Strategies for building energy retrofit in the mediterranean basin

Abstract

The paper focuses on passive and active strategies for achieving sustainable recovery of existing buildings in the Mediterranean Basin, in order to improve indoor comfort and reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. The Mediterranean Basin is characterized by relatively mild winters and very warm summers. Although Mediterranean climate conditions offer excellent opportunity for the application of alternative energy sources (eg. wind, solar, hydroelectric), they are not very applied yet. Italy and Sicily in particular, comparing to most of EU countries , hang still behind in the application of innovative techniques for sustainable design and planning, and energy retrofitting of existing building. Moreover, Italian rules about energy efficiency in buildings do not take wholly into account problems related to the control of heat gains in temperate climate conditions, and even if energy codes have made good strides in improving the energy efficiency of new buildings, Italy still need an energy code framework that can effectively produce deep energy savings in existing buildings. Most of the contemporary urban areas of South Italy are widely composed by buildings, designed since the II post-war, that present very low energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Starting from these considerations, the paper inquires into passive cooling techniques for the improvement of energy building performance and indoor comfort. Existing buildings retrofit examples are analysed in order to evaluate the efficiency of different design techniques to reduce energy consumption and, at the same time, increase indoor health levels in temperate geographic areas.