Elements and Strategies for Sustainable Intervention in the Residential Building Sector: a Case Study

This paper deals with research carried out at the Laboratory of Building Design, University of Trento, Italy to define possible design actions to improve energy efficiency and indoor comfort conditions in residential buildings. The paper presents retrofitting interventions both in wintertime and summertime, through the use of passive solar elements and of natural materials typical of the local building tradition. There were five stages of research: (1) critical analysis and classification of sustainable buildings in the Italian Alpine region; (2) recording data of the temporal courses of specific indoor environmental parameters in some rooms of selected existing buildings during real life conditions; (3) setting up of a virtual model of the buildings in dynamic state conditions; (4) a critical calibration of the model in order to take into account the real behaviour of the inhabitants and their use of the building components; (5) modification of some features on the model (materials, shape and so on) in order to achieve better performances concerning users' comfort conditions and energy saving issues. In consequence, it is now possible to evaluate the real effectiveness of bioclimatic design procedures and to propose guidelines concerning the design of sustainable wooden buildings. Finally, some specific recommendations are given based on the critical analysis of the simulation results.