Optimizing Building Envelopes for Humans and Plants: Trade-Offs and Opportunities in Multi-Species Design
Abstract
Building-integrated vegetation provides ecological benefits, yet design optimization typically targets only human-centered key performance indicators (KPIs). We integrated human KPIs (shape coefficient, window-to-wall ratio, and total soil volume) and plant KPIs (soil-depth and shading heterogeneity, increasing the diversity of niches available to different plants and thereby raising plant diversity) into a multi-objective optimization of a generic building envelope with integrated planters. We then, post hoc, evaluated consequences of the design choices for two plant community types, a light-adapted grassland and a forest-fringe community with varying shade tolerances, using a spatially explicit plant community model in which growth is shaped by light and soil availability. Designs optimized for human KPIs alone, plant KPIs alone, and both simultaneously were compared, with the plant community model run independently for each community. Human-only optimization produced compact buildings with large window areas and no soil on the envelope, eliminating any vegetation potential. Plant-only optimization generated envelopes with pronounced soil-depth and shading heterogeneity, supporting high overall species richness for both plant community types. Combined optimization produced a wide Pareto front, with the best compromise design achieving comparable plant diversity to the plant-only optimum while showing good performance with respect to human KPIs. Plant community composition and species richness strongly depended on the shading-depth combination of a particular cell. Forest-fringe communities consistently exhibited greater compositional variety than grassland communities, reflecting broader niche variation along both the shading and soil-depth gradients. Our study shows that including plant KPIs alongside human KPIs fundamentally altered architectural outcomes, but our study showed that biodiversity-supporting envelopes can still achieve high performance with respect to human preferences.
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BibTeX
@misc{windorfer2026optimizing,
title = {{Optimizing Building Envelopes for Humans and Plants: Trade-Offs and Opportunities in Multi-Species Design}},
author = {Laura Windorfer and Victoria Culshaw and Surayyn Uthaya Selvan and Shany Barath and Isabelle Boulangeat and Mariasole Calbi and Anne Mimet and Thomas Hauck and Wolfgang Weisser},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.2139/ssrn.7435264},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05743654v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Optimizing Building Envelopes for Humans and Plants: Trade-Offs and Opportunities in Multi-Species Design
AU - Laura Windorfer
AU - Victoria Culshaw
AU - Surayyn Uthaya Selvan
AU - Shany Barath
AU - Isabelle Boulangeat
AU - Mariasole Calbi
AU - Anne Mimet
AU - Thomas Hauck
AU - Wolfgang Weisser
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/09
PB - HAL
DO - 10.2139/ssrn.7435264
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05743654v1
AB - Building-integrated vegetation provides ecological benefits, yet design optimization typically targets only human-centered key performance indicators (KPIs). We integrated human KPIs (shape coefficient, window-to-wall ratio, and total soil volume) and plant KPIs (soil-depth and shading heterogeneity, increasing the diversity of niches available to different plants and thereby raising plant diversity) into a multi-objective optimization of a generic building envelope with integrated planters. We then, post hoc, evaluated consequences of the design choices for two plant community types, a light-adapted grassland and a forest-fringe community with varying shade tolerances, using a spatially explicit plant community model in which growth is shaped by light and soil availability. Designs optimized for human KPIs alone, plant KPIs alone, and both simultaneously were compared, with the plant community model run independently for each community. Human-only optimization produced compact buildings with large window areas and no soil on the envelope, eliminating any vegetation potential. Plant-only optimization generated envelopes with pronounced soil-depth and shading heterogeneity, supporting high overall species richness for both plant community types. Combined optimization produced a wide Pareto front, with the best compromise design achieving comparable plant diversity to the plant-only optimum while showing good performance with respect to human KPIs. Plant community composition and species richness strongly depended on the shading-depth combination of a particular cell. Forest-fringe communities consistently exhibited greater compositional variety than grassland communities, reflecting broader niche variation along both the shading and soil-depth gradients. Our study shows that including plant KPIs alongside human KPIs fundamentally altered architectural outcomes, but our study showed that biodiversity-supporting envelopes can still achieve high performance with respect to human preferences.
ER -