FIELD MEASUREMENTS OF THERMAL PARAMETERS OF

CASE STUDY 1
ROOFTOP GARDENS IN A MULTI-STOREY CARPARK
AND A COMMERCIAL BUILDING

1. Field measurement in HDB Punggol Road Multi-storey Carpark

The experiment was carried out from the 7th Apr 2001 to 16th Apr
2001, a total of ten days, over a period of two five-day weeks. The
weather during these two weeks was generally fair with slight cloud
overcast, and occasion rain on the 10 th Apr 2001. Both the
multi-storey carparks consist of four storeys, with a rooftop that is
accessible to the residents of the surrounding housing blocks.
One of the two rooftops is covered with intensive garden landscaping.
This intensive roof garden, in the experiment is defined as
“C2” (Figure 11). At C2, a total of twenty-five measurement points
were taken, inclusive of the reference points, at three different profiles.
The other rooftop is named “C16” (see Figure 11). At C16, a total of
sixteen measurement points were taken, inclusive of reference points,
at two different profiles.

Figure 11: Rooftop Gardens C2 with vegetation (left) and C16 (right)
without vegetation

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The analysis of the results showed that vegetation can effectively prevent

CASE STUDY 1
the temperature of the roof from escalating. A comparison between sunken
and raised planter boxes (Figure 12) shows that despite the thicker soil
layer in the raised bed, the temperature measured was higher than that in
the sunken bed. This could be due to the fact that the raised bed has more
exposed surface area, thus providing more passages for heat transfer.

Figure 12: Absolute temperature underneath the soil layer and at the
soffit of the sunken and raised beds for a typical day.

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 CASE STUDY 1
The indirect effect of rooftop gardens was detected through the comparisons
of ambient air temperatures and relative humidity measured on C2
and C26 respectively (Figure 13).

The ambient air temperature is lower over the vegetated areas.

Throughout the day, the maximum temperature difference between the
two sites was about 3°C. However, the presence of plants also caused a
significant built-up of the moisture in air, resulting in high relative humidity.

Figure 13: Air ambient temperature and relative humidity plotted

over 3 days

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 CASE STUDY 1
2. Field measurement at Commercial Building, IBP Atrium

The field measurement at IBP Atrium was carried out on the rooftop of
this 3-level commercial building in Singapore. The measurement was
not influenced by shadows or reflected solar radiation since there are
no high-rise buildings around (Figure 14).

Figure 14: The rooftop garden of IBP Atrium

Direct effects of plants

Rooftop gardens reduce surface temperatures of roofs and heat transfer

into the rooms underneath. It will directly contribute to improving the
indoor thermal environment and thermal performance of buildings.

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 CASE STUDY 1
Figure 15 shows the comparison of surface temperatures of rooftop measured
with different types of plants, only soil, and without plants. Without plants,
the roof surface temperature could be heated to a high of 58ºC. Rooftop
gardens help reduce this by as much as 31 ºC. For bare soil, the maximum
surface temperature was around 42ºC. This could be due to the evaporation
of moisture in the soil that led to the reduction of surface temperatures
during daytime. With the presence of vegetation, the surface temperature
was further reduced.

Figure 15: The comparison of surface temperatures measured with

diferent types of plants, only soil, and without plants on
3 and 4 November.

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The hard surface had considerably higher heat flux for the whole day.

CASE STUDY 1
The maximum heat flux, 14.78W/m2, was found at around 1400 h.
Roof with bare soil had heat flux fluctuation at different times of the day.
Heat gain was observed during daytime while inverse heat flux was detected
at night. The peak value of 6.81W/m2 was found around 1400 h as well.

This shows that plants play an important role in reducing thermal heat gain
due to their sun-shading effects during the daytime. For most plants, negative
heat flux was found not only at night but also during the period when the
solar radiation were not very strong during daytime. That is, the shading
effects of plants is so good that they don’t just reduce heat from entering
buildings but actually resulting in heat loss from the building.

Indirect effects of plants

Plants contribute to creating better outdoor thermal environment and

mitigating the Urban Heat Island effect.

The ambient air temperatures were also measured at different heights

above the hard surface and the vegetation part respectively on the
rooftop of the commercial building (Figure 17). The ‘cooling effect’ of plants
could be found from afternoon to sunrise next day. The maximum
temperature difference was 4.2ºC, measured at 300mm height, around
1800 h. This shows that plants on rooftop gardens can reduce ambient
temperature by as much as 4 ºC.

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 CASE STUDY 1
Foliage of plants affects temperature readings. Under dense shrubs,
surface temperature remains stable, with less than 3 ºC daily variation.
The maximum surface temperature was only 26.5 ºC. The direct thermal
effects of plants was further evaluated by measuring the heat flux through
different types of roofs (Figure 16). The heat flux was for hard surface,
bare soil (without any plants), turf, tree, and shrub respectively.

Figure 16: Comparison of heat flux transferred through different

roof surfaces on 4 November

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 CASE STUDY 1
Figure 17: Comparison of ambient air temperatures measured with
and without plants at 300mm heights on 3 and
4 November.

Based on the ambient air temperatures, globe temperatures, and air

velocity measured at 1m height, the Mean Radiation Temperatures (MRT)
above the hard surface and vegetation were calculated respectively.
There were clear differences between globe temperatures and MRTs
measured/calculated above hard surface and vegetation from the sunset
to the sunrise the next day. Maximum differences of the globe temperature
and MRT were 4.05ºC and 4.5ºC respectively just after sunset (between
1800 and 1900h). Without direct sunshine, the radiative load mainly
depends on the amount of long wave radiation emitted from the surrounding
surfaces. Since it was heated by solar radiation during daytime, the hard
surface had higher surface temperature and therefore emitted more
long wave radiation to the surrounding environment at night.

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 CASE
Green plants could consume part of the incoming solar radiation and

CASE STUDY
protect the surface beneath from high surface temperature. The long wave
radiation emitted from the vegetation, therefore, is much less than that emitted

STUDY 12
from the hard surface. These data provides clear evidence that rooftop
gardens can mitigate Urban Heat Island effect in the tropical climate.

The results of two field measurements conducted in Singapore reveal

that the installation of rooftop gardens would significantly improve the
thermal environment on building roofs. The measured thermal
improvements due to the presence of rooftop gardens are summarized
in Table 1.

Table 1: Summary of measured reductions caused by rooftop gardens in

thermal parameters of building’s roof

Thermal parameter Range of reduction

Surface temperature of roof 0 - 31.0 0C

Ambient at 300mm heights 0 - 4.2 0C

temperature
at 1000mm heights 0 - 1.50C

Relative Humidity -23.5% - 0%

Solar radiation (at 300mm heights) 4.2 - 124.6W/m2

Mean Radiation Temperature 0 - 4.60C

Globe temperature 0 - 4.10C

Heat flux transferred through surface 0.6 - 15.4W/m2

Total heat gain over a day 395.0 - 466.3KJ/m2

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