Exploring occupant behaviour potentialities for historic buildings\u27 energy retrofit

In recent years, the topic of historic buildings’ energy retrofit has been investigated increasingly by the energy research sector, especially in the European area. This phenomenon is related to a number of reasons, among which the increasing awareness of the role that this category of buildings have to reach the European carbon emissions’ reduction targets by 2050. In fact, more than 14% of the European building stock dates from before 1920, but this percentage rises to 50% in several urban centres. Despite the increasing interest on the topic, several studies on historic buildings’ energy retrofit seems not aware of cultural heritage protection and conservation legislations and practices. For this reason, nowadays, the objectives of these two sectors seems to be unbalanced. Since the tradition of heritage conservation and protection are rooted in the society’s cultural background, there is the necessity of proposing a change of perspective about the role of the energy sector in the restoration field. Primarily, energy retrofit should be addressed at increasing the liveability and economic sustainability of historic buildings, having their social profitability as a central scope. In terms of solutions, the architectural heritage is characterized by a great variability, so its energy retrofit requires a high level of multidisciplinary knowledge. Moreover, due to the uniqueness of historic buildings, the necessity of individuating replicable solutions for their energy retrofit can be satisfied at a maximum degree by proposing a common procedural approach, which could be realized thorough the elaboration of a methodology. Based on the previous aspects, for the present work a strand of the energy research has been individuated as a potential ground to balance heritage conservation and energy efficiency aims. This strand is occupant behaviour or, more generally, building operation. This PhD dissertation tackled the previous aspects by proposing the elaboration and test of a methodology called “BIOSFERA” (Building Intelligent Operational Strategies For Energy Retrofit Aims”). Testing the methodology on a pilot study, which consisted on the experimentation on four case studies, a first answer to the following research question was provided: What are the potentialities of energy saving and indoor environmental conditions’ enhancement by acting only on the way non-residential historic buildings are operated by occupants and operators? The results obtained in the pilot study were promising, especially in perspective of a broader application of this methodology on a larger scale. In fact, in all buildings for which an energy consumption assessment was possible, the obtained energy savings ranged from 11% to 16% considering the whole experimentation, with seasonal peaks of more than 30%. In terms of indoor environmental conditions, the energy saving trend resulted, in the large majority of cases, on occupants’ perceived thermal comfort amelioration or stability. In the following, a synthetic summary of the PhD dissertation is provided. The first part of this work is dedicated to the investigation of the two corpus of knowledge that constituted the basis for the elaboration of the BIOSFERA methodology. After an introductory chapter, the tradition of conservation and protection of cultural heritage was summarized in a chapter dedicated to “Preservation”, in which two main questions were answered: Which buildings are protected and why? How to deal with protected buildings? The third chapter, dedicated to “Adaptation”, contains the energy-related literature that guided the elaboration of the methodology. In particular, the chapter incorporates: i) A summary on how the topic of energy retrofit has been faced in researches and energy- related legislations and guidelines; ii) An overview about literature on the management of indoor environmental conditions for artworks conservation; iii) An outline of a strand of the energy research that has been chosen as a basis to develop the BIOSFERA methodology: building energy–related operation and occupant behaviour. A fourth chapter is dedicated to summarize the aspects emerged from the previous two ones and introduces how they have been integrated in the theoretical framework of the BIOSFERA methodology. The second part of the dissertation describes the BIOSFERA methodology design and theoretical phases. Chapters 5 is dedicated to an introduction to the methodology design. Chapters 6- 8 describe the three theoretical phases (Diagnosis, Intervention and Control) in terms of objectives, materials to be acquired, analyses and results’ elaboration. In this part, the objective is to provide a comprehensive overview of a series of instruments and analyses that should be successively chosen based on the application context’s specificities and necessities. Based on the previous theoretical framework, chapter 9 proposes conclusions about the methodology potentialities and barriers. The third part describes the application of the BIOSFERA methodology in a pilot study executed in four Italian case studies. In particular, chapter 10 is dedicated to the description of how case studies were selected for the experimentation. Chapter 11 is aimed at describing how the theoretical phases enunciated in part II can be translated on a real application. This detailed description is provided by reporting the experience on one case study. Chapter 12 is addressed to show how the created methodology can be flexible based on the specificities of the buildings to which it is applied. To this aim, the experimentation on the other three case studies is outlined by coupling a synthetic description of the experiment with specific focus topics that were chosen to stress the methodology’s flexibility and potentialities. Finally, chapter 13 provides a general “picture” of the impact that the methodology had on the four case studies, providing a first answer to the study’s research question. The fourth and final part is articulated in two chapters. Chapter 14 is dedicated to a critical review of the methodology design and theoretical phases in perspective of a possible implementation on a broader scale. The critical review is based on the experience gathered during the pilot study. Chapter 15 contains the conclusive summary, characterized by an outline of the results obtained in the dissertation, as well as the recognized potentialities and barriers in perspective of further researches towards a broader application of the BIOSFERA methodology

Evaluation of refurbishment alternatives for an Italian vernacular building considering architectural heritage, energy efficiency and costs

Despite the majority of legislative requirements in terms of energy performances is not addressed to historical buildings, there is an increasing consciousness on their relevance to reach the European CO2 emissions’ reduction goals. This paper engages the theme of traditional buildings’ refurbishment, with a view to the necessity of a conscious intervention in terms of heritage preservation, energy efficiency and financial viability. In particular, the research analyzed a real case study of a rural building located in North Italy; the main objective of the study is to compare two different refurbishment scenarios by simultaneously considering architectural, energy and financial aspects

Towards high energy performing historical buildings. A methodology focused on operation and users’ engagement strategies

"Historical evidence indicates that when man first considered settlements and the order pertaining the rein, he showed concern for the conservation of this order and of monuments" [1]. Today, the conservation of historical buildings involves also the necessity to adapt them to the current lifestyles and legislation in order to maintain them, wherever possible, as living evidences of the past. One of the most important challenges of adapting historical buildings to future usages is represented by the enhancement of energy performances of these building, that is crucial both for environmental and economic reasons. The aim of this paper is to outline a methodology to investigate the potential energy savings and the enhancement of historical buildings’ livability by acting only on their operation, so that the building fabric could be maintained as much as possible as the original evidence. Furthermore, an example about methodology’s application on a real case study will be described in order to translate the theoretic phases into an operative pla

Insights on Smart Home Concept and Occupants’ Interaction with Building Controls

The increasing attention for energy efficiency in buildings stimulates the expansion of “Smart buildings”. In offices and homes, building automation systems are suited to individuals, foresighting their needs. Occupants’ compliance is a fundamental requirement for a successful adoption of building automation systems. An important warning regards that such “smart behaviour” of the building should match with the occupants’ satisfaction and their feeling of controlling the living environments. A balance between energy efficiency and occupants’ needs is required. This paper aims at providing insight on the concept of “Smart Home” considering the adaptive actions performed by occupants to restore their wellbeing

Occupants’ perception of historical buildings’ indoor environment. Two case studies.

In Europe, some historical cities have more than 50% of buildings dated from before 1920. Nowadays, these buildings faces challenges when adapted to the current necessities of livability, environmental and economical sustainability. Literature demonstrates that occupants’ comfort perception and consequent behavior affect buildings’ energy efficiency and are influenced also by the building configuration. Despite a large number of studies in literature investigating occupants’ behavior and comfort in different situations, there is a lack of such studies for historical buildings. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to characterize occupants’ thermal and comfort perception in two historical buildings during summer season. In these terms, results of objective measures were compared to occupants’ evaluations of the indoor environment. Results showed that, for both case studies, despite the good thermal performances of the building fabrics and the fact that almost all of the occupants like to work in a historical building (they would also choose it instead of a modern one), most of them didn’t rate the building as comfortable from a thermal point of view

insights on pro environmental behavior towards post carbon society

Abstract The increasing phenomena related to urbanization and human impact on landscape leads to re-think the future of the cities. As well as in buildings, a careful design, the use of renewable sources and the use of advanced technical solutions, to achieve a significant energy savings, are strategies not sufficient to define a "Post-Carbon city" or a "Post-Carbon building". It is necessary that the citizen/occupant become a "Post-Carbon society", i.e. they pursue conscious lifestyle marked on energy saving principles. This suggest that the occupant's behaviour plays a fundamental role. In fact, many studies have shown that the human behaviour influences, mainly, the energy performance, explaining, in this way, the discrepancy gap between predicted and real consumptions. Since human behaviour is, in large part, influenced by several factors, a behavioural change towards sustainable lifestyle is desirable and this is possible, for examples, by providing to users feedback and information on comfort condition and energy use. The main goal of this research is to identify the pro-environmental behaviour by a questionnaire survey. Specifically, the structure of the survey will be described in this paper and the main results presented

Performance of the main technologies demonstrated in the ENVISION project

Within the context of ENVISION project, different technologies have been developed aiming to harvest energy being integrated into the building façade. These technologies have been tested in different demosites with a monitoring phase of around one year in order to assess their performances on-field. The technologies developed within ENVISION and reported in this article are solar façade collectors coupled with Heat Pumps and PV windows. The present paper reports the assessment of the performance of the ENVISION technologies in the different demos. This analysis is carried out through the calculation of normalized KPIs related to four different domains (energy, social, economic, and environmental) and the aggregation of these KPIs in domain scores to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each demo. In all the different demosites, the monitored data have been collected and processed to calculate the most valuable KPIs, which are compared with state-of-the-art values found in the literature to calculate a normalized KPI. Depending on the obtained value of the normalized KPIs a score from 0 (worst performance) to 5 (best performance) is assigned, considering that a score of 3/5 has been assigned to the State-Of-the-Art. Some KPIs are specific for the single demo (e.g. the SCOP of the heat pump), while others are common to all the demos and were used to carry on a direct comparison between the technologies. All the demos showed promising results in the social, energy, and environmental domains. For the last domain, in particular, the best results are obtained, as each technology leads to significant savings in GHG emissions. There is room for improvement on the economic side, which can be filled by progressively lowering the cost of technology over the years

Review of health and well-being aspects in Green Certification Protocols

Over the past decades, the world-leading Green Certification Protocols have paid increasing attention to health-related aspects of buildings. However, the way and the extent to which green certifications currently account for these aspects vary largely. This paper aims to review and compare four certification protocols, namely LEED v4, BREEAM 2018, WELL v2, and MINERGIE-ECO v1.4, and to provide insights on how aspects related to occupants’ health and well-being and their influencing factors are accounted for and assessed. To that scope, indicators used to assess the users' health and well-being are extracted from each certification and compared. Indicators traditionally used to evaluate IEQ in buildings (thermal, indoor air quality, visual and acoustic) based on international or national standards were found in all certifications. However, the analysis highlights that their assessment and verification stage (e.g., pre- vs. post- occupancy) significantly differs from one label to another. More “advanced” indicators, which are related to mind, promotion of physical activities, and community engagement, have come to light. While a comprehensive approach to the evaluation of well-being might include a combination of objective (e.g., measurement-based evaluations) and subjective components (e.g., people’s subjective evaluation), the review highlighted that only in one protocol (i.e., WELL), direct feedback from occupants is kept in the loop for further optimization of the building management during operation. Otherwise, indicators are mainly verified through quantitative measurements, reports, or implemented policies

Indoor environmental quality and global comfort: An in-field study in workspaces

The EN 16798-1 specifies the requirements to assess indoor environmental quality (IEQ) considering thermal, air quality, lighting and acoustics domains. A drawback of the standard is that it is based on an objective evaluation approach and does not account for the subjective perception. Also, the standard does not assess global IEQ nor comfort as a single index for the interaction of all the domains. This work tests the metrics proposed in the standard relating them to the occupants’ evaluations. An in-field monitoring campaign was performed in the ARPA headquarter in Aosta (Italy), acquiring quantities to be correlated with the subjective perception of IEQ gained through surveys. An insight on the possible approach to communicate IEQ and comfort feedbacks to the occupants was investigated to promote their awareness. Preliminary results show that the occupants’ perception can be predicted by adopting the approach proposed in EN 16798-1 in the case of thermal comfort, but limitations emerge about air quality, lighting and acoustics. Such result allows investigating how the environmental variables considered by the standard (e.g., the maximum sound pressure level or the maximum CO2 concentration) can be adopted as predictors of comfort, thus how new parameters and assessment methods should be introduced

Performance of the main technologies demonstrated in the ENVISION project

Within the context of ENVISION project, different technologies have been developed aiming to harvest energy being integrated into the building façade. These technologies have been tested in different demosites with a monitoring phase of around one year in order to assess their performances on-field. The technologies developed within ENVISION and reported in this article are solar façade collectors coupled with Heat Pumps and PV windows. The present paper reports the assessment of the performance of the ENVISION technologies in the different demos. This analysis is carried out through the calculation of normalized KPIs related to four different domains (energy, social, economic, and environmental) and the aggregation of these KPIs in domain scores to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each demo. In all the different demosites, the monitored data have been collected and processed to calculate the most valuable KPIs, which are compared with state-of-the-art values found in the literature to calculate a normalized KPI. Depending on the obtained value of the normalized KPIs a score from 0 (worst performance) to 5 (best performance) is assigned, considering that a score of 3/5 has been assigned to the State-Of-the-Art. Some KPIs are specific for the single demo (e.g. the SCOP of the heat pump), while others are common to all the demos and were used to carry on a direct comparison between the technologies. All the demos showed promising results in the social, energy, and environmental domains. For the last domain, in particular, the best results are obtained, as each technology leads to significant savings in GHG emissions. There is room for improvement on the economic side, which can be filled by progressively lowering the cost of technology over the years