1,721,053 research outputs found
Architecture and Indoor Microclimate
No full textIn this chapter, the meaning of Historic Indoor Microclimate is debated, alongside with its relations with architecture, in particular historical one. This constitutes the main subject of the book, which holds high relevance in order to increase architectural knowledge, in the study of artistic and cultural heritage and in many other research in a wide range of fields
Villa La Petraia (Florence) UNESCO World Heritage
No full textThis chapter focuses on Villa Medici La Petraia (UNESCO World Heritage), built in the fifteenth century in Florence, Italy. The relevance of this study case is due to a specific intervention that, during the nineteenth century, heavily influenced indoor microclimate: the addition of a glass and cast iron cover on the central courtyard. The change of status of this space, from outdoor to indoor, had an important effect on the whole microclimate of the Villa, as well as several other interventions including the addition of stoves and other systems of central heating. Finally, in the twentieth century, the Villa become a museum and no HVAC system has been added since then. On this specific case we done an extensive and complete analysis, including archival research for historic docu- ments; survey of the building and of the HVAC systems; monitoring of indoor microclimate in three different spaces, including the covered courtyard; software modeling and calibration of the model; construction past configurations, with and without covering in the courtyard; and analysis of the associated microclimate, up to the suggestion of management solutions for microclimatic issues. Where the study case of the Malatestiana Library, presented in Chap. 8, has been the beginning of the research on HIM, the case of Villa La Petraia represents a fully developed analysis of indoor microclimate, giving some sort of standard on how to perform these kind of studies and increasing the knowledge on HIM in general and on simulations and the prediction of future microclimatic conditions in particular
Impianti tecnici e architettura. Storia, conoscenza, conservazione.
No full textCome si può pensare di poter preservare quello che non si conosce?» L’architettura non è più quella di una volta, fatta di muri, intonaci, architravi e persone che portano l’acqua, la legna per il fuoco per riscaldare, cucinare o illuminare. Dalla XIX secolo le costruzioni si sono innervate di elementi dinamici: bruciatori, ventilatori, fluidi e correnti elettriche, modificando, irreversibilmente, le abitudini, l’architettura e la storia della tecnica quale testimone delle strategie per adattarsi al clima. Gli impianti tecnici del nostro recente passato costituiscono la componente dell’edificio che rappresenta la modernità a partire dal XIX secolo. Il volume ne racconta la storia e le possibili strategie per la conservazione perché «la conoscenza sta alla base di qualsiasi processo di apprezzamento e di protezione, ed è ormai coscientemente alla base dell’operare di chi, come l’estensore di queste pagine, è impegnato da anni nella tutela del patrimonio costruito»
INDOOR MICROCLIMATE MONITORING: USE AND ISSUES. THE CASE OF THE REALM OF VENARIA REALE.
No full textWith this paper we want to present a methodology for the indoor microclimate monitoring and data analysis, stating the related difficulties and issues. It will be presented the study of the indoor microclimate of two rooms, carried out in the Realm of Venaria Reale. This building is the result of six architects’ work, between 1659 and 1798: Amedeo Castellamonte, Michelangelo Garove, Filippo Juvarra, Benedetto Alfieri, Giuseppe Battista Piacenza e Carlo Randoni. The overarching aim is to involve, in the field of microclimate measurement, applicated on the Heritage Buildings’, the size-time in the subject matter and which permits to obtain new data, useful under the scientific and operational point of view. On this line of thinking, Marco Pretelli e Kristian
Fabbri, have defined a specific field of research: the “Historic Indoor Microclimate” (HIM), which adopts an approach designed to consider the architectural and microclimatic context, starting from the disciplines which define the indoor microclimate study, introducing the study of the physical
variables that determinate the indoor microclimate in a prolonged time dimension. Moreover, the paper is aimed to explain what are the most common issues which you could address during this kind of study, and to propose and to present a new index: the “Heritage Microclimate
Risk” (HMR): the whole data and information that is possible to register by means of monitoring and which allows to identify a magnitude index to assess the HMR. In this way it is possible to evaluate the risk level to whom the goods are exposed and the level of the human’s comfort, to the end to
improve it, in a vision which considers the conservation of goods and the comfort of the users in a coordinated way. Indeed, the best strategy to preserve the cultural heritage is the one that allows to detect in time any potential microclimatic risk, or rather situations where there is a danger due to the
fact that actual parameters of the indoor environment are going beyond the set alert thresholds. The so-called “risk situations” can be determined by physical, chemical and biological factors: principal causes of the degradation.
The study carried out on the two rooms of the Realm of Venaria Reale, includes the analysis of ten years probes’ data; the realisation of a virtual building model; the construction of a virtual environment model and its validation: by comparing the virtual data to the monitored ones. It permits
to evaluate the actual, past and future conditions of the building, its goods and the people thermal comfort conditions. Moreover, we can envisage alternative scenarios, pre-emptively defining which actions could aid the preservation of the good, avoiding the risk component that would be taken
working on the original. All this process entails many issues: about, for example, the data, which could have many gaps and errors, or incoherence, due to some different reasons as the malfunctioning of the probes or of the HVAC system; difficulties finding restoration data and archive documents; establishing the building’s thermo-physical characteristics; managing, on the virtual building model, the UTA (air-handling unit)
and of the set-point data; obtaining information from different actors; etc. In our opinion, it is substantial knowing and thrashing out these kind issues, when you want to work on the field of monitoring and microclimate control
Monitoring Campaign
No full textThe design and construction of the building are the most interesting aspects of the design project. Once the building is finished, the designer delivers it to the end users, the inhabitants, who are the ones able to verify whether or not the intentions of the design—low energy consumption and comfort—have been fulfilled. Following the approach of Lord Kelvin “if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it”, with the aim of improving the skills of the designer and of the construction companies, together with the owner, it was decided to install a system of monitoring during the construction, to assess and measure the performance of what had been built. The monitoring campaign concerns the building envelope (roof slab and vertical wall) and the indoor microclimate of a room. In this chapter, we present the content and results of the monitoring campaign
The Study of Historical Indoor Microclimate (HIM) to Contribute towards Heritage Buildings Preservation
Full text linkKnowledge of building techniques, materials and their decay is nowadays quite vast, as
well as on the solutions and methodologies of a restoration project, which depends on the goal of
the restoration itself. Even the choices on the new usage of historic buildings are often well
considered. In the last few years, we have conducted some monitoring campaigns to obtain data
related to four distinct buildings, differing in construction times, typology, location, current and
historical uses. What has been discovered is that these buildings appear to be able to guarantee
historical microclimates surprisingly overlapping to the parameters nowadays considered
appropriate to conserve them and the historical patrimony they contain. In this article we show
some explanatory results of four case studies from our research. The monitoring control, moreover,
allowed us to develop the analysis further, from survey to virtual simulation. In this way it was
possible to verify the effects of minimal variations in the architectural characteristics, such as
opening or closing a window, covering an open yard, or else removing a cover, reducing the source
of light etc. All of these managerial and architectural interventions have a significant effect on the
indoor environment of buildings and can improve the conservation status of architecture,
sometimes to such an extent that more costly and invasive restorations become unnecessary
The use of outdoor microclimate analysis to support decision making process: Case study of Bufalini square in Cesena
No full textThe study is aimed at evaluating the potential effects of alternative design solutions with different green elements
on outdoor microclimate with relation to a real case study application. The study has been commissioned
in the framework of the follow up of a design competition, launched by the Municipality of Cesena to reshape a
square in the historic city center, when a public debate raised around the arrangement of trees and green
surfaces envisaged by the architectural layout. Different options were considered and the design team and the
public authorities sought for evidences on the deriving benefits in the respective configurations in order to
properly drive the process. Thus the scientific research approach was applied to investigate the potential impacts
according to a microclimate oriented perspective. The outcomes showed that green surfaces significantly improved
the outdoor comfort conditions compared to original paved ones and that a minor contribution derived
by the trees arrangement. The paper reports the applied methodology according to the specific context, the
interpretation of results and how they have been translated into user friendly visualizations in order to make
them understandable to a broader and non technical audience
Climate Change Effect on Building Performance: A Case Study in New York
Full text linkThe evidences of the influence of climate change (CC) in most of the key sectors of human activities are frequently reported by the news and media with increasing concern. The building sector, and particularly energy use in the residential sector, represents a crucial field of investigation as demonstrated by specific scientific literature. The paper reports a study on building energy consumption and the related effect on indoor thermal comfort considering the impacts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 report about temperature increase projection. The research includes a case study in New York City, assuming three different scenarios. The outcomes evidence a decrease in energy demand for heating and an increase in energy demand for cooling, with a relevant shift due to the summer period temperature variations. The challenge of the last decades for sustainable design was to increase insulation for improving thermal behavior, highly reducing the energy demand during winter time, however, the projections over the next decades suggest that the summer regime will represent a future and major challenge in order to reduce overheating and ensure comfortable (or at least acceptable) living conditions inside buildings. The growing request of energy for cooling is generating increasing pressure on the supply system with peaks in the case of extreme events that lead to the grid collapse and to massive blackouts in several cities. This is usually tackled by strengthening the energy infrastructure, however, the users’ behavior and lifestyle will strongly influence the system capacity in stress conditions. This study focuses on the understanding of these phenomena and particularly on the relevance of the users’ perception of indoor comfort, assuming the IPCC projections as the basis for a future scenario
Indoor Thermal Comfort of Pregnant Women in Hospital: A Case Study Evidence
Full text linkDespite studies on thermal comfort being consolidated in the scientific literature, people’s well-being in some specific conditions and places, such as hospitals, requires to be further explored. The paper describes the methodological approach adopted to evaluate thermal comfort level and perception of pregnant women hosted in the obstetric ward of a test-bed case (Sant’Orsola hospital in Bologna, Italy). The methodology adopts a mixed approach that compares the results of on-site monitoring by probe (as quantitative data) with the ones of a survey (questionnaire form) delivered to the involved subjects (as qualitative data) to understand if metabolic alteration may influence the pregnant women’s perception of comfort conditions. The first follows ISO 7730, the second, ISO 10551. The comparison between the instrumental collected data and the outcomes of the survey revealed a wide gap between TSV (Thermal Sensation Vote) and PMVm (Predicted Mean Vote, measured on-site). The reason can be identified in the use of a standardized metabolic unit from ISO that does not correctly reflect the physiologic condition of pregnant women. Following a trial and error methodology, a met value for pregnant women is accordingly proposed. Moreover, an adaptive thermal comfort approach is adopted. This research is a first step towards the definition of specific thermal comfort in a hospital ward hosting pregnant women and more generally offers a reflection about the need to define specific met in the standards for some particular categories (children, elderly, pregnant women, etc.) when investigating thermal comfort
Building Simulation to Measure Indoor Microclimate in Heritage Buildings
No full textThe aim of this paper is to describe our Building Simulation (BS) approach to study indoor microclimate parameters in heritage buildings. Literature already exists over this subject: in the area of museums - Thomson, Camuffo; this issue has been particularly emphasized, for example, by Bernardi; others, as De Guichen, proposed specific methodologies for museums. Nevertheless, in our opinion, today there isn’t a vision which includes the history and the objectives of the architecture. We consider indoor microclimate in heritage buildings as a result of several strategies to guarantee indoor comfort. We named it “Historic Indoor Microclimate”, and we adopt BS to simulate actual, past and future indoor microclimate. In this paper we show three case studies of Italian historic buildings: Villa La Petraia, Florence; Villa Barbaro, Maser; Palace of Venaria Reale, Turin, which can clarify the importance of the application of the BS on cultural heritage. Moreover, the paper proposes an index: “Heritage Microclimate Risk”, useful to study the indoor microclimate aggressiveness
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