Living Green Shell: Urban micro-vertical farm

The rapid growth of urban housing density creates the problem of Urban Heat Island Effect. To reduce the heat impact and increase cooling insulation, most of the cities rely on greening project through landscape engineering. However, finding the space for the engineering in a highly-developed city is a significant challenge. Therefore, cities like New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with some of the highest building density in the world, turn to develop green walls, green roof, or urban agriculture to maximize the greening capacity. In Taiwan, the green-roof development suffers the confinement with a unique culture of architectural additions (formed by sheet metal; known as sheet metal housing). The unusual roof space and shapes limit the scale of greening development. The roof-top sheet mental housing is broadly spread in most of the Taiwanese communities and the number is growing rapidly. However, the sheet metal with heat-transfer nature increases the indoor temperature and energy consumption. This essay, therefore, focuses on synchronizing the sheet-metal housing and green-wall planting for a better green efficiency. Through the BIM simulation test, the study is designed to evaluate the energy-saving efficiency with the cooling insulation of the Living Green Shell (LGS) over the sheet metal buildings. The Living Green Shell functions as shelter, cooling insulation, air purifier and helps improve cooling efficiency in conjunction with the concept of vertical farm. The system of micro-vertical farm can be established and promoted through the use of light-weight planting devices (LGS) to grow edible vegetables. The sheet metal housing is easily fabricated and widely accepted in Taiwan which provides a feasible marketing base for promoting LGS. Ultimately, the shell would contribute to reduce the urban heat effect and improve the appearance of metal sheeting buildings.