Mitigating Heat Gain Using Greenery of an Eco-House in Abu Dhabi

Abstract

Two fundamental design strategies should be taken into consideration when designing a residential building in desert climates, they are as follows: minimizing solar heat gain through shading and proper building envelope and maximizing passive cooling through natural ventilation. By introducing extensive vegetation yet carefully distributed, shading of building's facades or roofs will directly mitigate heat gain through building envelope. An eco-house was designed in Abu Dhabi with special attention to greenery. In this study, landscape elements were intensively analyzed with the aim of reducing heat gain and improving overall building energy performance. Landscape elements such as green roofs, grass ground cover and greenery next to external walls were simulated in order to achieve optimum energy performance. The use of outdoor landscape (grass ground cover and shade trees) has made a 9% improvement of performance over the reference case regarding the electrical energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The energy use of the house dropped down by 16% for cooling and 18% for fan operation. With regards to the green roof scenario, a performance improvement of 19% over the base case has been achieved. The energy use of the house dropped down by 24% for cooling and 27% for fan operation.

Sustainable Coastal Landscaping Using Reclaimed Irrigation Water in Dubai

“…Greeneries including shade trees of houses could successfully reduce seasonal cooling costs between 26% and 47% (Akbari et al, 1997). The use of grass ground cover and shade trees in outdoor landscape has made a 9% reduction in the electrical energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in UAE (Al-Sallal, 2012). Dubai has conducted several urban greeneries with the total value of 1.6 billion dollars and total area of 12,000 hectares according to the official announcement by DM at the fourth edition of the Middle East Smart Landscape Summit-2016 (Emirates 24/7, 2016).…”