Score - Sustainable Construction in Rural and Fragile Areas for Energy efficiency

The following guidelines come from a deep analysis of case studies, norms and regulations, in relation to the local level. This analysis is summarized in a card that can be downloaded in Italian language.

The primary function of the involucre, such as protection from external agents,  was accompanied in time from the task to modulate the conditions in such a way as to create environments more comfortable; task mainly differs in relation to the climatic conditions of the reference context. Our century however has made us witnesses of a technological involution of the constructed,  characterized by the loss of all connections with the physical environment that the involucre had acquired over time, restoring only the function of protective shell.
The relationship that exists between the behavior of the building and its casing is fairly critical,  if we think that it should isolate from wind, moisture and rain but it must simultaneously be permeable to light and air to keep the heat and provide for the security and privacy of the users. Obtain these results, burning less oil, coal or gas is only possible by combining the components of the involucre (old and new) to primitive design principles and assign to the wrapper itself an important function, that of thermal controller, able to reach within levels of comfort without the use of mechanical systems or systems that require a high consumption.
The achievement of these objectives, however, is not easy, and if we are talking about then casing of existing buildings,  a requalification of the constructed recently or a restoration of historical buildings, it may not always be convenient;  if, however, it improves the balance between gains and losses of heat, it reduces the use of conventional plants, eliminates the need for heating or reduces consumption,  the supplementary costs of an intervention focus could be recovered, considering the impact that these benefits can have on those aspects of comfort and especially on savings obtainable.
In most cases, the intervention of recovery focuses on the building envelope by operating on the same configuration especially in an attempt to contain the economic burdens and energy.
The first engine of the transaction is, in many cases, the improvement of the thermal behavior of the walls in relation to the objective to contain the energy expenditure in step d use,  but important thrusts can also arise from the need to combat some degradation phenomena linked to a technological approach not optimal.  The different recovery strategies are then developed with intent corrections and improvements rather than with a more general objective of transformation of the closure system.
View the need to adapt an immense heritage building, built in different periods and do not meet the standard energy required by current regulations, the restoration project must evaluate different fundamental variables to direct the design toward scenarios of feasibility effective (scale of the intervention; configuration general settlement, and, in the case of individual buildings, guidelines and morphology; destinations of use; the level of employment of the spaces and need to maintain continuous the activities that take place there for example, maintenance of the population activity during the renovation of a complex of buildings of building economic and popular); proprietary configuration; the level of deterioration of the buildings and open spaces; technological characteristics and constructive;  energy performance; characteristics of plants and of technological networks existing; level of potential for the integration of renewable energy or applicability of bioclimatic solutions/passive; potential constraints to organising; problems of management and maintenance;  cost/economic resources, tax incentives, potential funding.
However, there are at the national level and then also at the regional level a series of issues/constraints related to existing buildings: at the regulatory level (inconsistency, lack of homogeneity and delays in implementation legislation); training (lack of formation of most of the technicians and operators institutional); inefficiency of most of the built heritage, public and private, that, in addition to severe problems of obsolescence, offers bad energy performance due to excessive thermal dispersions of the enclosure, low thermal inertia of the structures, underestimation of the role of the natural light, inability to exploit in a passive way solar energy is inefficiency vis-à-vis the overheating summer, theme particularly relevant in the Mediterranean regions; distrust and lack of information of economic operators, as demonstrated by the diffusion of the unfounded belief that the environmental quality and energy constitutes an unsustainable burden of the cost of construction; limited availability of products and technology solutions that are not widely available and can be found on the local market.

For greater dissemination of restoration of the existing and recovery/restoration of historic buildings In the key of reconfiguration and optimization eco-energy, can,  considering the weakness defined, could be implemented thanks to the following actions:

• Optimize the use of raw materials, but also that of the so-called materials of second life, other words, it is the result of recycling processes that would allow both considerable savings in terms of the energy invested in order to the steps of extraction and filtration, it is of a resizing of the consumption during the processing stages. In addition, the recycling allows a decrease in the demand for primary resources and the containment of a part of the impact related to disposal activity.
• At the political level is important to address the policy of integration, in the construction industry, technologies for the exploitation of renewable resources with that of new generation but mainly on the occasion of interventions for recovery
• Training and constant updating, with respect to innovative technologies, for all the actors, both public and private, of the construction process through training courses and internships.
• Education and training in schools interested in redevelopment programs with specific address bio-ecological of the structures are now obsolete and strongly modal shifts and devoid of insulation
• Need to waive certain constraints of urban nature (minimum distances from the boundaries of properties, buildings, and streets laid down in laws and regulations etc)  content of the building regulations in order to encourage targeted interventions to increase the environmental comfort and energy saving through the improvement of the thermal insulation, compatible with constraints of safeguard to which are possibly subject the property object d'intervention or that they are judged worthy of protection for special reasons of historic character,  cultural, architectural and aesthetic by the urban planning instruments.

Indication for the Bio-construction Action Plan

Pursuant to the guidelines written above, here are synthetically reported the criteria/examples for pilot projects to be financed in MED territory, in relation with the specific treated theme. These criteria/examples, together with the ones resulting from all the themes of eco-construction tool matrix, will make up a Bio-construction Action Plan for each partner countries.

• To overcome the difficulty in understanding the technical data and especially in gathering evidence on the energy quality of buildings should be a project for the creation of archives and databases, useful media to learn, develop, through simple indicators, for an overall assessment of the existing building.
• Initiative project that is based on an energy analysis of all public buildings and experience the general state of the structures, (age, regulatory compliance) of the critical energy performance, the status of plant systems in order to enact and enable investments restructuring / upgrading of public assets also often lacks the necessary security requirements, the certificate of fire prevention to emergency exits, through an operational plan for energy saving measures.
• Creation of an observatory to monitor the action taken, together with the dissemination of best practices in order to inform / train all stakeholders (citizens, administrators, entrepreneurs, developers, engineers, etc.), thus providing added value to the technical countless local energy agencies (RENAEL), but that does not always manage to impose itself on the territory, in order to play the role of training the technical workforce involved in both the private and public
• Implement, through project initiatives, technological research of stratification insulating housing (Phase Change Materials (PCM), Transparent insulation materials (TIM) and thin thermo-reflective insulation.) and transparent surfaces (glass photochromic, thermochromic, electrochromic, ETFE , etc.) that would allow the application of innovative technologies and materials and industrialized. The most recent experiments in the field of technology packages sees the application of multilayer thick insulating material content that exploit the performance of thermal insulation, thermal and thermo-reflectance phase shift which does not yet have a widespread knowledge and application in the local area.

Possible criteria for MED bio-housing quality certificate

The international certification systems, typically provide information related to the redevelopment of the recently constructed and restoration of historic buildings on criteria for applying the principles of building quality biosostenibile. In particular, for the most widespread Italian certification system, called "Protocol Ithaca", the Italian version of "Green Building Challenge", for example with regard to interventions on, we can find any mention in 'Annex A of Schedule Ithaca Liguria. The card 1 - Energy for space heating - shows indications for appropriate intervention strategies for opaque and glazed envelope components, while the card 7 - Maintenance of performance-envelope identifies strategies to prevent the formation and accumulation condensation inside the housing.These recommendations, definitely useful for the purpose of a local environmental certification strategy should be implemented with policies that are closer to more different types of building fabric (old town, rural area, abandoned industrial area, housing, construction of the postwar period, etc.) , then differentiating the possible intervention strategies at a local level taking into account the possibility of local availability of potentially employable, preferring those that come from renewable sources and recycling processes without excluding innovative materials from the most recent scientific research. In the Liguria region already exists a system of energy certification of buildings (though not environmental, in that it addresses only the issues related to the reduction of energy consumption) - Regulation of 21 January 2009 n.1. Through this regulation is becoming more widespread attention to the issue of the case, though, to have significant results on a large scale, it was not until the rule becomes fully operational.

Case studies

• Restructuring forestry barracks for tourism, Monte Penna  (GE);
• Sustainable refit works of the district “Piazzale Moroni”, Savona;
• Farm holiday reorganization, Borzonasca (GE);

Download PDF (Italian language)