LIVING WALL SYSTEM: As a strategy to mitigate the Urban Heat Island effect in Damascus

Urbanization has led to the accumulation of heat in urban areas. In other words, cities demonstrate higher temperatures than surrounding rural suburbs, known as the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI). This phenomenon has substantial consequences on energy consumption for cooling purposes, air quality, and human health.As a metropolitan city, Damascus experiences a high urban heat island effect due to many factors. The intensity of UHI in Damascus is high and could reach 10˚C. Therefore, a mitigation strategy is a necessity.A possible solution could be integrating the Living wall system (LWS) into the built environment. However, the living wall system’s implementation is still limited due to different factors such as the high initial cost, the complexity of the system, and technical difficulties. Furthermore, the efficiency of this system in mitigating the urban heat island still needs to be further investigated.Thus, this research focuses on analyzing the UHI effect, designing LWS for Damascus’s context, and then investigating the proposed design’s efficiency as a UHI mitigation strategyArchitecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Building Technolog