A Conceptual Design of an Integrated Façade System to Reduce Embodied Energy in Residential Buildings

Wen Pan, Kepa Iturralde, Thomas Bock, Roberto Garay Martinez, Olga Macias Juez and Pietro Finocchiaro
Additional contact information
Wen Pan: Department of Architecture, Technical University of Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany
Kepa Iturralde: Department of Architecture, Technical University of Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany
Thomas Bock: Department of Architecture, Technical University of Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany
Roberto Garay Martinez: TECNALIA, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Bizkaia Science and Technology Park, Building 700, 48160 Derio, Spain
Olga Macias Juez: TECNALIA, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Bizkaia Science and Technology Park, Building 700, 48160 Derio, Spain
Pietro Finocchiaro: SolarInvent srl, 95030 Catania, Italy

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 14, 1-23

Abstract: (1) The overall energy requirement of a building may be impacted by the building design, the selection of materials, the construction methods, and lifecycle management. To achieve an optimum energy-efficiency level when dealing with a new building or renovation project, it is important to improve the entire construction process as it is not enough to merely focus on the operational phase. If conventional construction practices do not evolve, compromise, or adapt to necessary changes, then it becomes challenging to deliver an ultimate low energy building. (2) This paper demonstrates the trend of off-site prefabrication and its production principles and the notions of open-building design and Design for X, as well as offering an overview of the development of automation in construction, which provides both insights and evaluations based on the context of the research. (3) Three European Union Horizon 2020 research projects were evaluated, and the outcome of the projects served as the backbone for the research and inspired the design of the proposed integrated façade system. Two design scenarios were proposed to demonstrate the potential improvements that could be achieved in a new build as well as in renovation projects. (4) The research lays a foundation for establishing a larger cross-disciplinary collaboration in the future.

Keywords: integrated façade; prefabrication; energy requirement; construction automation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5730/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5730/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:14:p:5730-:d:385367

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().