Arianna Brambilla

What Is an Active House? A Vision Beyond 2020

International standards and constantly smarter practices are everyday more addressing the issue of a sustainable development. However, this virtuous approach has to involve the final users, in a newer and wider perspective: People First. This is the aim of the Active House Alliance, proposing a new vision for the future of the construction sector. Indoor comfort and occupants’ wellbeing, energy efficiency and renewable sources exploitation, eco-friendly approaches are integrated into new guidelines and technical prescriptions, to help designers in developing the active buildings of the future.

A Reflection on Active House in Warm Climates

Active House represents the next generation of sustainable buildings, which have a positive balance between benefits and resources consumed. In this chapter, the adaptation of the model for warm climates is explained. The aim is to investigate how the standard fits the Mediterranean region and how it can be used to design an Active House in hot climate. A sensitivity analysis on design parameters is performed to investigate their influence on energy consumption and thermal comfort provided according to the Specifications. RhOME, an outstanding example of efficient and sustainable design, is used to validate the analysis.

A New Paradigm for Holistic Design: Active House Prototypes at Politecnico di Milano

Active House principles represents an affordable element that could drive the design process in different stages. At Politecnico di Milano, several experimental activities have been conducted on its prototypes buildings, in order to mind the gap between the predicted, simulated, observed, and recorded building behavior. Therefore, the AH vision—with its Specifications and Guidelines—has been applied to the validation of these two innovative small buildings: VELUXlab and C-ASA. The final aim is multiple: at first, the analysis of the building features in relation to a specific climate context (the Mediterranean area); then, the information of the users, in order to educate them to the correct use of this smart objects.

NZEB and Active House: A Case Study of Residential Building in Northern Italy

According to the European Directive, the Nearly Zero Energy Building standard (NZEB) represents a backbone to achieve the European CO2 emission reduction target considering both, new and under renovation buildings. In this chapter, the Maison Verte, a low energy residential building, located in northern Italy has been presented showing the sustainable design approach, the technological design and his energy and comfort rating. The building represents a high energy efficient case study building, in which, the principles of comfort (visual and thermal), energy and environment are perfectly balanced according to the voluntary Active House certification scheme. During the design phase, the overall building performances has been deeply analyzed applying a multi-disciplinary design optimization process tools where parametric design, financial models and energy simulation tools are combined to accelerate the design phase and explore design options faster and more effectively than current conventional design process.