A review of design strategies, technological pathways, and benefit mechanisms of productive façades

Against the combined pressures of climate change, rapid urbanization, and food security challenges, achieving efficient resource use and improved environmental quality in high-density cities has become a central issue of urban sustainability. Productive façades (PF), through the integration of façade-based vertical farming (VF) and photovoltaic (PV) technologies, embed resource production processes into building envelopes, enabling the synergistic coupling of crop and energy production, building operation, and environmental regulation without requiring additional urban land. Based on a systematic literature review, this study examines PF from three dimensions: design logic, technical pathways, and benefit mechanisms, with emphasis on façade configurations, plant cultivation, intelligent technologies, and integrated performance. It proposes an IoT – AI-Based Interdisciplinary Intelligent Collaborative Platform to provide shared data and decision-making interfaces for architecture and agriculture; develops a multi-scale benefit coupling mechanism to analyze PF’s interactions across building, community, and urban scales; and establishes a “design – operation – evaluation” framework to support standardized implementation and wider application. The findings indicate that PF, as a composite system integrating productive functions into building envelopes, demonstrates significant potential in enhancing resource output, improving environmental quality, strengthening urban ecological resilience, and supporting carbon neutrality and sustainable urban development.