| Summary: | This thesis examines the detailed process of developing affordable Vertical Greening System prototypes, through participatory development with low income communities in Lagos, Nigeria. Sequel to the development of the prototypes, an experimental analysis in an uninterrupted setting of the low-income house is undertaken to analyse the impact of the prototypes on indoor comfort. The ability of Vertical Greening Systems to impact internal temperature has been well documented in literature, most importantly in similar climatic conditions of the location of study. However, there is a dearth in attempts to simplify construction methods and financial costings often associated with these forms of prototypes. Pertaining to participatory development with communities, while the Community based participatory research principles seem applicable to this study, experiences and unanticipated challenges encountered during the field work reveals its limitations for application in its entirety. Hence, the original contribution to knowledge of this thesis stems from developing a series of unique methodological approaches in various aspects of the study. These include recruiting low income communities for participatory development of the prototypes and borrowing applicable aspects from CBPR to develop solutions (either solitarily or through input with the community) to unanticipated challenges encountered when physically developing the prototypes. A series of methodological steps specific to overcoming the challenges in the research environment were undertaken to prove the reliability of using two rooms: Experimental room 1 and Control room 10; and to evaluate the performance of the developed prototypes. The results revealed the steps, meetings, challenges and decisions first in identifying a co-operative community within Lagos and then developing the prototypes albeit through predefined physical criteria influencing the performance of VGS from relevant literature. Also, the experimental analysis of the developed prototypes reveals the detailed steps and considerations undertaken to analyse the system in an untainted, unorthodox and live setting of the study context. The impact of the fully-grown HDPE prototype on the measured Average Hourly Internal Air temperature in the month of August was a maximum of 2.6°C within the Experimental room. Further analysis also revealed that the average hourly internal air temperature was consistently within the adaptive thermal comfort range 90%-100% of the time. The perception survey within the community also revealed opinions and attitudes towards the prototypes. Recommendations were also suggested by the community members, that, combined with the principles developed in this study could be applicable in other low-income communities in developing other more affordable prototypes.
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