IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i23p10685-d1537668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Integrating Greenhouses into Buildings: A Renewed Paradigm for Circular Architecture and Urban Regeneration

Author

Listed:
  • Michele D’Ostuni

    (Department of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy)

  • Tong Zou

    (Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, Ningbo 315100, China)

  • Allison Sermarini

    (Department of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy)

  • Leonardo Zaffi

    (Department of Architecture, University of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy)

Abstract

In the post-COVID-19 era, there has been an increasing interest in re-evaluating citizens’ living conditions within dense and grey urban areas. The provision of green spaces has always been identified as an important aspect of alleviating contemporary everyday life stress and preventing or limiting mental health-related issues. It is also an important strategy to mitigate urban heat islands and foster adaptation strategies to climate change. Among the numerous experiments of ‘green action’ available to urban planners, urban farming strategies have been widely used in Europe to provide green spaces and ecosystem services, exploring the topics related to self-production of food, biodiversity, and zero-km cultivation. Therefore, finding new spaces for agriculture in urban environments has driven scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs to develop new soilless technologies (such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics) to maximize yields in urban areas, creating new agricultural and architectural models such as the vertical farms (VF) and the building-integrated greenhouses (BIGH). In this regard, the objective of this paper is to recontextualize the integrated greenhouse element for high-tech food production as new iconic architectural models derived from the experience of the Victorian Winter Gardens and the first tropical greenhouses. Revisiting these perspectives, this paper offers opportunities to redefine the greenhouse as a multifunctional asset that aligns with both environmental goals and architectural standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Michele D’Ostuni & Tong Zou & Allison Sermarini & Leonardo Zaffi, 2024. "Integrating Greenhouses into Buildings: A Renewed Paradigm for Circular Architecture and Urban Regeneration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(23), pages 1-21, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:23:p:10685-:d:1537668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/23/10685/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/23/10685/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nadal, Ana & Llorach-Massana, Pere & Cuerva, Eva & López-Capel, Elisa & Montero, Juan Ignacio & Josa, Alejandro & Rieradevall, Joan & Royapoor, Mohammad, 2017. "Building-integrated rooftop greenhouses: An energy and environmental assessment in the mediterranean context," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 338-351.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Montero, J.I. & Baeza, E. & Heuvelink, E. & Rieradevall, J. & Muñoz, P. & Ercilla, M. & Stanghellini, C., 2017. "Productivity of a building-integrated roof top greenhouse in a Mediterranean climate," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 14-22.
    2. Mireia Ercilla-Montserrat & David Sanjuan-Delmás & Esther Sanyé-Mengual & Laura Calvet-Mir & Karla Banderas & Joan Rieradevall & Xavier Gabarrell, 2019. "Analysis of the consumer’s perception of urban food products from a soilless system in rooftop greenhouses: a case study from the Mediterranean area of Barcelona (Spain)," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(3), pages 375-393, September.
    3. Moreno, Álex & Chemisana, Daniel & Lamnatou, Chrysovalantou & Maestro, Santiago, 2023. "Energy and photosynthetic performance investigation of a semitransparent photovoltaic rooftop greenhouse for building integration," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    4. La Notte, Luca & Giordano, Lorena & Calabrò, Emanuele & Bedini, Roberto & Colla, Giuseppe & Puglisi, Giovanni & Reale, Andrea, 2020. "Hybrid and organic photovoltaics for greenhouse applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    5. Nadal, Ana & Rodríguez-Labajos, Beatriz & Cuerva, Eva & Josa, Alejandro & Rieradevall, Joan, 2022. "Influence of social housing models in the development of urban agriculture in Mexico," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    6. Eun-Jung Choi & Doyun Lee & Sang-Min Lee, 2024. "Impact of Building Integrated Rooftop Greenhouse (BiRTG) on Heating and Cooling Energy Load: A Study Based on a Container with Rooftop Greenhouse," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-18, August.
    7. Mansoureh Gholami & Alberto Barbaresi & Patrizia Tassinari & Marco Bovo & Daniele Torreggiani, 2020. "A Comparison of Energy and Thermal Performance of Rooftop Greenhouses and Green Roofs in Mediterranean Climate: A Hygrothermal Assessment in WUFI," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-15, April.
    8. Il-Seok Choi & Akhtar Hussain & Van-Hai Bui & Hak-Man Kim, 2018. "A Multi-Agent System-Based Approach for Optimal Operation of Building Microgrids with Rooftop Greenhouse," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-24, July.
    9. Muñoz-Liesa, Joan & Royapoor, Mohammad & López-Capel, Elisa & Cuerva, Eva & Rufí-Salís, Martí & Gassó-Domingo, Santiago & Josa, Alejandro, 2020. "Quantifying energy symbiosis of building-integrated agriculture in a mediterranean rooftop greenhouse," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 696-709.
    10. Licia Felicioni & Antonín Lupíšek & Jacopo Gaspari, 2023. "Exploring the Common Ground of Sustainability and Resilience in the Building Sector: A Systematic Literature Review and Analysis of Building Rating Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-24, January.
    11. Martina Artmann & Katharina Sartison, 2018. "The Role of Urban Agriculture as a Nature-Based Solution: A Review for Developing a Systemic Assessment Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-32, June.
    12. Musammat Shahinara Begum & Sujit Kumar Bala & A.K.M. Saiful Islam & Debjit Roy, 2021. "Environmental and Social Dynamics of Urban Rooftop Agriculture (URTA) and Their Impacts on Microclimate Change," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-26, August.
    13. Maria Ravani & Konstantinos Georgiou & Stefania Tselempi & Nikolaos Monokrousos & Georgios K. Ntinas, 2023. "Carbon Footprint of Greenhouse Production in EU—How Close Are We to Green Deal Goals?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-39, December.
    14. Lin, Dong & Zhang, Lijun & Xia, Xiaohua, 2021. "Model predictive control of a Venlo-type greenhouse system considering electrical energy, water and carbon dioxide consumption," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    15. Drottberger, Annie & Zhang, Yizhi & Yong, Jean Wan Hong & Dubois, Marie-Claude, 2023. "Urban farming with rooftop greenhouses: A systematic literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    16. de Rubeis, Tullio & Nardi, Iole & Ambrosini, Dario & Paoletti, Domenica, 2018. "Is a self-sufficient building energy efficient? Lesson learned from a case study in Mediterranean climate," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 131-145.
    17. Nadal, Ana & Cerón-Palma, Ileana & García-Gómez, Carmen & Pérez-Sánchez, María & Rodríguez-Labajos, Beatriz & Cuerva, Eva & Josa, Alejandro & Rieradevall, Joan, 2018. "Social perception of urban agriculture in Latin-America. A case study in Mexican social housing," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 719-734.
    18. Esther Sanyé-Mengual & Kathrin Specht & Erofili Grapsa & Francesco Orsini & Giorgio Gianquinto, 2019. "How Can Innovation in Urban Agriculture Contribute to Sustainability? A Characterization and Evaluation Study from Five Western European Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-31, August.
    19. Giuseppina Pennisi & Esther Sanyé-Mengual & Francesco Orsini & Andrea Crepaldi & Silvana Nicola & Jesús Ochoa & Juan A. Fernandez & Giorgio Gianquinto, 2019. "Modelling Environmental Burdens of Indoor-Grown Vegetables and Herbs as Affected by Red and Blue LED Lighting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-21, July.
    20. Ayambire, Raphael Anammasiya & Amponsah, Owusu & Peprah, Charles & Takyi, Stephen Appiah, 2019. "A review of practices for sustaining urban and peri-urban agriculture: Implications for land use planning in rapidly urbanising Ghanaian cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 260-277.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:23:p:10685-:d:1537668. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.