Pervious Concrete for Green Walls
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 27, Issue 4
Abstract
Green walls, built structures covered with vegetation, are gaining momentum nowadays owing to the benefits imparted by the walls such as improved aesthetics, improved air quality, and noise reduction. Recent work has proven that green walls can be developed using pervious concrete made of cement and coarse aggregate with little or no fine aggregate. As this concrete has a void content of about 15% to 30%, an attempt has been made in this study to use this concrete to develop green walls. Voids in pervious concrete were filled with compost and used as a substrate for vegetational growth. Pervious concrete with 25% voids was made in this study with plain cement and a fly ash mix. Compost was made in the laboratory using vegetable and fruit peels and mixed with garden soil to fill in the voids of the pervious concrete. Selective plant varieties with lateral roots were first attempted to plant in the substrate. Two methods of planting, stem cutting and seed sowing, were attempted and both methods were found to be suitable. Further studies are in progress to improve the design of pervious concrete to use this substrate as integrated green walls for low-maintenance built structures.
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Published In
Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 27 • Issue 4 • December 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 4, 2021
Accepted: Aug 2, 2021
Published online: Aug 27, 2021
Published in print: Dec 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 27, 2022
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