Indoor vertical greenery system in urban tropics

The integration of vegetated architecture has evolved from gardening, aesthetic design, or artistic expression, to an indoor element named iVGS providing fashion function for the indoor environment. The aim of this study is to identify characteristics of commonly used indoor plants in tropics, and to determine the advantages and disadvantages of iVGS, criteria in selecting installation methods, layout plans for iVGS and correlation among locations, parameters, types and Pros & Cons. A questionnaire survey and three case studies including (a) Ban Guan Nursery; (b) Yeo Tang Hing Nursery and (c) Absolute Thai Garden were conducted. The three case studies determined characteristics of commonly used indoor plants and installation requirements of iVGS. The questionnaire survey found aesthetic the top benefit of iVGS but denied noise reduction as an effective function of it. The system could improve indoor air quality by filtering contaminates from different pollutants. This research denied allergy as a significant disadvantage of iVGS. High construction and maintenance cost is still the main obstacle for potential users to choose iVGS, but this paper does not cover the cost of iVGS; thus, further analysis on costing aspect for various iVGS are recommended for future research.

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