Development of a Double-Skin Façade for Sustainable Renovation of Old Residential Buildings

Abstract

The modernist movement in architecture has led to a building boom of a large number of high-rise buildings with glazed faç ades. These faç ades were aesthetically pleasing, but have a high energy loading. To address this, a double-skin faç ade (DSF) has been proposed to manage the interaction between the outdoor and indoor environments. A DSF can contribute to balance the demand for energy saving, thermal and visual comfort, and a high-tech image for building envelopes. The design of the DSF involves decisions on geometric parameters, glass selection, ventilation strategy, shading, daylighting, aesthetics, wind loads, and maintenance and cleaning cost expectations. This paper reports an experimental application of a DSF in an old apartment building which has been modelled in order to find the configuration to select design parameters that could minimize the energy demand and total carbon emissions. A simulation-based virtual environment program was used to determine the optimal sustainable features of the double-skin envelope. Results of the simulation are presented and discussed for four different cavity widths and ventilation modes of operation, highlighting the potential savings in comparison to the existing faç ade construction. The impact of internal shading within cavity space was also investigated.

Energy performance of Double-Skin Façades in temperate climates: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…From the practitioner side, Kragh reports numerical reductions within a 30%-40% range in two cases, one in the UK and one in Belgium [68,69]. Similar findings show reductions of 37.8% in Iran [57] and 38% by in central Korea [61]. It is worth noting that the two cases that showed negative performance on heating loads, perform instead very well when cooling is considered with basically identical values of 31.9% [77] and 32% [40] respectively.…”

“…Similarly, results in this range have been obtained by Choi et al [56] in Korea, Ghadamian et al [57] in Iran, Gratia and De Herde [58] in Belgium, Blumenberg et al [59] in Germany and Austria, and Fallahi et al [60] in a lab-based experiment. It is worth mentioning that DSFs suggested significant energy savings, even within a renovation or refurbishment context, of 38% in case of a residential building studied by Kim et al [61], and of 45% in an office building analysed by Cakmanus [62].…”

Analysis of Energy Performance on Envelope Ratio Exposed to the Outdoor

“…Following the thermal comfort criteria, the highest temperature was set to 26°during the cooling period and 20°in the heating period. Ventilation and infiltration rates were set to 0.7 ACH and 0.25 ACH, respectively [14]. Table 1 shows material properties and conditions utilized for the simulation process.…”

Double-Skin Façades for the Sustainable Refurbishment of Non-domestic Buildings: A Life Cycle Environmental Impact Perspective

“…Kim et al, 2013). IES includes a natural ventilation analysis module which addresses phenomena such as single-sided and cross-ventilation, and flow in cavities due to wind and buoyancy effects.…”