. ...
Designing green infrastructure in cities requires vegetation that has multiple outcomes and functions, particularly using plants that have both attractive visual or aesthetic features and high biodiversity values. Plantings that have high visual appeal are more highly valued by people and increase their feeling of wellbeing. Increasing biodiversity in cities is one of the major challenges facing urban planning and design. However, balancing biodiversity and aesthetic outcomes in urban planting design is complex, and to date there are few methods that can be used to guide plant selection. To address this knowledge gap, we investigated the use of a colour theory framework for planting arrangements to see if we could design vegetation that is highly aesthetic and has high biodiversity. We did this by configuring planting combinations for living walls in Malmö, Sweden, using principles based on Johannes Itten’s colour theories. The plant combinations on each wall were graphically arranged using (1) colour analysis of each plant and (2) design of the plant species into two colour schemes: light-dark colour concept and a complementary colour concept. For each species used in the compositions we created a biodiversity classification, based on its pollination value, “nativeness” and conservation value as a cultivar; and a plant visual quality classification, based on the performance from living walls studies. The graphical colour composition and interlinked biodiversity value were then compared to designs created with randomly selected plant species. The results showed that it is possible to design a living wall based on colour theory without compromising with biodiversity outcomes, namely species richness, pollination and the nativeness of the species. The results also indicate the potential application of this design approach to deliver greater aesthetic appreciation and enjoyment from plantings. While more work is needed, this study has shown that a theoretical colour framework can be a useful tool in designing green infrastructure to improve delivery of both cultural and regulatory ecosystem services.
Urban areas are experiencing excessive heating. Addressing the heat is a challenging but essential task where not only engineering and climatic knowledge matters but also a deep understanding of social and economic dimensions. We synthesize the state of the art in heat mitigation technologies and develop an ‘ITE index’ framework that evaluates the investment (I), time for implementation (T), and effectiveness (E) of candidate heat mitigation measures. Using this framework, we assess 247 multimeasure-centric solution sets composed of all possible combinations of 8 individual measures. The multidimensional ITE index is quantified for heat mitigation effectiveness based on different urban scales, investment levels, the impact of local climate zones (LCZs), and professionals' perceptions using the analytical hierarchy process. The top 50 unique solution sets consist of 4–7 individual measures across all LCZs, with the use of thermally efficient buildings and high-efficiency indoor cooling being the two recurrent measures contributing to the best solution sets. While every city varies in terms of its ideal solution sets, we provide a multimeasure-centric framework for decision-making in which different dimensions can be integrated, understood, and quantified.
