Research

In densely built-up inner-city areas, measures against urban heat island effects are a particular challenge. The space available for green infrastructure in public spaces is severely limited due to the different usage requirements and the installation situation (underground pipelines). Therefore, innovative, space-saving greening solutions are needed to cool and shade the public space. One solution could be horizontal plant creeper constructions (arbor constructions) that partially or completely span the public space (a street or square, incl. or excl. sidewalk). The advantages of such a pergola construction are obvious: similar to a façade greening, they take up little space and can also be installed at locations where underground pipes prevent tree planting. In addition to cooling through evaporation, a horizontal, vegetated span provides additional cooling by shading the areas below. Challenging are questions of permission for the installation on or above public land, accessibility e.g. for the fire department, the involvement of the neighbors / house owners (in the case of trellis constructions on the building), sufficient lighting (especially in autumn and winter) and other issues that are to be addressed from an interdisciplinary perspective within the framework of a research project. Klimahimmel aims to use a demo object to develop an arbor prototype that is compatible for the city of Vienna, applicable and scalable to other locations with similar typologies. The demo object is located in the 7th district in the Bernardgasse, which will be converted into a greened and traffic-calmed residential street in 2023.

Green infrastructures such as woody plants, rain gardens, green roofs, green facades, lawns and meadows, and perennial beds have a multifaceted influence on urban space. The aim of this project is to qualitatively and quantitatively record these effects and services of green infrastructures and to be able to comprehensibly demonstrate the benefits that can be derived from them. For this purpose, vegetation- and construction-related as well as microclimatic field and laboratory measurements of plant stands will be carried out.

The aim of INReS² is to create a web-based prototype application for planning of integrative, decentralised green-blue rain water management systems. Planning recommendations will consider individual project parameters such as size and type of area to be drained, discharge coefficient, soil conditions and infiltration capacities, infiltrating area, design depth of precipitation and further microclimatic relevant proxies. The toolbox to be developed will consider specific user requirements as choices of aesthetical, ecological, microclimatic values and costs. A comprehensive BIM-compatible database will be the basis for the web application, containing relevant construction components and systems of varying producers. Existing BIM-Models will be integrated in the database and will be upgraded with parameters relevant to rain water management. The generation of business models and the analyses will guarantee a longterm operation of the toolbox.