Supply-side collaboration for energy-efficient renovations

The supply side for nearly zero energy building (nZEB) renovation of owner-occupied single-family houses in Europe is suffering from a severe image problem of lack of knowledge and trust, inefficient construction processes, insufficient quality assurance and communication difficulties with home-owners. Research was done in Austria, Belgium,...

Effectiveness of energy efficiency regulatory tools in the housing sector

The urgent need for a dramatic reduction of fossil fuels in the built environment is without any doubt. The energy saving potential of the building stock is considered to be large and to be the most cost efficient sector to contribute to the CO2 reductions. Goals set by the European Union are to build net zero energy buildings in 2020 and to...

An integrated design process for a zero-energy refurbishment prototype for post-war residential buildings in the Netherlands

Although refurbishment is a necessary step to reach the ambitious energy and decarbonisation targets for 2020 and 2050, which require an eventual reduction up to 90% in CO2 emissions, the rate of renovation is still relatively low. There is an increasing demand to upgrade both the physical condition and the performance of the building, with the...

REAP2: New concepts for the exchange of heat in cities

Cities need to become independent from finite resources, among which fossil fuels. There is great potential to save energy is many cities, however the generation of power is insufficient due to the limited space as a result of urban densities. An energy source less commonly explored is reuse of waste heat from various urban functions. In that...

Cities ready for energy crisis: Building urban energy resilience

Various sources indicate that threats to modern cities lie in the availability of essential streams, among which energy. Most cities are strongly reliant on fossil fuels; not one case of a fully self-sufficient city is known. Engineering resilience is the rate at which a system returns to a single steady or cyclic state following a perturbation....

Continuing the building's material cycle: A literature review and analysis of current systems theories in comparison with the theory of cradle to cradle

Recently, the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) theory set ground in the Netherlands, propounding that environmental impact reduction can provide a positive economical impulse to stakeholders. The building industry has warmly received this approach and considers it to be a solution to the above-mentioned burden. However, if the building sector wants to...

Design Methods for Young Sustainable Architecture Practice

This paper introduces landscape aesthetics as an innovative design method for sustainable architecture. It is based on the framework of a recent paper where the young and unfamous authors criticized three of the most prominent? architects today in regard to sustainable architecture and its aesthetics. Leading architects expressed their...