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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Is Greening the Building Envelope a Sustainable Design Practice?
Author(s)
Katia Perini and Fausto Novi
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DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2016.06.004
Affiliation(s)
DSA (Dipartimento di Scienze per l’Architettura), Università degli Studi di Genova, Genoa 16123, Italy
ABSTRACT
Nowadays, the number of
products and also of architectural projects, qualified as “sustainable”, is
ever more growing. Following this trend, architectural design may exploit the
use of (eco) materials and components to promote a project as sustainable even
without considering its impact on the environment; This can be defined as
architectural greenwash. This paper considers the case of green envelopes with
the aim to evaluate if these can be defined as sustainable design practice.
Green envelopes provide environmental advantages together with the suggestion
to a green aesthetics par excellence. In fact, the integration of vegetation in
urban fabric plays an important role in improving ecological and environmental
conditions of (and in) cities, although systems can have a high environmental
burden. This paper aims to answer the question: Is greening the building
envelope a sustainable design practice? To do so, the paper provides a literature review which includes
the main research developed regarding environmental burden, benefits and LCA (life cycle assessment) calculations of
green envelopes.
KEYWORDS
Greenwash, green architecture, environmental sustainability.
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