Improving air quality and building thermal behaviour in urban environment: monitoring the performances of a green wall

The green wall, built for an office building in Genoa, has been designed to check, through an extended monitoring, its performance in the Mediterranean-environment. Monitoring aims to check the possibility of integrating the green façade systems in air-conditioning installations, as a system of pre-treatment, both by lowering the temperature of the supply air and by filtering the polluting substances. The water supply data for the irrigation of the façade were compared with the values detected on test panels, in order to determine which of four of the many plant species used in the façade has better evapotranspiration capacity. Some leaves were taken from specimens of the same four species mentioned and were examined in order to determine the ability of retaining fine dust. The fine particles are in fact accused of being a source of damage to the respiratory system with fatal outcome in our cities. Climatic data were measured both outside and in proximity of the green façade, both within an air outlet with an intake fan, in order to understand the ability of the green façade of reducing the temperature