Conference Paper
Proceedings of BSO Conference 2018: Fourth Conference of IBPSA-England
Integrating Hydroponics Into Office Buildings: Impacts Of Plants On The Building Environment And Office Occupants
Integrating Hydroponics Into Office Buildings: Impacts Of Plants On The Building Environment And Office Occupants
Melanie Jans-Singh, Rebecca Ward, Helen Gillard, Ruchi ChoudharyAbstract: Almost 4 billion people are living in cities around the world, representing 54% of the global population (UN, 2015), and the built environment accounts for over half global CO2 emissions. Global urban population is set to rise by 2.6 billion by 2050, which will continue to put pressure on the energy supply of cities. Thermal comfort is the driver behind building energy consumption in developed cities (Yang et al., 2014), and energy used for cooling is expected to rise by up to 30% by 2050 (Kolokotroni et al., 2012). As cities are increasingly considering green technologies to improve resource use efficiency, this poster presents how hydroponic modules could be used in offices to reduce temperatures and lower CO2 levels, based on a programme of monitoring and simulation. First, the setup and design of 50 hydroponic modules in the James Dyson Building (JDB) in Cambridge, UK, will be presented, before showing how qualitative and quantitative data is being captured to monitor the impacts of plants on the building and occupants. The second section introduces a method to combine a plant-air interaction model (“plant module”) into building energy simulation model. Initial results of modelling the third floor of the JDB by integrating the plant module into TRNSYS will show the potential of simulating plants in buildings. Pages: 693 - 694 Paper: