The aim of this study is to make an insight about architectural membrane applications for building’s functional refurbishment, analysing the characteristics that make architectural membranes suitable for this purpose. It is based on sixty interventions used as case studies that are classified chronologically and by countries and uses, pointing out also their applications. Several design strategies are identified and contrasted with the principles set for interventions in existing buildings. The results are illustrated with examples chosen from the case studies, highlighting how membrane building technologies can fulfil the most important principles of building refurbishment.
Abstract. Fresh water is a scarce resource. Its availability, essential for life, is being conditioned by several menaces, mostly from human origin. Studies on water saving strategies in building construction and what procedures should be adopted for its efficient use can respond to part of these problems, taking into account the relevance of construction activities, responsible for almost 40% of the overall environmental impact in Europe. Buildings rehabilitation assumes an important role in the construction activities of many European countries. The aim of this paper is to compare the water demand between dry and wet construction systems used in interior partition wall technologies existing in south European climates, specifically on Portuguese territory. This paper focus on the advantages of the dry and lightweight partition walls and it is expected that it may contribute for the reduction of water use in the construction industry. The evolution of interior partition walls, namely by its weight and embodied water analysis, is presented and discussed. Apart from the conclusion that dry construction systems, used in the rehabilitation of existing buildings, can contribute to a significant reduction of water demand, this analysis intends to also reveal on how much these systems can reduce other environmental impact indicators in relation to the wet conventional solutions. Dry construction strategies allows saving material and energetic resources, increasing flexibility and reducing wastes, what constitutes a relevant response to the growing concerns over environmental issues and incertitude on economic development.
The initial premise of this research is that the relative efficiency of refurbishment solutions with architectural membranes needs to be measured in order to allow its comparison with conventional solutions, helping decision makers to select the most efficient solutions. The evaluation of this efficiency depends on economic features, but also on functional, technological and environmental ones. This study presents a model to solve this problem, using decision trees, multicriteria decision-making methods (SAW and AHP) and a sensitivity analysis. The selection of the criteria and the assignment of the corresponding weights was attained through an expert group survey for a baseline scenario, aiming maximizing functional performance (such as energy savings) and minimizing employed resources (materials, costs, etc.). The most efficient refurbishment solution among the set of alternatives was reached using the developed model. The methodology was applied to a case study-an old building from the 19th century, located in Portugal, which was refurbished with a vertical extension. The result reveals that the proposed model is successful and illustrates the potential of this evaluation methodology to compare and quantify the efficiency of a series of different lightweight constructive solutions. It also underlines the advantages of using lightweight building technologies, especially with architectural membrane materials, in building refurbishments.
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