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The transformation of existing buildings into Near Zero Energy Buildings or even positive energy buildings remains a major challenge. In particular, historic buildings are an important cultural heritage that, in most cases, may be rehabilitated and reused for new purposes. However, achieving higher efficiencies in those buildings presents many diff...
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Context 1
... condition of the enclosures was verified, as well as the distribution of spaces in each floor, windows, solar access, location of the walls (or parting walls that serve as a boundary between two properties), and the exterior walls' thickness (those facing the street as well as those facing the courtyard inside). That information was complemented with that provided by both the buildings' drawings and the building model obtained using REVIT [54] (see Figures 3 and 4), which allowed defining the geometry of the building including the space partitions, the empty spaces, the different floors and the elements' constructive materials. The building consists of four floors with an inner courtyard, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. All floors have a similar distribution. ...
Context 2
... information was complemented with that provided by both the buildings' drawings and the building model obtained using REVIT [54] (see Figures 3 and 4), which allowed defining the geometry of the building including the space partitions, the empty spaces, the different floors and the elements' constructive materials. The building consists of four floors with an inner courtyard, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. All floors have a similar distribution. ...
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Citations
... Other cases regarding museums or ancient buildings with different climate control strategy requirements can be found in the literature, namely [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. ...
Museums housed in historical buildings combine the intrinsic value of the collections with the historical and architectural values of the building itself. Although usually made with thick elements with high thermal inertia, very effective in damping and delaying the heat flow, these buildings are usually characterized by elements with low thermal resistance, poor-quality windows and low area/volume ratio in the noblest buildings, which renders them ineffective at maintaining a stable indoor climate adequate for conservation, comfort and energy efficiency issues. In this paper, a simulation study was carried out to analyze the impact of the building location (weather), thermal envelope and climate control strategies by analyzing a generic room of the National Museum of Ancient Art of Lisbon. A simulation study was carried out for 15 European cities to verify the impossibility of standardizing the rehabilitation solutions in cultural heritage since energy needs depend on the location. It was concluded that the focus on climate control strategies has great potential for energy reduction and that in temperate climates of southern Europe, the improvement of thermal transmittance has a reduced effect on the building’s response.
... Buildings officially protected for their architectural or historical merit are usually ignored in the cost-optimisation methodology. Ramos et al. (2019) present a COM to renovate a historical building built in the Eighteenth century, preserving the aesthetic appearance of the building. ...
... Latief et al. (2019) used experiments and a case study to verify the design variables for an ideal Near Zero Energy House (nZEH) design, including building orientation, PV panels, fenestration, and passive design. Ramos et al. (2019) studied the combination of traditional recovery methods and the cooling capacity of the building's thermal mass for night ventilation and quantified using CFD simulations. Marszal et al. (2010) presented a summary of the energy measurement methodologies of NZEBs suggested by organizations representing eight separate countries: Germany, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Norway, the USA and Switzerland. ...
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Buildings are a major primary energy consumer in the world energy sector, with a value of about 40% of total energy consumption. The absence of traditional sources of energy currently promotes the development of Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs). The general definition of net zero energy construction is very critical to grasp. The aim of the paper is to overview the literature on the existing NZEB to make them self-sustaining and net zero in order to improve energy efficiency of the buildings. If enough renewable energy could be used, NZEB could potentially be achievable with power production. Furthermore, different building-service systems utilizing renewable energy sources have been extensively investigated for possible uses in NZEB. The paper gives the detail of its climatic condition in various part of the world along with their consequences and its impacts. The NZEB concept will significantly define the demand and supply strategies for renewable energies and conversion accounting to achieve a NZEB target along with its renewable energy evaluation. Buildings account for a large proportion of the world's total energy and carbon emissions, and play an important role in formulating strategies for sustainable growth. To this end, smart systems implement applications with numerous and interdisciplinary features. Here, the paper gives a detailed literature review on NZEB.
... Energy simulations supported by a cost-optimal methodology have been used to design the renovation of historic buildings [8], which is a methodology that has been proved to be needed when involving in-depth renovation of buildings [9,10]. This study reinforces the goodness of the cost-optimal methodology; however, the present paper is not focused on historic buildings. ...
Improving energy efficiency in buildings has a key role to play in achieving the ambitious goal of EU-wide climate neutrality by 2050, set out in the European Green Deal. This paper describes a cost-optimal analysis of residential buildings of Valencian Community, Spain. Thus, an assessment of the contribution of total primary energy savings per year (MW/h) of the social dwellings managed by EVha, Entitat Valenciana d’Habitatge i Sòl (eng. Valencian entity for dwelling and ground) towards the national contribution is presented in this paper. To assess it, the MedZEB cost-optimal methodology has been applied to optimise the performance of the building’s envelope. This means that Optimal Renovation Strategies through Life-Cycle Analysis have been applied to obtain the Packages of Optimal Solutions of the different reference buildings in a reference climate. First, the renovation scenario with 100% of the building stock being renovated has been calculated. Then, the renovation scenario of 1%, being the current European rate of renovation and, finally the renovation scenario of 2%, given that the objective of the Renovation Wave is to at least double the annual energy renovation rate of residential and non-residential buildings by 2030 and to foster deep energy renovations.
... Characterised by dense development and limited greenery, historic centres of large cities become urban heat islands [11], contributing to increased air pollution and other environmental pathologies [12]. The conversion of protected historic heritage into NZEBs (nearly zero-energy buildings) presents many difficulties [13]. Given the need to protect cultural values in these areas, measures of a different kind must be planned and implemented. ...
This study concerns contemporary cultural buildings in the historic city centre of Krakow, Poland, and their assessment in terms of sustainability. The paper aims to bridge a research gap in previous studies on pluralistic values and the impact of cultural heritage on sustainability. The comparative case study conducted in Krakow aims to evaluate the functioning and potential of the space towards achieving the following five goals: accessibility, conservation, mix of functions, aesthetics, comfort and sociability. The perception of these buildings and the public space around them by the city residents, as well as their operation during unexpected circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, were also evaluated. The author combined an on-site analysis, behavioural mapping and a survey. The results correlate the liveability and aesthetics of public spaces along with the amount and quality of greenery found there with the comfort of users and the popularity of particular places. This paper highlights how important it is to create cultural spaces in a historic city to develop a range of their activities linked to the surrounding public spaces and green areas. Activating cultural spaces and connecting them to sustainability goals is especially important when faced with declining tourism.
... With regard to the costs relating to new construction interventions, numerous studies have been carried out with the aim of estimating the monetary amounts necessary for the realization of the project, both in terms of realization ex-novo [6][7][8][9][10] that of reconstruction following seismic events [11][12][13][14][15][16]. The process of defining a project involves further categories of costs whose analysis and estimate allows one to provide a more comprehensive economic framework. ...
In the present research the financial convenience of refurbishment investments concerning residential properties located in the Italian territory was analyzed. The study aimed at determining the unit profit range for a potential investor deriving from the refurbishment of residential properties and contextualizing the analysis to the Italian provincial capitals. With reference to the three macro-areas that for geographic and socio-economic differences define the Italian territory, namely the North, Center, South and Islands, three financial convenience maps were elaborated with the aim of providing a useful support in the investment choices of private and public operators. In particular, the financial convenience maps could guide the private operators in their investment decisions through a higher awareness of the achievable earnings and could help to identify the optimal allocation of financial resources due to the increase in the market value of the refurbished property. For the public administrations, instead, the study will be a useful reference for the calibration of the fiscal policy decisions regarding the incentives for building refurbishment at the different territorial scales and of the tax revenues related to the increase in the market value of the refurbished properties.
... So, everything has been said on that topic? Not at all, and up-to-date research on all aspects related to the design of a zero-energy building is still being developed, as the articles reported [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] in this special issue testify. ...
... But ZEB is not only limited to new buildings. The works by Firlag and Piasecki [1] and Sanchez Ramos et al. [9] are devoted to study the renovation of existing or historic buildings toward the ZEB target; finally, two interesting side studies. Zanon et al. [7] present an innovative approach to assess the visual quality of homes and Iyer-Raniga [10] discusses the peculiarity of the holistic approach toward the zero energy objective in the built environment. ...
The debate about zero energy buildings (ZEBs) has been one of the main new drivers of innovation in the construction industry around the world in the past decade [...]
Whole-building dynamic simulation has been increasingly adopted as a tool to non-invasively investigate possible strategies to improve energy efficiency, thermal comfort, and conservation of historical buildings. Several critical assumptions are needed to cope with insufficient input data and limitations in simulation models, therefore the modelling approaches implemented by researchers are inhomogeneous and customised for each case study. A review of the literature was conducted to collect common patterns and replicable solutions, based on the case studies reported in scientific journals published between 2011 and 2022. The discussion covers all the key stages in the simulation process, from information gathering to the analysis of the target outcomes, highlighting current practices and open issues. The resulting informative panorama and technical discussion are intended to assist scholars and specialists in approaching the dynamic simulation of historical buildings as well as stimulating a debate toward standardisation and consolidation of a robust scientific community in the field.
Green concepts and Building Information Modeling (BIM) are increasingly adopted in construction processes, including new and heritage buildings, to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and create accurate digital models for observation, analysis, and optimization. However, BIM adoption faces challenges including a lack of regulations, refusal, insufficient staff, high costs, and enormous data. This paper contributes to the evaluation of BIM adoption in heritage green retrofitting processes, focusing on its advantages and challenges. This can be achieved through an evaluation methodology based on a couple of analyses: bibliometric analysis and case study-based SWOT analysis. The bibliometric analysis identifies essential factors influencing BIM adoption through co-occurrence terms that frequently appear together in related or transdisciplinary research. The second involves an analytical study of those factors individually through case study-based SWOT analysis, then developing a holistic SWOT analysis by discussing the advantages through strengths and opportunities and the challenges through weaknesses and threats. Finally, this paper proposes a holistic SWOT-based matrix, which offers four types of strategies: strengths and opportunities (S + O), weaknesses and opportunities (W + O), strengths and threats (S + T), and weaknesses and threats (W + T), considering priorities, organizations, and success metrics.
