MEDITERRANEAN ACTIVE HOUSE: ANALYSIS OF CLIMATE AND USERS IMPACT ON ENERGY AND INDOOR COMFORT IN THE NEW EFFICIENCY STANDARD FOR SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS

Active House is a new vision of sustainability for buildings, that aims to promote a new way of thinking about sustainability itself. The goal of the vision is to create healthier buildings, capable to assure indoor comfort minimizing the environmental impact. The research proposed is part of the International framework about the evaluation of the performance requested to a construction in order to be classified as Active House. The aim is to investigate how the standard needs to be changed and moulded to be adaptable to the Mediterranean region and to develop practical guidelines for designing an Active House in hot climate. The methodology used is a step by step analysis. First of all it builds a perfect virtual prototype of Mediterranean Active House to evaluate in different scenarios the robustness of the model and the resilience of the building. Once that a med_AH is defined, the conclusions and the hypothesis deduced are validated on two case studies: VELUXlab and RhOME.

Velux Lab: innovation between art and science

Arianna Brambilla

Veluxlab is the first Italian Nearly Zero Energy Building. It is placed in Bovisa Campus of Politecnico di Milano and it represents a study case of high energy efficiency building, integrating in the future scenario required by the European Directive 2010/31/UE. VELUXlab was born as a Mediterranean Model Home for VELUX, called Atika, designed by J.A. Cantalejo and R.A.Ronda from ACXT/IDOM studio. It personified the prototype of energy efficiency building for the Mediterranean Region and it is the result of an important architectural and performance retrofit. The renovation was led by Atelier2 with the supervision of Professor Imperadori and Professor Motta from Politecnico di Milano.The collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and VELUX Italia gave the opportunity of create a new lab, a sort of test building, where it is possible to develop the experimental research on going in the University. In this way VELUXlab became itself matter of research on the energy efficiency and sustainability in the building sector. The use of innovative solutions and materials for the envelope coupled with an advanced technological system, makes representing the first Italian nearly Zero Energy Building in a University Campus. Furthermore, thanks to its energetic performance and to the integration of renewable source, it is the first built Active House in Italy (www.activehouse.info). VELUXlab is, therefore, an example of smart and sustainable re-use of an existing structure as well as a model of energy efficient building and a prototype for the new generation home, bringing forward future experimentations and implementation in the sector. It is the profitable collaboration between Politecnico and construction companies that allows to innovate, test and research sustainability and efficiency. The west wing of the building and the conditioning system are equipped with a revolutionary wireless sensors network (WSN), designed by the DEI Department of Politecnico di Milano (Prof. Cugola, Ing. Sivieri), that allows a constantly monitoring of the real performance of the envelope - indoor comfort system. The real time results are broadcasted on the University intranet, elaborated by a remote server and then made available on-line. Thanks to this streaming it is possible to understand the real performance of VELUXlab in the first year of measurement. This data portray the ordinary operational situation, including the internal strains given by the users; it is easy to understand that the building itself is a prototype, conceived as an active and dynamic laboratory. In order to make easier the data interpretation and management, the Design Department (Prof. Bordegoni), is been studying an innovative and more intuitive way to visualize the sensors data, with the implementation of the graphic interface in an augmented reality platform. It is easy to understand that VELUXlab offers continuously incentives and opportunities for testing and experimenting innovative solutions and ideas, giving the chance to continue research and studies.

2013

The usability of green building rating systems in hot arid climates: A case study in Siwa, Egypt

Shady Galal Mohamed Attia

In the last three years there has been a proliferation of regional building rating systems across the Middle East. Most those emerging rating systems and labels imitate the British and American rating systems BREEAM and LEED that emerge from an impact reduction paradigm. Thus they are neglecting the local historic, climatic, economic, technological, cultural and social context. This paper presents two case studies of a recently constructed ecolodges in Siwa, Egypt, that performs beyond the existing rating systems requirements. The paper illustrates the environmental and sustainability design strategies adapted to El-Babinshal and Adrère Amellal buildings’ context. In this study, various design strategies are surveyed and their response to climate, occupants and society is evaluated. The paper presents a set of sustainability principles addressing (1) the site, (2) water, (3) energy, (4) resources, (5) comfort, (6) heritage and (7) social responsibility. In addition, the building is examined across the environmental criteria of LEED, Estidama and the Egyptian Green Pyramid Rating System. Results showed that the building failed to comply with the three rating systems despite winning the Egyptian Hassan Fathy Award for environmental design. The paper elaborates on this conflict and presents recommendations to improve the questioned rating systems and support architects with the principles and strategies for sustainable design.

2013

Towards the reduction of environmental impacts of temporary event infrastructures

Loïc Vivien Fumeaux

In the context of temporary events, the use of structural systems suitable for short-term use, is a key strategy in terms of organization. However, this type of infrastructure currently requires the implementation of significant resources, for which the characteristics of flexibility and economic efficiency most often prevail over considerations related to sustainability. This lack of sustainability exists due to several attributes of a temporary building. Firstly, the distance between the place of storage and the one of use requires transportation, which can sometimes represent a significant share of consumption and environmental impacts. Furthermore, heat energy required to achieve an acceptable level of indoor comfort in a building with little or no thermal isolation is disproportionate to the short time of use. Finally, the materials used, in most cases, have a significant life cycle in terms of embodied energy required for their manufacture and respectively their disposal. However, many parameters are not as yet subject to specific studies. Contributing to remedy this lack, the present paper aims to evaluate the environmental impacts of current temporary event infrastructures and to compare them with the expected performances of an alternative proposition, the On STAGE Project, the design of which refers to architectural quality and high level of comfort with an optimal use of resources and a minimization of environmental impacts.

2014

Velux Lab: innovation between art and science

Arianna Brambilla

2013