Carola Clemente

Guidelines for the retrofit of the school building stock for sustainable urban regeneration of the city of Rome

The City of Rome is trying to come into line, culturally and strategically, with European standards of environmental health and energy savings. This study is designed as a roadmap for the retrofit of existing building stock, through the analysis of case studies of major significance in terms of building characteristics and period of construction. The recognition of the consistency of the existing school building stock and the subsequent selection of the buildings that are representative of general conditions allowed us to compare results and draw from them intervention guidelines that are applicable to almost all of the school building stock. The guidelines developed by the authors take into account the optimisation of the building envelope and plant system, as well as the pay-back period of each case. The interventions, with their low investment costs, have significant benefits in terms of energy efficiency, with a subsequent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and in terms of indoor and outdoor environmental quality, and propose a systemic approach to the retrofit of Mediterranean cities, which often have ancient and monumental historic centres that need to be protected and enhanced, as well as in the established suburbs, defined as those that appeared up to the 1970s–1980s. For these buildings, characterised by great potential for transformation and often with poor architectural and technological quality, the energy retrofit is also an opportunity to redesign and redefine the levels-objectives of indoor comfort. The reduction of energy consumption in school buildings, estimated at about 40% for the envelope and 20% for the plant, other than the evident environmental benefits to the territory, also has a significant impact on the education of the individual awareness of the users. Widespread retrofit of public structures at the disposal of young students, other than having a powerful impact in the reduction of greenhouse gases, constitutes a

Urban Heat Island Effect on the Energy Consumption of Institutional Buildings in Rome

The urban heat island (UHI) effect is constantly increasing the energy consumption of buildings, especially in summer periods. The energy gap between the estimated energy performance - often simulated without considering UHI - and the real operational consumption is especially relevant for institutional buildings, where the cooling needs are in general higher than in other kind of buildings, due to more internal gains (people, appliances) and different architectural design (more transparent facades and light walls). This paper presents a calculation of the energy penalty due to UHI in two institutional buildings in Rome. Urban Weather Generator (UWG) is used to generate a modified weather file, taking into account the UHI phenomenon. Then, two building performance simulations are done for each case: the first simulation uses a standard weather file and the second uses the modified one. Results shows how is it necessary to re-develop mitigation strategies and a new energy retrofit approach, in order to include urbanization ad UHI effect, especially in this kind of buildings, characterized by very poor conditions of comfort during summer, taking into account users and occupant-driven demand.

New standards for new poverties. Ecosystemic strategies and governance of the chain

The impact and duration of the economic crisis we are experiencing is having a profound influence on the extended construction chain, it conditions the productive system, the system of products and services, and the system of demand, that is, the community of users of the built product. Manmade territory is the site of the clash between competing stakeholders and is the location of some of the most critical social, economic and environmental areas. To put an end to the progressive impoverishment of the productive fabric, of the users and managers of housing, it is necessary to rethink the operating standards of the entire chain, otherwise we risk the collapse of the system of building production and the support structures for housing difficulty.