Living Wall Systems: toward the environmental and economic sustainability. Research and experimental development Living Wall Systems: verso la sostenibilità economico-ambientale. Ricerche e sperimentazioni

Several stakeholders (public and private) are paying an increasing interest about Green Walls and particularly about the Living Wall Systems (LWSs). The benefits of the use of vegetation in indoor environment, and in particular the use of Living Wall Systems, are demonstrated by the international scientific literature. Such benefits can be listed as follows: acoustic comfort, indoor air quality and dilution of pollutants, thermo hygrometric comfort, psycho-emotional well-being (improvement of cognitive skills, stress reduction and user satisfaction). During the last years, the LWS’ spread is confirmed by the increasing number of building featured by vegetation both on façades and on partitioning. Despite the interest about the vegetated technologies and their benefits, LWSs in Italy are seldom used. The reasons are referable to three main causes: high initial and maintenances costs; absence of scientific data about some properties; lack of economic incentives as well as of technical standards aimed at encouraging a wider use of such system. These standards are usually available in other European Countries. According to critical issues described, the paper outlines some research activities in order to assess the LWS’ environmental and economic sustainability. Particularly the paper deals with an industrial research carried out by the Department of Architecture and Design (DAD) of Politecnico di Torino. The research was aimed at developing an environmental friendly and low cost LWS. A Life Cycle Thinking approach was adopted in order to plan and assess the LWS over its life cycle. Furthermore, the paper describes a cooperation activity carried out by DAD and Growing Green. Growing Green is a small enterprise and a Politecnico di Torino’s start up. The collaborative programme was focused on implement-advanced methods and tools enable to perform social and environmental data according to scientific state of art. A proposal technical standard concerning the design as well as the proper construction and maintenance of LWSs is finally explained.