A Facade refurbishment toolbox supporting energy upgrade of residential building skin

Abstract

Over the next decade investments in buildings energy saving need to increase, together with the rate and depth of renovations, to achieve the required reduction in buildings related CO2 emissions. Although the need to improve residential buildings has been identified, guidelines come as general suggestion that fail to address the diversity of each project and give specific answers on how these requirements can be implemented in the design. During early design phases, architects are in search for a design direction to make informed decisions, particularly with regard to the building envelope, which mostly regulated energy demand. To result into a sustainable existing residential stock, this paper proposes a methodology to support refurbishment strategies design. The result or the proposed methodology enables designers to make informed decisions that generated energy and sustainability conscious designs, without dictating an optimal solution, from the energy point of view alone. Its applicability is validated through interviews with refurbishment stakeholders.