Housing environmental refurbishment potential the form as one of the main factors influencing energy exchanges through the envelope.

GANEM, CAROLINA; COCH, HELENA

Hanoi, Vietnam

Conferencia; Virtual Conference on Sustainable Architectural Design and Urban Planning.; 2007

University Network for Sustainable Architectural Design and Urban Planning - ASIA LINK, Europe Aid

It is a known architectural fact that the characteristics of the envelope influence the resulting interior thermal behaviour of spaces, and therefore they impact on users’ perception of comfort. In single-family detached houses, it is important to study this fact very carefully due to the high potential influence of the exposed surface in relation with the volume of the space. The form is presented as one of the main factors influencing energy exchanges through the envelope. By understanding the particularities of each form it is possible to detect opportunities to reduce current non-renewable energy consumption in houses and design refurbishment strategies for each case. In the city of Mendoza, Argentina (32º40’SL, 68º51’WL, 750 masl, Annual heating DD (base 18°C): 1384 °C day/year) the envelope must be flexible and adaptable to accomplish the passive goal in an annual and daily challenging continental temperate climate. With the objective to reach comfort by non-energetic means, two representative single-family housing typologies (open and compact) in this city have been analysed. The pursued methodology started with the theoretical evaluation of the environmental refurbishment potential by applying energy saving and passive strategies for winter and summer seasons and by detecting which strategies had more impact in energy consumption reduction for each typology. Subsequently, on-site temperature measurements on a 15’ basis were performed on four existing case studies, two for each typology. This experimental data validated thermal simulation models developed with the programme SIMEDIF (INENCO-UNSa). The developed theoretical refurbishment options were then simulated in order to obtain a more accurate approximation of the expectable comfort benefits by environmentally upgrading the envelope. General conclusions highlight the form as one of the main factors influencing energy exchanges through the envelope and therefore conditioning the choice of strategies to apply in the envelope in order to perform a successful environmental refurbishment.