STRAW IN THE RETROFITTING EXISTING BUILDINGS: SURVEYS AND PROSPECTS

Rivista Tema ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (N.2 (2021)) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
International Debate ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Construction Techniques ◽  
Traditional Construction ◽  
Architecture And Design ◽  
Initial Research

The article aims to investigate the feasibility of straw as an alternative to traditional construction materials, with particular reference to the retrofit of buildings. This paper is part of the international debate on environmental sustainability, energy efficiency, and rehabilitation of the existing building heritage and reports the results of research carried out at the Department of Architecture and Design of the Politecnico di Torino. After initial research and classification of the main construction techniques that can be used to realize straw thermal coats, a survey was started to collect opinions on the use of straw in construction from professionals and potential users. At the same time, one on-site measurement campaign was carried out to assess the thermal transmittance of the straw insulation coat. The different investigations – literature research, surveys, experimentation – highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the use of straw and identified possible scenarios for its wider application in Italy.

PRESERVING TRADITIONAL CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES AND MATERIALS AS AN ANSWER TO FUTURE ENERGY-FUEL CRISIS

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique Villacis ◽  
Maria Lorena Rodriguez ◽  
Cynthia Ayarza
Keyword(s):  
Construction Projects ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Scientific Development ◽  
Construction Techniques ◽  
Design Build ◽  
The Future ◽  
Class Room ◽  
Traditional Construction ◽  
Approach Working ◽  
The Impact

Once a highly skilled and experienced professor told us: the future of architecture is in its handcraft past. We were not able to completely understand him at that time. Looking forward to the future where architecture and engineering professionals will perform facing energy fuel crisis and global warming, an endogenous approach, working with what is available, may be a subsistence tool. Preserving and further development of traditional construction materials, methods and techniques now has become a must, not form the cultural heritage stand point but as a survival instrument. In this paper we will analyze three different roofing systems, two of them ancestral techniques; toquilla leaf roof and straw thatch roofs, using them in real contemporary construction circumstances by incorporating them into the professional life through real construction projects and the educational system through Con lo que hay, a design-build class room in architectural school in Ecuador, facing them with conventional zinc metal roofing. This study will show the impact of recovering these techniques and materials within the academic, the professional, scientific development and on the local economies.

scholarly journals Comparative Analysis of Economic Impacts of Sustainable Vertical Extension Methods for Existing Underground Spaces

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 975 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soo-yeon Seo ◽  
Byunghee Lee ◽  
Jongsung Won
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impacts ◽  
Construction And Demolition Waste ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Construction Costs ◽  
Demolition Waste ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Vertical Extension ◽  
Unit Costs ◽  
Construction Techniques

Without demolishing an entire existing building, it is possible to sustainably expand its underground spaces to enhance the building’s functionality. However, there have been a few relevant studies exploring this option, and they did not consider the financial feasibilities of underground vertical extension methods. Therefore, this paper analyzes the economic impacts of three sustainable vertical extension methods for existing underground spaces. The extension methods were the (1) bottom-up, (2) normal top-down, and (3) top-down with multi-post downward (MPD) methods. In order to analyze and compare the economic impacts of the underground vertical extension methods, 24 illustrative examples were generated in this paper. Construction costs of the three sustainable vertical extension methods for existing underground spaces are calculated and compared. Those are based on the quantity of used materials in the construction phase and dismantled materials in the demolition phase, as well as unit costs of each material. In addition, the structural stabilities of the examples are analyzed using MIDAS Gen 2017. As the results, the top-down method with MPD was the lowest sustainable method for vertically expanding underground spaces compared to other two methods under the same condition. Moreover, the higher the number of underground floors of existing buildings and the greater the number of extended basement floors, the more economically advantageous was the top-down method with MPD. Considering their structural stabilities and economic impacts of the extension methods help practitioners to select appropriate construction techniques and reduce costs, risks, and the amount of generated construction and demolition waste.

Traditional Building Materials for Innovative Envelope

2012 ◽  
Vol 253-255 ◽  
pp. 358-366
Author(s):  
Grazia Lombardo
Keyword(s):  
Building Materials ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Natural Stone ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Sustainable Building ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
First Results ◽  
Traditional Construction ◽  
Definition Of

The present paper is part of a research that is developed within the sustainable building design through the revisiting of the traditional construction materials. The results obtained show that the natural stone, enhanced by technological innovations, are often capable of providing excellent performance. Based on the tests, it was possible to verify and validate the hypothesis that the proposed new system of external vertical opaque enclosure consisting in a panel in dry-assembled and pre-compressed blocks of natural stone through reinforcing steel, has good performances when used both in the case of new design in the case of recovery of modern buildings, when the intervention is being addressed within of an overall building improvement regarding the security, sustainability, functionality and image. This paper reports the first results obtained by the study of the feasibility of the envelope being tested, through the definition of all the details of links with the existing building structure.

scholarly journals A Sustainable Approach for the Refurbishment Process of Vernacular Heritage: The Sesga House Case Study (Valencia, Spain)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9800
Author(s):  
Camilla Mileto ◽  
Fernando Vegas ◽  
Carmen Llatas ◽  
Bernardette Soust-Verdaguer
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Vernacular Architecture ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Construction Techniques ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
New Construction ◽  
Local Construction ◽  
Industrial Materials

The refurbishment of traditional vernacular architecture is currently of interest for the conservation of heritage, historic landscape and cultural landscape, as well as for its potential benefits in the field of environmental sustainability. The carefully selected materials and techniques used in the refurbishment of a traditional dwelling in Sesga (Valencia, Spain) maintain the local construction techniques while causing the least possible environmental impact, saving on transport and transformation and construction energy. This article uses LCA to showcase this contribution, examining three scenarios: the first option is the refurbishment of the case study using natural traditional materials and techniques; the second presents a hypothetical refurbishment using widely used industrial materials; and a third option looks at the demolition of the existing building and the addition of a new construction with widely used industrial materials. This comparison has shown where and why the first option is, broadly speaking, the most sustainable option in environmental, sociocultural and socioeconomic terms.

scholarly journals New directions for reinforced concrete coastal structures

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Nolan ◽  
Marco Rossini ◽  
Chase Knight ◽  
Antonio Nanni
Keyword(s):  
Service Life ◽  
Prestressed Concrete ◽  
Composite Structures ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Coastal Structures ◽  
Frp Composites ◽  
The Us ◽  
Time Dependent Effect ◽  
Traditional Construction

AbstractWithin the last century, coastal structures for infrastructure applications have traditionally been constructed with timber, structural steel, and/or steel-reinforced/prestressed concrete. Given asset owners’ desires for increased service-life; reduced maintenance, repair and rehabilitation; liability; resilience; and sustainability, it has become clear that traditional construction materials cannot reliably meet these challenges without periodic and costly intervention. Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites have been successfully utilized for durable bridge applications for several decades, demonstrating their ability to provide reduced maintenance costs, extend service life, and significantly increase design durability. This paper explores a representative sample of these applications, related specifically to internal reinforcement for concrete structures in both passive (RC) and pre-tensioned (PC) applications, and contrasts them with the time-dependent effect and cost of corrosion in transportation infrastructure. Recent development of authoritative design guidelines within the US and international engineering communities is summarized and a examples of RC/PC verses FRP-RC/PC presented to show the sustainable (economic and environmental) advantage of composite structures in the coastal environment.

scholarly journals Implementation of BIM Modelling and Simulation Tools in Reducing Annual Energy Consumption of Multifamily Dwellings

2020 ◽  
Vol 170 ◽  
pp. 01002
Author(s):  
Subbarao Yarramsetty ◽  
MVN Siva Kumar ◽  
P Anand Raj
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Rotational Angle ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Efficient Option

In current research, building modelling and energy simulation tools were used to analyse and estimate the energy use of dwellings in order to reduce the annual energy use in multifamily dwellings. A three-story residential building located in Kabul city was modelled in Revit and all required parameters for running energy simulation were set. A Total of 126 experiments were conducted to estimate annual energy loads of the building. Different combinations from various components such as walls, roofs, floors, doors, and windows were created and simulated. Ultimately, the most energy efficient option in the context of Afghan dwellings was figured out. The building components consist of different locally available construction materials currently used in buildings in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the best energy efficient option was simulated by varying, building orientation in 15-degree increments and glazing area from 10% to 60% to find the most energy efficient combination. It was found that combination No. 48 was best option from energy conservation point of view and 120-degree rotational angle from north to east, of the existing building was the most energy-efficient option. Also, it was observed that 60% glazing area model consumed 24549 kWh more electricity compared to the one with 10% glazing area.

The all-composite road bridge – a proposal for rapid urbanisation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Siwowski ◽  
Aleksander Kozlowski ◽  
Leonard Ziemiański ◽  
Mateusz Rajchel ◽  
Damian Kaleta
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Fast Growing ◽  
Frp Composites ◽  
Frp Composite ◽  
Reinforced Polymer ◽  
Composite Bridge ◽  
Fibre Reinforced Polymer ◽  
Traditional Construction

<p>Technology and materials can help cities get smarter and cope with rapid urbanisation. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is one of the approaches applied in evaluation of material sustainability. Many significant LCA comparisons of innovative and traditional construction materials indicate that fibre- reinforced polymer (FRP) composites compare very favourably with other materials studied. As a proposal for rapid urbanisation, the FRP all-composite road bridge was developed and demonstrated in Poland. The paper describes the bridge system itself and presents the results of research on its development. The output of the R&amp;D project gives a very promising future for the FRP composite bridge application in Poland, especially for cleaner, resilient and more environmentally efficient infrastructure of fast-growing cities.</p>

Review of methods for evaluating adaptability of buildings

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoraya Roldán Rockow ◽  
Brandon Ross ◽  
Anna K. Black
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Adaptation Decision ◽  
Building Life Cycle ◽  
Development And Validation ◽  
Context Features ◽  
New Buildings

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a review of existing models and tools for evaluating the adaptability of buildings. A baseline of the current state of the art in adaptability evaluation and adaptation decision support is established; from this baseline, gaps for future research are recommended. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted to identify papers describing adaptability models and tools. The identified models were characterized based on their focus (new buildings, existing buildings, building life cycle), considered variables (physical and/or context features) and degree/type of validation. Findings Models can be grouped as those focusing on: evaluating adaptation decisions for existing buildings; the design of new buildings for future adaptation; and understanding adaptation throughout a building life cycle. Models focusing on existing building evaluation are further in development and validation than the other model types; as such, they are more suitable for use by practitioners. Another finding is that modeling of adaptability in buildings is still in its nascent stage and that data-driven quantitative modeling is a prime area for future research. Originality/value This paper is the first comprehensive review of models and tools for evaluating adaptability. Other works have evaluated the topic of adaptability more broadly, but this is the first paper to systematically characterize existing models and tools. Based on the review future, research topics are recommended.

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