1,720,977 research outputs found
Boosting energy home renovation through innovative business models: ONE-STOP-SHOP solutions assessment
No full textThe building sector brings the main responsibility for energy consumption and GHG emissions in European countries. Although many policies have been placed across the EU to increase building energy performance, the current home energy renovation rate remains too low to achieve the EU's decarbonization targets. The One-stop-shop (OSS) concept is emerging as an innovative solution to boost energy home renovation and overcome barriers hindering the renovation process. The OSS is a physical or virtual place where customers obtain multiple products and services at one single point. Through literature review and desk research, 29 OSS initiatives have been analysed in the EU looking at their Business Models (BM). The paper aims to categorize and compare OSS BMs to increase knowledge about OSS functioning and capacity to affect and bring innovation to home renovation process. Three BM archetypes emerge, Facilitation model, Coordination model, and Development model. Within OSS archetypes, seven BM sub-categories have been identified and described. To provide insights for implementing new businesses and revitalizing the home renovation sector, OSS archetypes and sub-categories are compared and assessed, first considering four analytical frameworks and then looking at their capacity to overcome home renovation barriers. Results can be useful to foster energy home renovation by supporting the development of effective and targeted OSS initiatives across the EU
Urban and Architectural Adaptive Strategies for Inclusive Cities: A Review of International Innovation Experiments
Full text linkThe current migration flows toward Europe are having a significant impact on social composition, economy, urban services, and on the physical dimensions of cities. Cities have a key role in developing immigration policies and sustainable accommodation models, that can promote an inclusive society as well as local development. Due to the persistence of migratory flows, these models of integration and development cannot be supported by an emergency condition, but they should be based on systematic strategies. This paper presents a series of accommodation models and urban policies, coming from international experimental projects, that we argue can foster integration and urban development. These strategies show the potentials of immigration in boosting urban transformation and regeneration. Innovative strategies for dealing with immigration are based on flexible tools, typically from temporary habitat (housing modules, light construction systems, customized solutions) that find a place inside the city. Integrated design strategies use the existing city as a frame being filled up by flexible houses, through urban densification or regeneration process. Housing dissemination, temporary and flexible architectural solutions and inclusive process are the drivers for developing a flexible habitat, at the base of a more sustainable and democratic city
Assessing the relevance of barriers to energy efficiency implementation in the building and transport sectors in eight European countries
No full textThe paper maps and evaluates the main economic, institutional, and behavioural barriers to the implementation of energy efficiency in final uses. Barriers prevent the achievement of targets of energy efficiency policies and measures. Assessing the relevance of barriers can lead to their consideration in goal-setting by policy-makers either by reducing ambition or by incorporating solutions to mitigate barriers, We consider three main categories of barriers: economic, institutional, and behavioural ones, in buildings and transport sectors. In order to assess the relevance of each specific barrier in these categories, a survey to experts in eight Countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Estonia, United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and Serbia) has been performed. The relevance of barriers is assessed by two levels of analysis: 1. their impact on policies and measures, and 2. their impact on the diffusion of key clean technologies and interventions in the two sectors. In the building sector, we find that the most relevant barriers relate to economic and behavioural categories. In the transport sector, we find that the most relevant barriers relate to institutional and economic categories. Economic barriers are also the most relevant in limiting the diffusion of technologies and interventions in both sectors. Results highlight the relevance of identifying and assessing barriers in order to improve policy design
Regole per l'abitare sostenibile
No full textIl presente contributo intende proporre una riflessione a sostegno di una rinnovata centralità per il ruolo che lo strumento del Regolamento Edilizio (RE) può assumere nell’agevolare interventi orientati al conseguimento di obiettivi di qualità diffusa per il patrimonio edilizio non solo rispetto al singolo edificio, ma nell’ambiente urbano nel suo complesso. Si ritiene, infatti, che tale strumento collocandosi, nella geografia del quadro pianificatorio, come elemento nodale tra le previsioni del piano e la pratica degli interventi e quale espressione dell’autonomia normativa delle amministrazioni locali, goda di una vocazione intrinsecamente strategica non solo per il presidio dei fattori di sintassi dell’edificato, ma anche per esplicare le molteplici dimensioni del contesto di riferimento – quella ambientale, quella geomorfologica, quella storico-culturale, quella climatica, quella sociale etc. – nelle quali si articolano i requisiti della qualità. Il Regolamento Edilizio, a partire dalla fine degli anni novanta, in occasione delle riforme messe in atto dalle leggi regionali di seconda generazione e dalle emergenti istanze per il contenimento degli impatti ambientali delle trasformazioni, è stato oggetto di una generale revisione variamente orientata ad uniformarne il linguaggio, a dare rilievo a principi di sostenibilità, a favorire regole prestazionali etc. Non solo. Alcuni dei provvedimenti analizzati avanzano una riformulazione del nome proprio dello strumento: da ‘regolamento edilizio’ a ‘prontuario’, ‘regolamento sostenibile’ etc. Un cambiamento lessicale che si intende cogliere per tentare, seppure in maniera essenziale, di dare una risposta in merito all’adeguatezza dei ‘nuovi’ strumenti, delle loro capacità di accogliere le molteplici dimensioni dei contesti e le istanze della qualità, in una visione di sostenibilità per l’abitare contemporaneo
Goal 7: Assicurare a tutti l’accesso a sistemi di energia economici, affidabili, sostenibili e moderni
No full textIl Goal 7 dell’Agenda 2030 si pone come obiettivo quello di «assicurare a tutti l’accesso a sistemi energetici economici, affidabili, sostenibili e moderni». Questo risulta di particolare rilevanza per garantire inclusione ed equità nella fruizione delle risorse energetiche, ma
anche per accrescere le ricadute positive che un utilizzo efficiente e razionale delle risorse può avere sullo sviluppo economico e sociale e sulla sostenibilità ambientale. Il capitolo prende in esame i primi tre target del Goal 7 definiti dalle Nazioni Unite al 2030 (7.1 Garantire l’accesso a servizi energetici che siano convenienti, affidabili e moderni; 7.2 Aumentare la quota di energie rinnovabili nel consumo totale di energia; 7.3 Raddoppiare il tasso globale di miglioramento dell’efficienza energetica), e ne analizza l'andamento in Regione Lombardia
Energy Potential Mapping: Open Data in Support of Urban Transition Planning
Full text linkCities play a key role in driving the transition to sustainable energy. Urban areas represent between 60% and 80% of global energy consumption and are a significant source of CO2 emissions, making energy management at the urban scale an important area of research. Urban energy systems have a strong influence on the environment, economy, social dimensions and urban spatial planning. Energy consumption affects the urban microclimate, urban comfort, human health, and conversely, urban physical, economic and social characteristics affect the energy urban profile. In order to improve the quality of energy strategies, policies, and plans, local authorities need decision support tools, like energy potential mapping, which have risen significance in the last decades. Energy data are crucial for those tools. They can increase the quality and effectiveness of energy planning but also support the integration between energy and spatial planning. Energy data can also stimulate citizen engagement as well as encourage sustainable behaviours and CO2 emission reduction. This paper aims to increase the practice of data-aware planning, through the study of problems in energy data acquisition and processing observed in European projects focused on developing energy mapping tools. The problems observed attend to two main areas: technical and socio-economic issues. Those were derived from a comparison of energy mapping tools, and the work conducted for the PLANHEAT development. The scope of the research is to understand the main recurring issues in energy data acquisition and processing, in order to overcome the barriers in data availability. Increasing awareness of the relevance of energy data can foster the use of energy mapping tools, increasing the quality of energy policies and planning.Climate Design and Sustainabilit
Multidisciplinary approach for a new vision of urban requalification. Multi-scale strategies of social innovation, economic improvement and environmental sustainability practices.
Full text linkThis work is an operative best practice of new methodological approach that connects three disciplines -
Planning, Design and Environmental Technological Design – in a holistic project.
A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to understand the complexity of urban phenomena meeting social,
economic and environmental needs. It is very important boosting virtuous mechanisms for urban regeneration
spreading innovation, guiding and shaping spontaneous social-change initiatives, starting from local traditions.
The work team was involved in an international workshop, called “Urban Village and Renovation Design”, took
between Rome and Shanghai, within May and November 2016, in collaboration with the School of Design and
Arts, East China Normal University of Shanghai.
Our research team composed by planners, architects and designers has drawn up a methodology in order to
apply it in a small rural village requalification project in China. The town, named XibinZhen (Fujian Region) is
undergoing in an economic and social contraction process which is bringing it to an incessant depopulation. We
recognize landscape aspects, in our case the Youxi River, like a key resources to improve the urban area and the
identity related with the context.
The methodology is composed in this way: 1) research and analyses in order to know places and ongoing
multiscale phenomena; 2) collection of international best practices and references applicable in the specific case
study; 3) brainstorming in which different disciplinary figures, local stakeholders and citizens are involved; 4) design
strategies considering different stakeholders needs and different cultural approach or points of view: 5) starting
from those strategies, definition of specific goals for a design concept and a sub sequential project propose.
Our proposal is composed by multi-scale strategies of social innovation, economic improvement, environmental
sustainable practices, through a new setting of spaces and uses. Our new vision of Xibin Town runs around three
key words for development: “new”, that is to have a “for change” approach; “river”, that is to recognize what we
may call “genius loci”; “town”, that is to recognize the urban character of Xibin and its role in a broader context.
The three themes on which we set up the project strategy are:
· ENVIRONMENT: two linear promenades (the Urban Promenade and the Green Promenade), of new public
space for the town with different characters related to the different nature of the waterfronts, north and south.
The implementation of landscape qualities (industries on the facing coasts)
· URBAN LIFE: two axes: the Urban Axis that consolidates and upgrades the vital core of the collective life,
organizing places and activities from the city gate by the Boulevard to the Market Street, to administration and
public services (the Civic Street and the Civic Center); the Heritage Path that works between tradition and
innovation, organizing step by step from culture to nature (traditional ateliers street, green street, educational theme
park)
· Functional to these themes is the MOBILITY SYSTEM, re-organized fundamentally in an Urban Ring that
distributes the main traffic.
The final output is a masterplan which collects and coordinates all the specific project actions redefining spaces,
the use of them and architecture, starting from a reinterpretation of traditional technology and local material
A critical review of District Heating and District Cooling socioeconomic and environmental Benefits
No full textHeating energy demand accounts for almost 50% of global final energy consumption. The cooling demand is also rising, accounting for 16% of the building sector’s final electricity consumption. District heating and cooling (DH-DC) can significantly reduce overall energy consumption and CO2 emissions considering the use of green sources and new technologies. Identifying and assessing the benefits generated by DH-DC is crucial for supporting policymakers and driving sustainable financing. This paper aims to identify and categorise DH-DC benefits through a literature review focusing on methods to assess them. In this review, 35 research works have been considered and analysed. Benefits identified in the literature broke down into four categories: benefits for the energy system, end-users, environment, and society. Benefits are well recognised in the literature; however, most studies focused on qualitative analysis with a low impact on DH-DC project assessment. Results will be used to design a new integrated assessment framework
Coastal governance and planning agreements for integrated management of marine protected areas in UE Coasting project
No full textTerritorial opportunities for urban requalification practices
No full textI processi di urbanizzazione degli ultimi trenta anni esprimono un quadro profondamente mutato rispetto agli ordini funzionali e morfologici dei periodi precedenti. Gli studi sistemici di alcune ricerche sul territorio italiano (si pensi alla ricerca It. Urb 80 sullo stato dell’urbanizzazione in Italia degli anni ottanta, coordinata da Giovanni Astengo e Camillo Nucci tra il 1987 e il 1990, alla ricerca Itaten promossa dal Ministero dei Lavori Pubblici negli anni novanta e, più recentemente, alla ricerca PRIN Postmetropoli - Territori post-metropolitani come forme urbane emergenti) e il contributo monografico di alcuni autori (per l’Italia, ad esempio, quello di F. Indovina, B. Secchi, G. Dematteis, A. Bonomi e A. Abruzzese) hanno mostrato non solo le tendenze e le dinamiche della produzione urbana contemporanea ma anche alcuni fattori di consolidamento che, almeno nelle parti di più recente formazione, esprimono indiscutibili esigenze di (ri)significazione e (ri)qualificazione (Santangelo, mimeo, 2016). Le più recenti manifestazioni insediative, dilatate ben oltre i limiti della “città compatta”, verso aree indefinibilmente vaste, in una incessante mescolanza di elementi artificiali e naturali (o rurali, o agricoli), inducono ad ammettere, per il progetto della città, l’assunzione di una prospettiva territoriale e, dunque, il condizionamento di “dominanti” diverse da quelle che hanno nutrito l’ideale urbano nella città moderna. La relazione “di tipo urbano” tra città e territorio non è nuova e alcune forme di “civismo” proiettate nel contesto allargato del territorio hanno notoriamente ispirato, ad esempio, l’utopismo antiurbano di fine ottocento, le teorie della Garden City e sono riscontrabili nelle esperienze europee e nord americane riconducibili al New Urbanism e al Regional planning. Tuttavia, la riflessione che si intende proporre è quella di ampliare ed articolare il quadro dei fattori implicabili nella produzione di nuove forme di urbanità, tenendo conto del contributo di rinnovate relazioni con l’“esteriorità” di ambienti ad elevata complessità e l’ “alterità” dei molteplici attori che interagiscono nella scena. Gli approfondimenti che seguiranno, anche attraverso il racconto di alcune esperienze, puntano, in particolare, ad offrire una disamina del ‘potenziale urbano’ offerto dalla componente ecologico – paesaggistica, da quella energetica e infine, dal contributo, in chiave ‘ricompositiva’, delle relazioni che, alle diverse scale istituzionali, sono coinvolte dalla ‘dimensione dispiegata’ della città. In questo senso il territorio - e il sistema di valori e risorse che gli sono propri - è designato ad assumere una vocazione ricompositiva ed offre stimoli diversi per l’esercizio di rinnovate competenze progettuali, in un’ottica di efficacia per esiti di lunga durata
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