scholarly journals Downcycling and Upcycling in Rehabilitation and Adaptive Reuse of Pre-Existing Buildings: Re-Designing Technological Performances in an Environmental Perspective

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (21) ◽  
pp. 6863
Author(s):  
Antonello Monsù Monsù Scolaro ◽  
Stefania De De Medici

The abandonment of the built heritage, as a result of functional or technological obsolescence or as a consequence of cultural, social, and economic trends, is steadily increasing. This great number of buildings, worldwide spread, offers a huge opportunity to reduce the environmental impacts related to the construction industry. Nonetheless, the recovery and reuse interventions that require the implementation of residual technological performance, to accommodate new uses, are not always environmentally neutral. Therefore, a new design approach needs to be developed so as to improve the buildings’ technological performance and enhance resources and energy already incorporated in buildings. The circular economy principles in the building sector, performance-based building design together with downcycling and upcycling theories are applied to develop a methodology aiming to reduce the environmental impacts within the rehabilitation and refurbishment design process. Starting from the building analysis phase (historical, material, construction) residual performance is evaluated; then the design phase demonstrates that, according to downcycling and upcycling design strategies applied on building components and materials, it is possible improving the building to the required new uses while minimizing transformations and effectively reducing related environmental impacts. The reduction of environmental impacts depends on a careful assessment of the residual technological and structural performance that the building still provides, by involving limited performance implementations to balance rehabilitation needs and environmental protection goals.

Author(s):  
Basem Eid Mohamed ◽  
Frederic Gemme ◽  
Aaron Sprecher

Recent development in digital design strategies and fabrication tools has offered the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry the opportunity to rethink the prefabricated building industry. Different methodologies have been proposed with the aim of formulating an efficient link between design and fabrication processes, based on devising effective data workflows to overcome complexities associated with conventional production models. This paper demonstrates recent developments in implementing a Digital Prototyping model toward establishing a comprehensive strategy for design and fabrication of a family of building components. The proposed model is specifically designed and implemented to realize a prefabricated construction system, BONE Structure®, with the aim of enabling high precision in design and fabrication, in addition to supporting pre-defined assembly on jobsites. This paper represents a phase from an ongoing research endeavor toward infusing the design and production processes with digital logic, aiming for high flexibility and customization in building design, specifically the housing realm.


Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Kikki Lambrecht Ipsen ◽  
Massimo Pizzol ◽  
Morten Birkved ◽  
Ben Amor

The building sector is responsible for extensive resource consumption and waste generation, resulting in high pressure on the environment. A way to potentially mitigate this is by including environmental considerations during building design through the concept known as eco-design. Despite the multiple available approaches of eco-design, the latter is not easily achieved in the building sector. The objective of this paper is to identify and discuss what barriers are currently hindering the implementation of eco-design in the building sector and by which measures building designers can include environmental considerations in their design process. Through a systematic literature review, several barriers to implementation were identified, the main ones being lack of suitable legislation, lack of knowledge amongst building designers, and lack of suitable tools for designers to use. Furthermore, two specific tools were identified that allow the inclusion of environmental consideration in building design, along with nine design strategies providing qualitative guidance on how to potentially minimize energy and material consumption, as well as waste generation. This paper contributes a holistic overview of the major barriers to and existing tools and method for the eco-design of buildings, and provides guidance for both future research and practice.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 2-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhixian Yi

Purpose – In the digital age, constant changes in libraries inform contemporary building design. An innovative library building design is a complicated process and can be viewed as a continuous process of the use of tacit and explicit knowledge and innovative tools and approaches. Knowledge management (KM) can bring about the much needed innovation, and transform tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. For the design of a library to be successful, it is necessary to apply KM to library building design. The purpose of this paper is to look at key change impacts, to explore how to manage knowledge in building design and to identify key design principles. Design/methodology/approach – This paper looks at key change impacts, explores how to manage knowledge in library building design and pinpoints design principles. Findings – This paper finds that KM can be vital to library building design, and it can be used in all stages: to examine the internal and external environments, transform tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge by using portals, and analyze existing and future issues and trends. When effectively used, KM will result in innovative design strategies and also will reduce the time and costs of the building design and plan processes. The main principles of library building design are flexibility, accessibility, safety and security, applicability, adaptability, efficiency, and sustainability. Practical implications – This paper provides a useful overview of how to manage knowledge in library building design and design principles. Originality/value – The views, discussions, and suggestions will be of value to improve the effectiveness of library building design.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Giovannini ◽  
V.R.M. Lo Verso ◽  
F. Favoino ◽  
V. Serra ◽  
A. Pellegrino

The new HIEQ Lab (Health, well-being and Indoor Environmental Quality Laboratory) is presented. It is a living lab, primarily intended for research on human performance, comfort, and well-being, integrated with the energy performance in a completely controlled real space. Users are involved as active players in controlling and assessing building components and design strategies for health, well-being and IEQ requirements. Experimental activities will be addressed through a multi-domain approach that combines lighting, acoustic, air quality and thermal issues. For what concerns lighting, the laboratory is conceived to study the performance of daylighting and electric lighting systems and control solutions, focusing on the relationship between lighting conditions and human performance, comfort, and well-being. The paper reports the results of a literature review on existing lighting research facilities, and then describes the features of the new HIEQ Lab and its main research objectives, with a focus on lighting and daylighting research opportunities.


Author(s):  
Jeremy Gibberd

Buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy use and produce over a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. These impacts are being acknowledged and addressed in specialist building design techniques and technologies that aim to reduce the environmental impacts of buildings. These techniques and technologies can be referred to collectively as green building technologies. This chapter describes green building technologies and shows why they are vital in addressing climate change and reducing the negative environmental impacts associated with built environments. A structured approach is presented which can be applied to identify and integrate green building technologies into new and existing buildings. By combining global implications with technical detail, the chapter provides a valuable guide to green building technologies and their role in supporting a transition to a more sustainable future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7714 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaohuan Xie ◽  
Shiyu Qin ◽  
Zhonghua Gou ◽  
Ming Yi

A green building has a long lasting benefit through cultivating the occupants’ energy and resource-saving behaviours. To understand how green buildings can cultivate occupants’ pro-environment behaviours, the research applied the value–belief–norm model to investigate 17 pro-environmental behaviours which are related to a variety of green building design strategies. Two green and two non-green certified office buildings in the city of Shenzhen in China were surveyed, based on which structural equation modelling was established to confirm the relationship between personal values, environmental beliefs and norms that lead to pro-environment behaviours. Green and non-green building occupants showed significant differences in altruistic values, environmental awareness, personal norms, and pro-environmental behaviours. Green building users had more frequent pro-environmental behaviours than those in non-green buildings. The strategies that require fewer additional efforts were more likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours, such as meeting daily needs within walking distance and adjusting sunshades, while the strategies that need extra physical efforts (taking stairs) or knowledge (garbage sorting) were less likely to be adopted as pro-environmental behaviours. This study pointed out important intervention opportunities and discussed the possible design implications for green building guidelines and programmes to cultivate green occupants and their corresponding pro-environmental behaviours.


Author(s):  
Serik Tokbolat ◽  
Raikhan Tokpatayeva ◽  
Sarim Naji Al-Zubaidy

Buildings account for nearly 40% of the end-use energy consumption and carbon emissions globally. These buildings, once built, are bound to be utilized for several decades if not longer. The building sector therefore holds a significant responsibility for implementing strategies to increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions and thus contribute to global efforts directed toward mitigating the adverse effects of climate change. This paper presents an oversight of effective low-energy building design strategies for the extreme weather conditions in Kazakhstan (Astana), with temperature ranging between −35 and +40 C. Passive design features coupled with integration of renewable energy technologies have been identified for the next generation of buildings in Astana. The specific nature of the work is intentional, it is a continuing attempt to generate relevant know how that has direct relevancy to Astana’s system approach to energy conversation to meet its extreme winters.


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