Progressive trend, conceptual terminology, and future directions of green façade research: A review of literature in 2010–2023

Abstract

Climate change and urbanization have caused environmental problems to cities, making it critical to build a low-carbon, resilient, and sustainable urban environment. Green façade (GFA) is an important nature-based solution for implementation by exploring urban vertical space. GFA is often expected to meet versatile needs across different fields, but existing literature has not well documented the evolution of green façade research and future directions. Accordingly, this study examined GFA studies in 2010–2023 through a review to identify progressive trends, conceptual terminology, knowledge gaps, and future research directions. Overall, the GFA could be described by 46 additional terms given structure, vegetation, and technique properties. GFA research has evolved into transdisciplinary research, but mainly includes four clusters: (1) urban greening and sustainability; (2) energy saving mechanism and associated factors; (3) green infrastructure and cooling benefits; and (4) modelling and simulation for heat island mitigation and microclimate regulation. However, the ecological properties, lighting, and acoustic performance of GFA have scarcely been analyzed. Europe and China were key contributors of relevant literature, and there was strong co-authorship among authors from an organization, region, or country. Future efforts should focus on (1) verification and quantification of GFA environmental, ecological, and health benefits, (2) technical needs, economic benefits, social acceptance and support, and policy formation for promotion, (3) development of efficient and tangible numerical models and GFA typology for parametric analysis, and (4) promotion of inter-department, inter-organization, and inter-regional collaboration. Overall, this study enhances GFA understanding to enable the transformation from research to practice.