Light versus Energy Performance of Office Rooms with Curtain Walls: A Parametric Study

AbstractA parametric study aimed at identifying the best performing solution in terms of lighting, heating and cooling demand minimization for an office room is presented. Different orientations, room and façade lay-outs, glazing and lighting control systems have been combined and 192 configurations have been analysed through a two-step process: daylight factor and dynamic daylighting metrics and the corresponding energy demand for lighting were calculated in step 1 using Daysim; the energy demand for heating and cooling was determined in step 2 using a quasi-steady state approach, to verify whether the best configurations obtained in step 1 also resulted in the lowest global energy demand

Implementation hypothesis of the Apulia ITACA Protocol at district level – part I: The model

The analysis of urban districts involves many critical issues and different design constraints related to the urban context. The characteristics of district area are based on climatic properties, geometrical design, type and number of buildings, places of construction, distances, shading patterns. This work proposes a tool able to integrate heterogeneous data coming from different users on different spatial and territorial scales, to implement efficient management of energy flows in the district. The proposed protocol is an extension of the Apulia ITACA – Building Protocol to the assessment of urban areas. It permits to evaluate any type of district, without limitation of extension and with any number of buildings. The objectivity of the evaluation using indicators applied to various thematic areas including site quality, resource consumption, environmental loads, indoor environmental quality, and quality of services is granted. It is based on a global scoring system, using the weighting on the usable surface of the buildings present in the selected urban area. The protocol permits to display the interactions between each variable within the district, evaluating the benefits in terms of costs of the targeted interventions. This work is split into two parts: Part I: the model and Part II: the case study