Envelopes vegetais para cidades mais criativas: experimentação no Centro Histórico, Porto Alegre

Abstract

Vegetable Envelopes are a new way to increase the use of vegetation in contemporany cities and may be defined as plants that, horizontally or vertically, surround urban surfaces. It may be an alternative way to minimize problems faced in large centers, such as air pollution, frequent flooding and lack of green areas. This is possible due to the many benefits that vegetation can bring to urban life, such as reduction of pollution levels, development of biodiversity, reduction of heat islands, improvement of acoustic comfort and humidity variation, among others. Through research and observation, it was found that Vegetable Envelopes may be used mostly in three ways: green roofs, green walls and green balconies, each one differing according to the species, construction techniques and materials employed. Thus, the objective of this research is to analyze the usage, understand the impact, check for opportunities and try the application of Vegetable Envelopes based on the five functions of the green areas: Educational, Psychological, Ecological, Aesthetic and Social. To achieve this, buildings and urban furniture were identified in some neighborhoods of Brazilian’s city Porto Alegre, state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), who make use of Vegetable Envelopes in the five functions mentioned. The findings, together with all the knowledge acquired in the study, made possible to define the uses of buildings and urban furniture that are most impactful to receive the Vegetable Envelopes, which are hospital, commercial building, residential building, school, university and parklet, as well as some species suitable for each use and local climatic conditions. From this, these uses were identified in the “Centro Histórico”, in above mentioned city of Porto Alegre, to be performed experiments of application of Vegetable Envelopes with the purpose of qualifying it as an experiment, making it greener, sustainable, beautiful and creative.