The University of Seville participates in the Leonardo Transfer of innovation project ‘Urban Greening Systems for the Mediterranean Region’ (UGreenS). The US professor Luis Pérez Urrestarazu is the project coordinator and Rafael Fernández Cañero, Gregorio Egea Cegarra and Antonio Franco also participate.
UGreenS is a partnership of three European Universities engaged in research in the field of green roofs and living walls with Small-Medium Enterprises which are engaged with the development and the implementation of such technologies in Europe. The partnership is led by Frederick Research Center and it includes the University of Seville, the Agricultural University of Athens, the University of Malta , the Agricultural Research Institute of Cyprus and the companies Terabia Urbana (from Spain), as well as P. Papadopoulos Consulting Engineers, THANGEKO I4 Engineering Consulting Services and Technovation Solutions from Cyprus .
The benefits of pertinent Urban Greening technologies can be categorized in environmental, aesthetic, social, and economic. Environmental benefits include the mitigation of the heat island effect, mitigation of urban storm-water runoff, enhancement of urban biodiversity, and thermal insulation of buildings. UG technologies have been reported to reduce noise pollution in cities, as well as improve the efficiency of photovoltaics installed on roofs of buildings. Further to the environmental benefits, UG technologies can significantly improve the aesthetics of city centers, and can lend themselves as focal points for tighter social interactions within urban communities. Economic benefits include the improved efficiency of photovoltaic panels installed on building roofs. As a result of the aforementioned benefits, the sustainability of urban environments is significantly enhanced, contributing to the sustainable development of our country.
In Mediterranean countries, however, UG technologies have witnessed limited application, possibly due to either lack of knowledge, by society and the construction industry, or limited technical expertise that would support the effective implementation of UG technologies. Few organizations, in the Mediterranean, have developed expertise in the field of UG, and these include our Spanish and Greek partners. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to capitalize on the existing knowledge of aforementioned organizations, and transfer this innovative know-how to practitioners in our country.
The specific tasks of this effort include 1) the development of instructional material on UG technologies that would cater to the needs of practicing engineers and architects, 2) the training of a small number of engineers and scientists to subsequently act as a nucleus for further dissemination such technologies 3) the creation of demonstration pilot units and activities that would present this technology. UGreenS seeks to introduce specialized knowledge in a pragmatic / tangible way that would be of immediate use to the country’s sustainable infrastructure. The contribution of UG technologies to EU’s 2020 targets would be multifaceted and immense.
Among the included activities in UGreenS, we celebrated the “Training the trainers” fase from September 9th to 11th.
This phase consisted of a series of training sessions aimed at future trainers in these new technologies, which will be responsible for forwarding this technology and know-how their countries.
Members of Terapia Urbana and University of Seville, exposed during three days about several technical, scientific and practical aspects derived from our experience and research on Vertical Greening Systems.
