Energy efficient building
Residential and commercial buildings are the capital stock with the longest lifetime. Within the next 30 years, the capital of production systems, energy supply systems, vehicles, and many other durable goods will be replaced at least once. Most buildings, however, will last much longer. A selection of few examples out of a wide scope:
Integrated building planning
Typically during the initial planning phases the building purpose is translated into a building design and concept. Thereby the investment and running costs are strongly influenced. To mobilise the high first cost and energy saving potential the classical linear building planning process has to be changed to an integrated planning process where building owner, architect, structural engineer, and climate engineer contribute from the initial planning. Aspects and tools of a successful integral planning process and the benefits of a sustainable architecture such as multi purpose of building elements, added value, etc. are outlined. To give a persuasive motivation for a changed planning process examples of realised buildings in Europe are presented and the specific developed solutions are discussed. Appropriate future invitations for competitions should address the issue of integrated planning.
- Goals for sustainability and for sustainable buildings
- Criteria and labelling
- Sustainable building construction: design principles
- Solar thermal use in the building sector
- Maximising the use of renewable energy sources
- Economic and ecological aspects
- Sustainability factors for communities and cities
Building surface – construction materials
This topic focuses in-depth on the importance of the performance of buildings for energy demand of buildings:
- Energy efficient buildings design and technologies
- Integrated building planning
- Building envelope performance assessment
- Economic optimisation
- Environmental evaluation of buildings
- Performance analysis, methods and tools
- Operational data and experiences
Energy consumption and day-lighting
Thermal comfort and European climates concepts for low (heating) energy buildings are discussed with respect to commercial buildings and European standards. Day-lighting is an important measure to save electric energy for artificial lighting in the same order of magnitude as the heating energy savings.
Thermal storage through concrete core cooling
Buildings with optimized daylight conditions have to be designed very carefully with respect to cooling loads and summer temperatures. The scope of thermal storage will be exemplarily shown for some European buildings in relation with the activated storage masses (ceiling, walls). So called "active storage concepts" with ventilated chambers or water tubes within the ceiling are very popular in Europe and will be widely used in the future.
Indoor air quality, thermal comfort, cooling load and HVAC systems
The objective of energy conservation in HVAC is pointed out. Aspects of thermal comfort and indoor air quality will be discussed in respect to the resulting cooling loads. The importance of that discussion will be analysed under different meteorological conditions. Modern concepts of decoupling of ventilation and cooling and heating demand regarding the air conditioned room such as only-air-, only-water-, air-water -systems which are good practice in Europe will be shown. On the ventilation air supply side concepts and components e.g. such as heat recovery, latent heat and cold recovery, evaporative coolers and desiccant cooling systems will be looked at and the favourable working conditions will be pointed out. Examples of the corresponding technical equipment will be shown.
Natural ventilation of high rise buildings, offices, atria, airports, etc.
Natural Ventilation is important as well for psychological reasons as to save ventilation energy. However natural ventilation of high rise buildings is only rarely used wold-wide and most of the naturally ventilated high rise buildings have been constructed in Germany during the past five years. It is necessary to take care of various effects as windward-leeward situations, stack effects within the building, increased door opening forces and sound generation at elevator doors. Examples are Commerzbank Frankfurt, RWE-Tower in Essen, Slovakian National Bank Bratislava and also a building in Tokyo. Possible solutions with special double skin facades or optimised building shape due to building aerodynamics and important strategies for future building design are summarised.