Do Well to Dwell Well. Awareness as the Driver for the Behaviour of Tomorrow’s Citizens

Because of the impact of global warming, the Earth’s ecosystems are currently at a critical stage. The European building sector, and the residential element in particular, is responsible for the largest portion of energy end-use. Although we know how to build a perfectly engineered house, it will not work properly if its inhabitants do not know how to run it. “Well-educated” dwellers can really improve energy use. The aim of this research is to optimize the users’ role in the energy reduction process, analysing as a case study, Dwell!, the monitoring system designed for “RhOME for denCity”, the housing prototype developed by Roma Tre University and winner of the “Solar Decathlon Europe” competition in 2014

Energy retrofit via Social Housing: a proposal from Solar Decathlon

Solar Decathlon is an annual university challenge where nearly zeroenergy housing prototypes enter in international competition, through a series of ten tests. The contest aims for superior energy performance, high standards of interior comfort, architectural aesthetics, positive electrical balances, industrialisation, and contained costs and feasibility as a marketable proposal. Seven editions of the Solar Decathlon have been held, with a total of 140 competing proposals both realized and placed on the market, representing a notable pool of experimental research to be studied and evaluated for applications in social housing. After a consideration of the competition features, the article describes the prototype presented by City College of New York at Solar Decathlon 2011, Washington DC, as a proposal of an energy retrofit suitable for many urban buildings with flat roofs

Abitare domani: sfide e opportunità per la Smart City

"La nascita dell’agricoltura segna, agli inizi della civiltà, la costituzione delle due più antiche professioni al mondo: l’agronomo e l’architetto. … L’agronomo in grado di comprendere la qualità del terreno e sapere come trattare le sementi, e l’architetto in quanto deputato all’organizzazione creativa del nuovo ambiente umano, ovvero la gestione dello spazio che racchiude la zona nella quale si concentrano le attività e la vita degli agricoltori”. Ecco la nascita della città, uno dei tre assi portanti del convegno “Città, Memoria, Gente” in cui si inseriva la sessione “Architettura, Sostenibilità, Energia” che ho moderato. Senza la città i tre temi della sessione non avrebbero lo stesso portato. Un casale isolato nella campagna è un’architettura, è sostenibile e produce la propria energia, almeno quella alimentare per i suoi abitanti. Ci interessava però mettere a fuoco il meccanismo che unisce gli edifici al loro essere insieme in un agglomerato che si è fatto città, dove si intessono relazioni umane, dove si creano condizioni di sostenibilità, dove si consuma ma si può produrre energia."The birth of agriculture marks the beginning of civilization, the formation of the two oldest professions in the world: the agronomist and the architect. The agronomist ... able to understand the quality of the land and to know how to treat the seeds, and the architect as deputy of the creative organization of the new human environment, such as the management of the space that encloses the area where activities and the lives of farmers are concentrated" (Sergio Di Cori Modigliani, “La narrativa esistenziale di Territorio zero”, in Territorio Zero, per una società a emissioni zero e chilometri zero, a cura di Livio De Santoli e Angelo Consoli, Minimum fax, Roma, 2013). Here it is the birth of the “Cities”, one of the three themes of the conference "Cities, Memory, People" where the session "Architecture, Sustainability, Energy ", which I moderated, was. Without the city the three themes of the session would not have brought the same. An isolated house in the countryside is an architecture, it is sustainable and produces its own energy, at least feed its inhabitants. We were interested, however, to focus on the mechanism that links the buildings to their being together in a cluster that has made the city where human relations weave, where sustainable conditions could be created, where it is possible to consume as well to produce energy.Peer Reviewe

Development of publicly-owned properties of historic-artistic interest

In the present economic context, property development is the most realistic opportunity to give new life to Italy’s rich historic-artistic heritage. This article describes the planning, economic and social implications of the procedures for authorising development, which involve public administrations in an important decision-making process prior to the more typical phases of the actual project. The impossibility of divesting these properties has stimulated legislation that in turn initiates complex operations, which have effects not only for the property, but also in the regional context, involving the urban planning, construction, social and economic sectors

Less Automation More Information: A Learning Tool for a Post-occupancy Operation and Evaluation

Climate change and the pandemic generated an urgent need to have an effi-cient urban habitat that includes technological innovations to deal with the ecological and digital transitions. Italy counts about 14 million buildings, 12 of which are houses, responsible for more than 40% of final energy consumption, most of which is ascrib-able to users’ behavior and lifestyle. The increase in buildings’ energy performance is strongly related to a smart management of the demand and self-consumption, as well as a more effective and active involvement of the occupants: it is, therefore, pivotal to come up with user-friendly tools to measure and monitor the performance of the buildings and users’ habits. Tools to encourage the choices toward the environment’s comfort, rather than automation technologies, allowing the occupants and informa-tion systems to move in the direction of ecological transition. The aim is to create an aware “energy citizenship” for people living in efficient buildings. The proposal is a system that uses IoT technology and provides a global evaluation of the state of the house, from which can be extracted suggestions for better and virtuous behavior. The overall ecological footprint is measured based on five “cycles”: energy; environment; water; waste production; food. Collected data create an urban database that, along with big data, constitutes a set of boundary conditions that are crossed with single units’ data. The measures related to single units can be applied to a wider network in order to create a smart city, involving dwellers in a serious game on their homes’ performance. The proposal is part of the research on post-evaluation occupancy, in the belief that even the best model-houses perform worse in use, rather than the predictions expected on paper

Effect of Pore Size, Lubricant Viscosity, and Distribution on the Slippery Properties of Infused Cement Surfaces

The fabrication of slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) usually requires the use of structured substrates, with specifically designed micro- and nanoroughness and complementary surface chemistry, ideally suited to trap lubricants. It is not yet established whether a random roughness, with a range of pores with a variable size reaching deep into the bulk of the material, is suitable for successful infusion. In this study, a highly porous material with random and complex roughness, obtained by using portland cement (the most common type of cementitious material), was tested for its potential to act as a SLIP surface. Atomic force microscopy meniscus measurements were used to investigate the distribution of lubricants on the surface upon subsequent stages of depletion because of the capillary absorption of the lubricant within the porous structure. Factors such as curing time of the cement paste, time since infusion, and lubricant viscosity were varied to identify the conditions under which infusion could be considered successful. A sensitive method to evaluate the penetration of liquid (low-temperature differential scanning calorimetry) was used, which could be applicable to many porous materials. The optimized infusion of cement surfaces ultimately resulted in the desired hallmarks of SLIPS, that is, high water repellence and slipperiness, effective for several weeks, reduced water permeability, and icephobicity

Designing resilience: a contribution to the City Resilience Framework

In a time of rapid social and demographic change, growing exposure to risk factors due to climate change, resource shortages, migration strain and adverse economic conditions are sources of stress and continuous instability in urban contexts. Arup conceived the City Resilience Framework for the Rockefeller Foundation. ‘Housing’ is the only form of construction included within this framework. It is one of the action areas in its strategy for improving urban resilience. This article seeks to provide a methodological contribution, hypothesizing requisites for resilience, preventative procedures and ex-post validation that moves beyond an emergency approach to foster the resilience of residential construction and its measurability in all phases of the construction process

Investigating Flexibility as a Performance Dimension of a Manufacturing Value Modeling Methodology (MVMM): A Framework for Identifying Flexibility Types in Manufacturing Systems☆

Abstract In recent years manufacturing companies have been faced with various challenges related to volatile demand and changing requirements from customer as well as suppliers. This trend is now even accelerating with a direct impact on the value chain. New technological roadmaps and suggested interventions in manufacturing systems try to solve these challenges and solutions such as the German high tech strategy "Industrie 4.0" or the Italian cluster "Fabbrica Intelligente" which often aimed at enhancing the flexibility of manufacturing systems among many other competitive dimensions. However, these approaches often do not provide a detailed definition of flexibility and its different manifestations. Therefore, the question rises if different types of flexibility, that have an impact on the complete manufacturing system, can be better identified with the existing Manufacturing Value Modeling Methodology (MVMM). This question becomes even more important when considering the potential that smart machines interacting with humans, such as cyber-physical systems (CPS), and the possibility to increase connectivity and data access through technologies, such as the internet of things (IoT), offer for increasing flexibility. Especially due to the various possibilities it becomes even more important to understand, which kind of flexibility is needed for a given problem. Implementing flexibility into the MVMM requires a 'catalog' that makes use of the MVMM framework presenting an overview of internal and external influence factors in order to support the identification of correct solutions and improvements related to functional areas in the manufacturing environment. Starting from a qualitative literature review on manufacturing flexibility, a 'flexibility catalog' is designed, which provides a structural definition of existing flexibility types and their composition as well as providing decision support. In conclusion, the scope of the 'flexibility catalog' is to verify that the flexibility demand fits into the market trends and is aligned to the manufacturing and company strategy, in order to help firms to take decisions and delivering value

Phosphorylation of human plasminogen activators and plasminogen

AbstractPlasminogen (PG), urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA) and tissue-type PA (t-PA) are the main molecules involved in fibrinolysis and in many other physiological and pathological processes. In the present study we report that human t-PA, purified from human melanoma cells, and PG, purified from human plasma, both contain P-Tyr residues, as revealed by immunoblotting analyses with monoclonal anti-P-Tyr antibodies. In addition HPLC amino acid analysis of acid-hydrolyzed t-PA, PG and u-PA, shows that: (i)P-Ser and P-Tyr residues are present in t-PA; (ii)P-Thr and P-Tyr are present in PG; (iii) P-Ser, P-Thr and P-Tyr are present in u-PA. The utilization of monoclonal anti-P-Ser and anti-P-Thr antibodies in immunoblotting experiments has confirmed these data which indicate that phosphorylation is a common feature of PAs and of PG