NEAR ZERO ENERGY SYSTEMS: NATURAL PERFORMANCE BUILDINGS DESIGN

The current approach to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability for the design of new building needs a radical change. In the last few years, the increasing comfort demand has led to an incremental request of thermo-hygrometric properties, which are necessary for living spaces. These systems modify internal environment climate in adaptation to the external conditions. This paper introduces an innovative design strategy, which is based on the spontaneous building behavior rather than an excessive use of air-conditioning systems. In mild climate areas, the use of climatization systems can be minimized and the focus is on building surface design. The real design innovation aspires to develop new “building envelope solutions” for interpreting signals coming from the outside environment. A spontaneous building behavior can be designed taking into consideration the outside climatic conditions and corresponding building performance during the different seasons. In this way, air conditioning systems are used in external critical conditions. Building thermal performance can be improved through the design of the building envelope. New design techniques lead to modulate the natural building envelope behavior and to evaluate environmental reactivity as a primary measure of control of the living space conditions. This methodological approach requires the measurement of standard performance in order to improve it. Hence, it is possible to use iterative measurements and numerical models. In this manner, the building performance can be assessed, enhancing construction solutions and satisfying comfort conditions in the design of the building envelope. Comfort evaluation is carried out on the basis of mankind physiological and behavioral adaptive characteristics.