A High Performance Controlled Temperature Building Shell for the Sustainable Upgrading of Buildings

摘要

The energy and environmental upgrading of the built sector is a burning topic that has urged scientific communities worldwide to keep searching for innovative high performance sustainable building products, systems, designs, and practices. The synergy among several approaches and methodologies has been widely accepted and established as the key in achieving the most sustainable constructions. The aim of this paper is to present a novel high performance building element that establishes a building's thermal comfort and effective cooling, while at the same time it has negligible energy requirements. The operation of this innovative solution is based on an active controlled temperature building shell that employs airflow patterns for the stabilization of the building's temperatures. This work investigates the energy performance of the controlled temperature building shell through the employment of numerical simulation tools, while life cycle methodology is also implemented for the assessment of the environmental impact of the novel element. The results and conclusions of the analysis will establish the overall level of performance of the proposed solution, and demonstrate the significance of integrating several methodologies for the promotion of the sustainable upgrading of the building sector.