Green walls - cladding by another name

Green walls - cladding by another name

Professor Jim Glockling discusses the challenges presented by green wall systems for insurers and fire safety testing.

Green or living walls are becoming a familiar feature of the built environment. Whilst their relevance to sustainability and net-zero might not be clear, they do present a public statement of green intent and do benefit city biodiversity, air purity, thermal environment, noise, and no doubt mental health.

With all of these benefits, whilst possibly unpopular, there is a need to consider the challenges that their introduction creates for the safety and insurability of the building they are deployed on. Once included as small decorative areas on buildings, they are now proposed for much greater expanses, covering an entire side, or even every side, of tall buildings, and perhaps this best explains the current raised level of interest in addressing their potential fire implications.

Building life safety is normally well addressed within our regulations, but on green walls, there are inconsistencies between Approved Document B (ADB) and other government guides, and the allowance of a two-track system for compliance enables them to incorporate materials and be tested in a way that would never pass muster in a normal fa?ade system. In this post-Grenfell era, it seems both wrong and completely counter-intuitive.

As part of the Fire Protection Association's continuing commitment to increase fire safety awareness across the built environment, a number of informative feature articles are available to read on our website.?You can read the full article here.

David Pickavance

Independent NED & Chairman. Supporting Business Management. Chairman at Building Compliance Testers Association (BCTA.Group, ATTMA & SITMA). Supporting Competence, Compliance & Performance Testing in Construction.

1 年

"Cynical Sunday" comment from an unconvinced observer: Although these systems can most certainly look wonderful, ....... 1. I can't help thinking of the images of recent wild fires around the world; all that green stuff burning like mad - now put it vertically and think about the spread of flame rate. 2. Green stuff grows, too. Design it, test it, install it .... and then it changes over time as it grows - or am I wrong? Happy Sunday - back to professional work (and comments) on Monday.

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Dr. Lawrence Seed

Residential Landlord, Apprentice Philosopher and Retired Construction Professional

1 年

Interesting how formal regulations and design innovations interact, with the stakes rightly raised in terms of Fire Safety post Grenfell.

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Paul Evans

Fa?ade Cavity Protection System designer retrospectively fitted protection for existing Fa?ade provisions. THE ONE SOLUTION TO THE CLADDING CRISIS. Smoke Control Consultant Surveyor Engineered solutions

1 年

as mm e risk

Ian Abley

Technical Designer

1 年

FSEG PUBLISH NEW PAPER: Fire safety risks of external living walls and implications for regulatory guidance in England https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/fseg-publish-new-paper-fire-safety-risks-external-living-ed-galea?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via

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