Effective Vertical Gardens: A Strategy to Reduce Microclimate Temperatures on Campus
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69855/science.v3i3.844Keywords:
Vertical Garden, Microclimate, Urban Heat MitigationAbstract
Rising urban and campus surface temperatures, driven by hard building envelopes and limited vegetation, challenge outdoor thermal comfort in humid tropical climates. Vertical gardens have been proposed as space-efficient microclimate mitigation strategies, but field evidence in tropical university campuses remains limited. This study experimentally evaluated wall surface temperature, adjacent air temperature, and relative humidity at a vertical garden-covered facade and a comparable bare control facade on a university campus in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Measurements were conducted over 20 days at 09:00, 13:00, and 16:00, producing 60 paired observations for each variable. Paired-samples t-tests showed that the vertical garden reduced wall surface temperature by 3.91°C (SD = 0.78; t(59) = 38.86; p < 0.001) and air temperature by 0.76°C (SD = 0.40; t(59) = 14.71; p < 0.001), while increasing relative humidity by 4.45 percentage points (t(59) = 26.15; p < 0.001). ANOVA indicated significant variation in cooling effects across the day, with maximum reductions at 13:00. These findings provide field evidence that vertical gardens can serve as effective passive cooling measures for humid tropical campus microclimates and outdoor thermal conditions.
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