scholarly journals Contribution of Roof Refurbishment to Urban Sustainability

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8111
Author(s):  
Ángel Pitarch ◽  
María José Ruá ◽  
Lucía Reig ◽  
Inés Arín
Keyword(s):  
Residential Building ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Accurate Analysis ◽  
Green Areas ◽  
Residential Building Stock ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Social Uses

Achieving sustainable urban environments is a challenging goal—especially in existing cities with high percentages of old and obsolete buildings. This work analyzes the contribution of roof refurbishment to sustainability, considering that most roofs are currently underused. Many potential benefits of refurbishment can be achieved, such as the improvement of the energy performance of the buildings and the use of a wasted space for increasing green areas or for social purposes. In order to estimate the degree of the improvement, a vulnerable area in Castellón (east Spain) was selected as a case study. A thorough analysis of the residential building stock was undertaken. Using georeferenced information from the Cadastral Office we classified them according to typology, year of construction and roof type. Some refurbishment solutions were proposed and their applicability to the actual buildings was analyzed under different criteria. The theoretical benefits obtained in the neighborhood such as energy and carbon emissions savings were evaluated, together with the increase of green areas. Moreover, other social uses were suggested for neglected urban spaces in the area. Finally, a more accurate analysis was performed combining different solutions in a specific building, according to its particular characteristics.

scholarly journals Towards Urban Mining—Estimating the Potential Environmental Benefits by Applying an Alternative Construction Practice. A Case Study from Switzerland

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5041
Author(s):  
Efstathios Kakkos ◽  
Felix Heisel ◽  
Dirk E. Hebel ◽  
Roland Hischier
Keyword(s):  
Impact Category ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Experimental Unit ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Urban Mining ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Residential Building Stock ◽  
Construction Practice

Modern cities emerged as the main accumulator for primary and waste materials. Recovery of both types from buildings after demolition/disassembly creates a secondary material stream that could relieve pressure from primary resources. Urban mining represents this circular approach, and its application depends on redefining current construction practice. Through the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology and assuming primary resources as step zero of urban mining, this study estimates the impacts and benefits of conventional versus a circular construction practice applied to various buildings with different parameters and the country-level environmental potential savings that could be achieved through this switch in construction practice—using the increase of the residential building stock in Switzerland between 2012 and 2016 as a case study and key values from the experimental unit “Urban Mining and Recycling”, designed by Werner Sobek with Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel and installed inside the NEST (Next Evolution in Sustainable Building Technologies) research building on the Empa campus in Switzerland. The results exhibit lower total impacts (at least 16% in each examined impact category) at building level and resulting benefits (i.e., 68–117 kt CO2-Eq) at country level over five years, which can be further reduced/increased respectively by using existing or recycled components, instead of virgin materials.

Country residential building stock electricity demand in future climate – Portuguese case study

2020 ◽  
Vol 209 ◽  
pp. 109694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Figueiredo ◽  
Pedro Nunes ◽  
Marta J. N. Oliveira Panão ◽  
Miguel C. Brito
Keyword(s):  
Residential Building ◽  
Electricity Demand ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Residential Building Stock

scholarly journals Estimating the Smart Readiness Indicator in the Italian Residential Building Stock in Different Scenarios

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (20) ◽  
pp. 6442
Author(s):  
Laura Canale ◽  
Marianna De Monaco ◽  
Biagio Di Pietra ◽  
Giovanni Puglisi ◽  
Giorgio Ficco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Residential Building ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Smart Building ◽  
Energy Retrofit ◽  
Energy Scenario ◽  
Base Scenario ◽  
Building Typology ◽  
Residential Building Stock ◽  
Multicriteria Assessment

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2018/844/EU introduced the smart readiness indicator (SRI) to provide a framework to evaluate and promote building smartness in Europe. In order to establish a methodological framework for the SRI calculation, two technical studies were launched, at the end of which a consolidated methodology to calculate the SRI of a building basing on a flexible and modular multicriteria assessment has been proposed. In this paper the authors applied the above-mentioned methodology to estimate the SRI of the Italian residential building stock in different scenarios. To this end, eight “smart building typologies”, representative of the Italian residential building stock, have been identified. For each smart building typology, the SRI was calculated in three scenarios: (a) base scenario (building stock as it is); (b) an “energy scenario” (simple energy retrofit) and (c) a “smart energy scenario” (energy retrofit from a smart perspective). It was therefore possible to estimate a national average SRI value of 5.0%, 15.7%, and 27.5% in the three above defined scenarios, respectively.

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