The goal of the course is to provide a deep understanding of building energy performances and a sound, quantitative approach based, building envelope design practice.

This goal will be attained showing, in classwork and practicing in homeworks, how dynamic building energy simulation can be used to support the evaluation of the energy needed to assure indoor comfort conditions (and/or, alternatively, the comfort conditions of the same rooms and zones without or with partially working plant systems) and how different design solutions, different climatic conditions and different use and management choices may influence these results.

The student will learn how to define and to solve the main design targets related to the energy use in the operational phase of a building and to user comfort, analyzing the effects of design choices in an increasing complexity approach.

Moreover, the student will learn how to find a balance among building energy related targets and to do it in accordance with other targets and requirements (from a technical, cultural, social and economical point of view) and how to deal with complex structures, i.e. with buildings that have different, thermal zones (in terms of use, environmental stress, HVAC and illuminating systems) and different envelope systems.

The student will learn how to critically select building technologies, how local climate influences the energy needs of a building and how its efficiency may be significatively improved in very different ways, from place to place.

Eventually the student will learn how the same building may be “smart” (or “smartly” managed), taking advantage of its climate and its daily and monthly evolution to minimize its energy needs. The student will also learn how climate change may affect building energy performances and how to minimize these effects.

1. Climate (from the building energy performances point of view)
2. Daylighting (room and envelope design conscious of some basic comfort issues)
3. Passive strategies and “Vernacular Architecture” approaches (Envelope and Architectural configuration and their influence on building energy efficiency)
4. Dynamic Energy Modelling (a large calibre weapon to be carefully used) and few evaluators
5. Thermal insulation (technologies and their feasibility … with few moisture problems)
6. Glasses (and similar technologies) and Windows
7. Thermal Bridges and the real U-value
8. Windows, shading devices and solar gains
9. Ventilation (mechanical and natural)
10. Internal gains and thermal comfort analysis

Working topics

1. The use of CLIMATE CONSULTANT and few EXCEL tricks
2. The use of IES-VE (drawing, thermal zone settings, envelope configuration, plants ...)
3. The use of WINDOWS and THERM
4. … other software to be presented during the course

The fundamentals of building physics and building services are necessary to understand the concepts about energy efficiency that the course deals with.

A basic knowledge of building technologies is also recommended.

The evaluation process is divided into two parts:

• Part 1: Homeworks: evaluated as «passed» or «not passed»
• Part 2: Case Study: report presentation and answers to case study related questions.

The access to the final presentation will be granted (and the final mark awarded) only after the completion/upload of all the homeworks and their acceptance (“passed”).

The final mark will derive from the quality of the final report about the case study (group work) and the endeavour/committment in the optimization of the design choices. A “merit assessment” may come from the evaluation of the homeworks and may be used as a fine tuning of the groupwork evaluation and its overall engagement.

If the groupwork is considered sufficient, the learning outcomes of each student will be evaluated from the discussion about the case study and the answers given, with a possible (positive or negative) influence on the final mark of the single member of the group.

The final mark will be composed as follows:

- up to 27/30: groupwork evaluation

- up to 6/30: single evaluation.