The refurbishment of existing buildings is a crucial yet often neglected subject within sustainable architecture; attention is usually focused on new buildings. Many old buildings waste large amounts ...of energy and provide poor internal conditions for occupants through poor lighting, poor ventilation, solar penetration and glare, and poor control of heating and cooling. Demolition is an option but the refurbishment alternative is increasingly seen as more sustainable in terms of architectural value, materials use, neighbourhood disruption and waste disposal. In addition, the potential impact of low energy refurbishment is much greater than that for new build since there are many more buildings already in existence than will be built in the next 10 - 20 years, the period over which many CO2 emission targets apply.
The Handbook of Sustainable Refurbishment: Non-Domestic Buildings offers architects, engineers and a wide range of building professionals practical advice, illustrated by real examples. It moves from principles of sustainable refurbishment to specific design and engineering guidance for a variety of circumstances. It emphasises the need for an integrated approach by showing how refurbishment measures interact with one another and with the occupants, and how performance is ultimately influenced by this interaction.
This open access book includes detail on various structures, buildings, and building materials from different structural and sustainability perspectives. It describes how the building industry is ...vital for the achievement of the sustainable development goals, namely, economic growth, social progress, and the effective protection of the environment. The aim of this collection is to foster the design and construction of sustainable structures and buildings to reduce the environmental load, connect with the environment, and benefit the health of occupants. Presenting the knowledge, trends, and developments from a group of contributors in the field working with different kinds of structures, structural components, buildings, and building materials, the book is ideal for practitioners working in commercial settings, as well as engineering students and researchers concerned with sustainability issues.
This open access book summarizes the research being pursued as part of the COST Action CA21103 titled "Implementation of Circular Economy in the Built Environment" (Circular B), which aims to define ...the methodology to develop a common circularity framework for inclusive application and assessment in new and existing buildings to support decision-making for all value chain stakeholders and appraise the implementation level of the European Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). The Action is increasingly gaining interest worldwide, bringing multidisciplinary young and experienced researchers together to share the latest studies and develop new knowledge. Consisting of 17 chapters corresponding to the conference themes, the book analyses and discusses topics such as Circular Economy (CE) best practices, design strategies for circular buildings, circular materials and products, adaptive reuse of existing buildings, recovery and reuse of salvaged materials and products, case studies of current applications and trends, barriers against CE implementation in buildings, efficient waste and circular resource management, circular lifecycle management and decision making, stakeholders relationships, CE supporting policies and barriers, circular business models, criteria, KPIs and assessment models for circular buildings, CE criteria in sustainability frameworks, digitalization and BIM for enhanced circularity of buildings and building materials, and standardization of CE definitions in buildings.
•We developed a LCA of three typical Italian buildings in their design conditions.•We evaluated the impacts of all life cycle phases of the buildings.•We introduced some energy optimizations and ...evaluated LCA implications.•We showed that LCA can be a powerful tool for the eco-design of buildings.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a widely known methodology for “cradle to grave” investigation of the environmental impacts of products and technological lifecycles; however, this methodology has not been yet broadly used as an eco-design tool among the practitioners of the building sector. We applied LCA on three conventional Italian buildings – a detached residential house, a multi-family and a multi-story office building. Our analysis includes all the life stages, from the production of the construction materials, to their transportation, assembling, lighting, appliances, cooling- and heating-usages during the operating phase, to the end of life of all the materials and components. We found that the operation phase has the greatest contribution to the total impact (from 77% of that of the detached house, up to 85% of the office building), whereas the impact of the construction phase ranges from about 14% (office building) to 21% (detached house). We carried further analyses to evaluate the influence of various optimizations of the buildings, e.g., more efficient envelopes and facilities, on the entire life cycle of the three buildings. In addition, we propose a methodological approach, which can contribute to the acceptance of LCA as a tool in the eco-friendly design of buildings, especially those buildings whose impact during the construction phase needs to be carefully checked, such as Nearly Zero Energy Buildings.
► Different definition for Net ZEB are possible in different countries. ► A consistent definition framework is presented to set Net ZEB definitions. ► The interaction between buildings and grids is ...addressed. ► The definition framework aims at supporting legislations to achieve political targets.
The term Net ZEB, Net Zero Energy Building, indicates a building connected to the energy grids. It is recognized that the sole satisfaction of an annual balance is not sufficient to fully characterize Net ZEBs and the interaction between buildings and energy grids need to be addressed. It is also recognized that different definitions are possible, in accordance with a country's political targets and specific conditions. This paper presents a consistent framework for setting Net ZEB definitions. Evaluation of the criteria in the definition framework and selection of the related options becomes a methodology to set Net ZEB definitions in a systematic way. The balance concept is central in the definition framework and two major types of balance are identified, namely the import/export balance and the load/generation balance. As compromise between the two a simplified monthly net balance is also described. Concerning the temporal energy match, two major characteristics are described to reflect a Net ZEB's ability to match its own load by on-site generation and to work beneficially with respect to the needs of the local grids. Possible indicators are presented and the concept of grid interaction flexibility is introduced as a desirable target in the building energy design.
We conducted a re-analysis of data supplied by the New Buildings Institute and the US Green Buildings Council on measured energy use data from 100 LEED-certified commercial and institutional ...buildings. These data were compared to the energy use of the general US commercial building stock. We also examined energy use by LEED certification level, and by energy-related credits achieved in the certification process. On average, LEED buildings used 18–39% less energy per floor area than their conventional counterparts. However, 28–35% of LEED buildings used more energy than their conventional counterparts. Further, the measured energy performance of LEED buildings had little correlation with certification level of the building, or the number of energy credits achieved by the building at design time. Therefore, at a societal level, green buildings can contribute substantial energy savings, but further work needs to be done to define green building rating schemes to ensure more consistent success at the individual building level. Note, these findings should be considered as preliminary, and the analyses should be repeated when longer data histories from a larger sample of green buildings are available.
The concerted TABULA typology concept includes structural information and datasets of housing stocks from 20 European countries. It is being used for showcasing the effect of energy saving measures, ...for cross-country comparisons of building and supply system features as well as for setting-up housing stock models.
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•A concerted concept of residential building typologies has been developed.•The concept has been implemented in 20 European countries.•A common calculation method is used including a calibration to typical consumption.•Cross-country comparisons were performed for 600 residential buildings.•Average buildings have been used as simplified building stock models.
In the framework of the international projects TABULA and EPISCOPE residential building typologies have been created in 20 European countries. Each national typology consists of a classification scheme grouping buildings according to their size, age and further parameters and a set of exemplary buildings representing these building types. U-values of different age bands and energy expenditure factors of heat generators of these buildings are being compared. In addition, synthetical average buildings have been defined which are statistically representative for specific age and size bands and enable projections of the energy performance to the total housing stocks. Based on the common data structure the energy performance of the average buildings is calculated in a standardised way to form simplified housing stock models. In the context of inhomogeneous building stocks of European countries the results allow an understanding of the average and variation of parameters like U-values, supply system performances or final energy.
Climate Adaptation and Resilience Across Scales provides professionals with guidance on adapting the built environment to a changing climate. This edited volume brings together practitioners and ...researchers to discuss climate-related resilience from the building to the city scale. This book highlights North American cases that deal with issues such as climate projections, public health, adaptive capacity of vulnerable populations, and design interventions for floodplains, making the content applicable to many locations around the world. The contributors in this book discuss topics ranging from how built environment professionals respond to a changing climate, to how the building stock may need to adapt to climate change, to how resilience is currently being addressed in the design, construction, and operations communities. The purpose of this book is to provide a better understanding of climate change impacts, vulnerability, and resilience across scales of the built environment. Architects, urban designers, planners, landscape architects, and engineers will find this a useful resource for adapting buildings and cities to a changing climate.
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