GreenFDT – Green Façade Digital Twin

Starting point / motivation

The hereafter proposed project titled „Green Façade Digital Twin" aims to examine the potentials of green living facades to improve the resilience of existing buildings (also some being considered cultural heritage and therefore being protected in building code) towards summer heat by executing and examining an example building first without and then with applied green façade.

More specifically in the building, rented and used by the TU-Vienna, Favoritenstraße 9-11 the façade is proposed to be equipped with green façade-elements in the upper floors ranging from 4-16 individual modules and if possible, the ground floor façade should be covered in greenery as well by the means of planter based greening strategies. 

Contents and goals

By the conception, construction, modeling and monitoring of ventilated curtainwall façade-elements a very relevant gap in scientific research is going to be closed, since sufficiently dense and accurate data regarding the thermophysical contributions of such greening-systems have not been collected and analyzed thus far. 

Beyond the thermal advantages in winter, special attention will be placed on the reduction potentials regarding the overheating of buildings streets and microclimates within cities. These qualities, which are achieved through the beneficial hygrothermal effects will be observed, documented and in the best case improved upon through optimization of the ventilated gap effect. 

Methods

To accurately quantify this advantage provided by green facades, the systems will be equipped with a high density of highly sensitive sensors and will be constantly monitored thereby. Furthermore, by means of digital technologies, namely the application of the digital twin, greening systems as well as the pre-existing façade will be modeled in digital space and coupled with the collected data from the network of sensors. 

This closeknit integration of hardware and semi-automated software components along with the well-known technology of building information modeling standards will enable the project team to generate and validate options to monitor the physical twin, collect and evaluate data for its life cycle performance analysis and more. Another focus of the project lies in the simulation of solar radiation and thereby enabling users to facilitate easier selection of appropriate plants for any given location. 

Aggregation of these insights will form the knowledge base for the scientifically supported decision making for future planning and conception of façade greening systems. Beyond these merits by means of photogrammetric documentation data will be collected the be utilized later in the validation process of simulations concerning the growth process of plants.

Expected results

Due to the wide variety of channels available for publication given that almost all project partners are directly located within the organization of the TU-Vienna, it can be assumed that the results of the scientific endeavor will additionally to being shared in publications and their use in the academia, make their way into the applied field of façade greenery and related projects with little to no delay. This will be further facilitated by the integration of a relevant industry partner who plays a relevant role in this field in Austria.

Project management

Univ.Prof. Azra Korjenic - Research Unit of Ecological Building Technologies, Institute of Material Technology, Building Physics and Building Ecology, TU Vienna

Project or cooperation partners

• Univ.Prof. Iva Kovacic - Research Unit Integrated Planning and Industrial Building, TU Vienna
• Univ.Prof. Michael Wimmer - Advanced Computational Design, TU Vienna
• Univ.Ass. Gernot Steindl - Research Unit Automation Systems, TU Vienna
• Mag. Sascha Haas - Tech Metall Erzeugungs-, Handel und Montage GesmbH

Univ.Prof. Dr. Azra Korjenic
Karlsplatz 13/E207-03
A-1040 Vienna

Tel.: +43 (1) 58801 207300
E-mail: azra.korjenic@tuwien.ac.at
Web: www.obt.tuwien.ac.at