Greenery Systems for Indoor Environment Design Competition Open to UW Students

University of Wyoming students have the opportunity to provide potential solutions to integrating greenery systems with indoor environments in buildings to mitigate climate change.

The competition is open to all UW students to highlight their best creativity and design ideas based on cutting-edge knowledge and technologies for indoor greenery systems and indoor environments. Registration is now open through midnight Friday, April 16.

According to the competition, various efforts have been made to reduce building energy consumption while maintaining a comfortable indoor environment. Greenery infrastructure enhancements have been recognized as one of the climate change adaptation measures. Limited studies have been conducted on indoor greenery systems, such as indoor living walls, on energy use and thermal comfort, although people spend about 90 percent of their time indoors.

The challenge for teams of two to three students is to effectively integrate greenery systems -- such as living walls, green walls and vertical indoor gardens -- with indoor environments in buildings.

“What are the creative ways that you can think of based on cutting-edge technologies; how to reach optimum resource efficiency; and how do indoor greenery systems affect interior space, occupants and sustainability?” asks Liping Wang, a UW Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering associate professor. “We want to advance energy efficiency and sustainability education, and promote multidisciplinary collaborations through this competition. Students from different majors are encouraged to form teams.”

The rules/guidelines for the competition can be found at www.uwyo.edu/civil/competition/index.html.

Prizes will be given to the top three projects, which include portable hard drives, books and calculators.

Top winners of the design competition may have the opportunity to be mentored by Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering faculty members and participate in selected parts of the research project on building integrated indoor greenery systems that is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. One to two undergraduates will be selected for the fall semester.

For more information, email Wang at lwang12@uwyo.edu.