A quantitative comparison on the use of thermal insulation materials in three European countries through the TEnSE approach: Challenges and opportunities

Europe has about 75 % of energy inefficient buildings and 8 % of population in energy poverty with difficulties of affording energy bills for keeping adequate levels of warmth, cooling, lighting, and energy use for household appliances in building stock. The implementation of thermal insulation in existing buildings would allow to address both energy efficiency and energy poverty and to align with the Net Zero Emission Scenario. This research proposes an inverse decision-making approach to investigate on the reasons behind the use of some thermal insulation materials in three countries within the European Economic Area (Italy, Norway, and Portugal), differing in terms of Energy Poverty as well as environmental and legislative contexts. For this reason, four macro-domains objectives, framed in Technical (T), Environmental (En), Safety (S) and Economic (E) topics, named as TEnSE, were considered. Ten thermal insulation materials commonly used in these countries were compared to understand which of four perspectives affects their choices in current times among several stakeholders. As none of the selected materials has obtained the highest score among stakeholders and their use is presumably due to buildability, challenges and opportunities in their future implementation are discussed considering different climate ‘what-if’ scenarios

Vertical Green. An Environmental Solution to Improve Thermal Behavior of Timber Buildings

The use of installation of vertical green systems (VGSs) on buildings envelopes can be evaluated as a shielding element which may increase energy efficiency, human comfort levels and may have many other environmental benefits. Examples of use of green envelopes are green walls and green roofs. Green walls started to be implemented in the last decades due to fast urban growth, and the lack of space to design new green areas. They became a solution to increase the green density in urban areas and improve the air quality. Beside this, VGSs offer benefit in term of thermal performance under different climate conditions. VGSs installed in individual buildings can provide cooling in warm weather being an insulator and decreasing the need for heating thus saving energy. Installed in a group of buildings, VGSs can lower the buildings surface temperature preventing the urban heat island effect at the urban scale. Their effectiveness is however influenced by the site and the installation system. In the former case, the efficacy may depend by the surrounding environmental parameters, wall orientation, and windows existence, in the latter by the type, number, and extension of the implemented system, substrate layer composition, type of plant species, etc. Analyzing feasible VGSs to be installed on existing buildings, the literature offers different construction types. They can be defined as direct, which means the plant climbs on the façade, or indirect, which means plants climb on a trellis, cables, or mesh. These last structures can be designed with other materials and technology to support the panels where the plants climb. In the cases of large structure as Living Walls, the construction material can have big importance since the whole wall cover may consist of modular panels. An environmentally sustainable way to improve the system design can contribute to reduce the environmental burdens while benefit from the system capabilities as much as possible. Furthermore, the performance of VGSs depends on the types of structure that will be assembled on the wall. Timber can be used as a more sustainable and environment friendly material instead of common ones in the market. For instance, the supporting structure for climbing plants, planting containers and pots, studs as attachment profiles to existing wall could be substituted with wood material. In the manufacturing stage of these panels, wood can be a more sustainable method to be implemented on existing buildings among other possible materials (e.g., aluminium, steel, and plastic) because of its low CO2 emissions. Even though the main part of emissions is caused in the manufacturing phase, it has to be considered its environmental impact in other phases as well i.e., transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal. In addition, at the end of life in its lifecycle, VGSs mounted on timber panels structures could be a more sustainable choice than other materials since they could be recycled or reused thus increasing the service life capability of VGSs components. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the proper methodology to analyse the impacts of the VGSs construction material and to estimate the performance of the panels

Investigation of accessory transverse foramen in dry cervical vertebrae: incidence, variations, types, locations, and diagnostic implications

Abstract Background This research aimed to determine the incidence, variations, types, and potential locations of the accessory transverse foramen (ATF) in dry cervical vertebrae. A total of 250 Turkish dry cervical vertebrae were examined, with 500 transverse foramina investigated. The cervical vertebrae were categorized into five groups (C3–C7), and each cervical vertebra was assessed bilaterally to determine the location, incidence, and side of the ATF. Results ATF was observed in 21 vertebrae (8.4%) and was distributed posteriorly (76.2%), posterolaterally (19.04%), and posteromedially (4.8%) in relation to the location of the TF. The incidence of ATF was 4.8% in C3, 28.6% in C4, 9.5% in C5, 23.8% in C6, and 33.3% in C7. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference was observed in the unilateral or bilateral occurrence of the ATF (F = 3.079; p = 0.047, p < 0.05). Conclusions In this study, we have presented an investigative approach and discussed the potential implications of identifying the ATF in dry cervical vertebrae. The presence of ATF can be crucial in the diagnosis of variations in the vertebral artery (VA) and underlying disorders, potentially aiding in the determination of the cause of death or ancestry. Additionally, the posterior location of the ATF and its asymmetric distribution should be taken into account when evaluating dry cervical vertebrae, which may offer valuable information for the identification of variations

Assessing Link of Urban Morphology and Health: A case study in Milan

Despite some previous efforts to study the relationship between urban design and health, the COVID-19 pandemic has attracted more attention on this topic, including all living beings. It has also created awareness of the urgency of reconsidering how cities are designed and lived in. Therefore, the ways of design more resilient cities and rehabilitate them by transforming them into healthier ones and making them become prepared for any possible similar risks in the future are fundamental for post-pandemic cities. This link between cities and health (including mental and physical) might be related to urban morphology, besides environmental and social parameters. This study aims to evaluate the role of the built environment on health and well-being, which affect not only the process of the spread but also the recovering process. In order to achieve this aim, the problem is precisely investigated by focusing the health-related subjects in the context of IMM (Integrated Modification Methodology), which is a holistic, model-based, and objective methodology. In a nutshell, IMM considers the city a complex adaptive system and investigates the integration between its components (i.e., volume, void, links, and types of uses). Key categories represent a functional symbiosis between all the components regarding the functional interdependency between them. Each Key Category is represented by a radar diagram with six quantitative metrics and maps. Performance indicators are the tools that are useful to measure the performance of the existing system. In further steps, Design Order Principles (DOP) is a network of targets aimed to achieve by design. This article will present the metrics (the selected quantitative spatial values that both affect the adaptation and mitigation of the pandemic and contributes to resilient urban design), indicators (e.g., levels of air contaminators, accessibility to open green areas by cycle or foot, features related with biking roads, etc.), to understand the weak parts of the existing structure, and DOPs (e.g., activating an urban metabolism, enhancing biodiversity, promoting walkability and cyclability, etc.) which could be the items in the design process of a more healthy and resilient city for the post-pandemic era. The abandoned railway yard of Farini and surrounding in Milan has been selected as a case study to implement the methodology and eventually make evident how to improve a proposed masterplan

Vertical Green Structures to Establish Sustainable Built Environment: A Systematic Market Review

Vertical Green Structures (VGS) emerged as a building skin Nature-based Solution (NbS) aside from green roofs. The motivation underlying this VGS exploitation is fast urbanisation and the need to limit both land consumption and vegetation loss. These structures can provide several ecosystem services like air purification, biodiversity enhancement, and noise reduction. Although the usage of VGS offers different versatile and multi-scalar benefits in the built environment, they still need to respond to all the requirements of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Over the last decades, technologies of VGS have been developed and new product types have become available in the market. This paper presents the overall development and benefits of VGS, and aims to provide a taxonomy by considering a systematic and interdisciplinary approach. The current market overview analyses and compares different aspects (i.e., environmental and economic features) of the products for a better understanding of the current state-of-the-art—from single component to system scale. The findings of this review lead to some suggestions to enhance the level of sustainability and increase the potential benefits. They look at both research and practice requirements to orient the users in selecting the most optimal VGS solution available in the market

Measuring the Influence of Functional Proximity on Environmental Urban Performance via Integrated Modification Methodology: Four Study Cases in Milan

Although many studies have been carried out on how cities’ forms are structured, very scarce efforts have been done for systemic comprehensions and evaluations of the urban morphology through quantitative metrics able to describe the performance of a city in relation with its formal properties. More research is required in this direction in order to better describe the urban form characteristics and their impact on the environmental performance of cities and to increase their sustainability stewardship. With the aim of developing a better understanding of the built environment’s systemic structure, the intention of this paper is to present a holistic methodology for studying the behavior of the built environment and investigate the methods for measuring the effect of urban structure to the environmental performance. This goal will be pursued through an inquiry into the morphological components of the urban systems and the complex relationships between them. Particularly, this paper focuses on Proximity, referring to the proximity of different land-uses, is a concept with which IMM explains how land-use allocation might affect the choice of mobility in neighborhoods, and especially, encourage or discourage non-motived mobility. This paper uses Proximity to demonstrate that the structure attributes can quantifiably relate to the performing behavior in the city. The target is to devise a mathematical pattern from the structural elements and correlate it directly with urban performance indicators concerned with environmental sustainability. The paper presents some results of this rigorous investigation of urban Proximity and its correlation with performance indicators in four different areas in the city of Milan, each of them characterized by different morphological features