Mitigating the Urban Heat Island effect through building envelope modifications

With this background, the present study of investigating the thermal performance (in terms of energy consumption for space cooling) of composite materials like Bamcrete (bamboo-concrete composite) and natural materials like Rammed Earth along with energy intensive materials like bricks and cement was undertaken. In addition to this, the thermal performance of building envelope modifications like (i) increasing the thickness of wall, (ii) construction of a cavity wall was also attempted. Of the 6 scenarios simulated, the use of 6″ bamcrete in walls depicts the highest cooling potential (around 7.5%) when compared to the popularly used 5″ brick thick wall. The present study is first of its kind to quantitatively report the performance of 'bamboo'-a wonder grass of India, in reducing the cooling load of a building. The results should definitely help the green building community to take suitable actions at their ends for designing buildings having low carbon footprint and effectively mitigate the UHI effect.