Buildingmass and Energy Demand in Conventional Housing Typologies of the Mediterranean City

Abstract

The causal relation among building typology and building energy demand is a complex balance of climate, morphology, technology and use. The assessment of the relation between mass of building elements and energy demand in different housing typologies is the main goal of this study. A novel indicator, namely the Buildingmass, is introduced and tested in the Mediterranean climate region. Explorations on nine conventional housing typologies in Barcelona and Rome are carried out. Buildingmass evaluation is based on the calculation of the mass of building elements. Energy demand is assessed by modelling on multi-space dynamic thermal analysis tool. Our results point out that the Buildingmass has a strong relevance on energy, playing an important role in reducing heating and cooling demand in the Mediterranean city, as described by the proposed correlation (R 2 = 0.88). Moreover, this indicator gives a more detailed characterisation of the housing stock of the Mediterranean city. The study aims at bridging the gap between urban physics and urban metabolism studies and fostering energy conservation measures for the built environment.

Housing Indicators for Sustainable Cities in Middle-Income Countries through the Residential Urban Environment Recognized Using Single-Family Housing Rating Systems

“…Several researchers have recently applied housing indicators in order to achieve or enhance sustainability [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]; some of these investigations refer to social housing [17,18,21,22]. Among the indicators that were analyzed are those referring to household vulnerability; these studies found that social housing tends to be inhabited by people with below-average incomes [18,21] who are vulnerable to energy poverty.…”

“…In this sense, Monzón et al [17] developed a system of indicators to detect multifamily dwellings that have weak energy, acoustic, and accessibility performance. Similarly, Morganti et al [20] proposed an indicator called building mass, which may contribute to the reduction of energy demand. Other works have proposed social and economic indicators that can help to predict the origin of mortgages as well as housing prices [16].…”