The built environment is the largest energy consumer in the European Union in which the non-domestic sector accounts for 13% of the total energy consumption and the office buildings account for 50% of the energy consumption. The office buildings in the Netherlands exhibit poor energy performance and thermal comfort. There is an urgent need to rectify this problem by renovation or refurbishment by utilizing renewable sources of energy. Therefore, this research focuses on improving the energy consumption of an office building in the Netherlands by implementing the Earth, Wind and Fire system which utilizes the environmental energy of earth mass, wind and sun to generate and supply energy throughout the building by eliminating the use of HVAC systems. The research adopted basic and dynamic simulation models to evaluate the energy performance of the building with EWF system and ATG method to evaluate the Thermal comfort. The research concluded that the EWF system is an efficient way to reduce the energy performance of the Provinciehuis Utrecht building and by refurbishing the façade and adding PV panels, the energy consumption of the building can reduce further. The research was validated by using the BENG regulations and a proposal was designed to make the Provinciehuis Paris Proof.

Increasing lack of space in the Netherlands drives us to new interpretations of the multifunctional building. To reduce vacancy and increase effective use of existing buildings the Bruggebouw-Oost in The Hague is transformed. The integration of multifunctional concepts in the design of this building results in a new relation between functions. By combining shops, housing, working, sports and restaurants new flows and opportunities are created but new challenges emerge. Creating a new way of living between working and living where the two van benefit from each other. This by horizontally and vertically linking and overlap them getting the most out of the square meters. To make the building suitable for the future it needs to be adaptable. Therefore the building consisits out of prefabricated units being housing, working and shops that can be altered throughout the years to comply with future demand. This all to strive to efficient use of the built environment.

The building industry accounts for almost 40% of the total carbon emissions that are directly responsible for climate change. The buildings are now deploying energy-efficient solutions to lower carbon emissions from the operational phase. This adversely affects the share of embodied carbon emissions of building materials. The graduation thesis aims to study and compare the life cycle impact of different materials in building applications. The life cycle assessment method was adapted using certain assumptions to account for circular design approaches. End-of-life scenarios for all the materials were formed and compared using the assessment method. The analysis of materials in different building applications presented a significant difference between bio-based materials and other conventional materials such as steel, aluminium, and concrete. A reduction of almost 120% in the total carbon emissions of the studied building was estimated when bio-based materials were used over the existing materials. The proposed materials, along with energy recovery potential at their end-of-life, even showed the potential to achieve a carbon negative structural system. The proposed scenario of using bio-based material solutions in a building with a longer life span displayed better potential than a circular building construction. The role of biomass in mitigating climate change was thus highlighted.

This study analyzes the impact of the facade design on the energy performance, daylight and thermal comfort of residential high-rise buildings in temperate climates, with the help of energy simulations. The advantages of different facade design strategies are assessed based on the Cooltoren building in Rotterdam by V8 Architects. The aim is to find the most optimal facade parameter combinations in terms of performance and indoor comfort and to provide facade design guidelines for Architects and Engineers to consider similar passive design solutions in the design of nZEB residential high-rises in temperate climates.
The following facade parameters are considered as variables for the optimization process: window to wall ratio, glazing type, shading system, natural ventilation strategy, thermal insulation and energy generating systems. These variables lead to 480 possible facade design combinations which are assessed using Grasshopper components and compared with Design Explorer. Based on the results, a facade redesign is proposed for the analyzed case study and general design guidelines are provided for similar residential high-rises.
This study proves that the facade design plays an important role to reduce the energy demand, produce energy and improve the indoor comfort conditions. Based on the results of the optimization process, the primary energy demand of a high-rise building located in a temperate climate can be reduced with up to 30 kWh/m2 with an optimized facade design alone.

The building sector uses 40% of the primary energy worldwide. Energy demand in a non-residential existing building is rising due to higher comfort conditions, population growth and the enhancement of the building services. On the other hand, renewable energy technologies are every time more accessible for the built environment, especially the ones that use the sun as their primary energy source. The difference between that energy demand and that production of energy in existing buildings is causing a mismatch of energy that needs to be solved if problems such as an increase in the electricity bills, an oversized energy grid or the dependence on fossil fuels want to be avoided. Currently there is not research on how to reduce the mismatch in non-residential existing buildings; therefore, this research aims to be the beginning of the exploration of this topic. By matching the energy demand and the energy produced at any point of time within the building boundary, the building will be energy flat. During this research, the renovation of a case study building towards energy flatness was proposed. A three steps strategy was proposed to reduce energy demand, produce renewable energy and integrate a complementary energy system in existing buildings that want to be renovated towards a full energy balance and a renovation proposal of a case study building towards energy flatness. As a result, energy flatness in the renovation of non-residential existing buildings is limited to the extent of their physical and functional parameters which restrains the energy demand, production and distribution. Furthermore, the three steps strategy helped to reduce the energy mismatch and is relevant because the energy mismatch problem is going to be every time more visible in the built environment.

Durability of buildings, the capacity to provide functional usable space for a certain time, as a concept of sustainable architecture forms the starting point and motivation for this project. As part of this main approach, the future function strategy should be introduced. This strategy contains an existing building which will be redesigned in a way that it can serve multiple functions during time and at the same time, with minimal interventions needed to accomplish a function change. The future function strategy is intent to be independent from a location to be widely usable. However, in the end the location will demand the desirable functions. At this project, the choice of the selected functions is determined by the particular case of the marine terrain, where various buildings will need a new function after the marine establishment has left in 2018. Specific for the marine terrain, residential and commercial space are the two functions which the building minimally should be able to accommodate. Designing a building applicable for multiple functions means that it should be able to meet the requirements of these different functions. 

In recent years the world is becoming more aware on the burden of the fossil fuels on the planets ecosystem as well as climate. One of the major reasons is, due to greenhouse gasses in which most of them are caused by carbon release by consumption of fossil fuels. The building sector in almost every country is a major contributor to the consumption of carbon-based fuels either for space conditioning, water heating or for electricity.

Operational energy in buildings must be lowered by bold measures to a point or the building should generate as equal as renewable energy as they consume. However it is not realistic to match the consumed energy if the building does not go through an energy refurbishment to reduce operational energy consumption. Refurbishment of ill performing building gives an advantage on not only reducing the operational energy consumption but also user comfort could be increased in the building.

Refurbishment in the report is integrated with the SUI project, which aims to create zero energy neighborhoods in Ramplaankwartier, Haarlem. The building to be refurbished is selected accordingly f and natural gas usage is aimed to be eliminated while annual energy balance is sustained in the building.

The report starts with a thorough literature research on four different topics. First of the topics is zero energy building definitions globally defined along with most commonly used zero energy building definitions in the Netherlands to highlight the important aspects in defining a zero energy design approach. Second topic is refurbishment strategies for the building envelope regarding different applications and scales are checked to determine viable options.

Third one is the regulations for refurbishment applications, necessary thermal performance values in the refurbishment buildings and the necessary comfort conditions in the buildings. Lastly the final topic is a to check refurbishment examples on row-houses in the Netherlands to highlight possible measures of refurbishments, their application and detailing, impact on residents and consumed energy reduction.

Case study design is based on achieving annual zero energy balance in case study building. Application of refurbishment strategies for the building envelope is divided into two for increasing the varieties of measures later on these measures are given detail on how they could be executed in real life.
The case study measures aim to influence the building envelope composition such as Insulation levels, glazing thermal performance with passive solar gain and the infiltration rate of the building skin. Comfort in primary spaces will be tinkered to achieve necessary user comfort requirements in dwellings, while ventilation system is determined along with comfort provision in space.

After comfort measures are applied, building services will be evaluated to systems will be switched to full electricity to eliminate natural gas usage for space heating and domestic heated water. With the lowered energy consumption, energy generation on site will be utilized to create annual balance for the building to achieve zero energy building criteria’s.

Eventually all the refurbishment and energy generation measures will be applied to neighboring buildings to evaluate the advantages of application of energy generation in combination with the other refurbished buildings rather than individual generation. Effects of individual and group application of energy generation measures will be compared to determine advantages of each approach.

It is possible to use different measures for energy refurbishment to reduce space and heating energy and possibly energy on lighting itself. Usage of higher insulation values, better glazing, lower infiltration is always an option in building refurbishments however it all comes to the application of the theoretical measures accepted through calibration and the execution of these accepted measures is important to deliver accurate conditions in the refurbished buildings.

Different energy generation methods can be applied besides PV panels. Integration of wind energy for electrical building systems can be interesting. Totally integrated building services and on-site generation system with wood pellets and boiler system for individual or larger scale to provide zero energy balance for a group of buildings in a constant period of time. Energy storage for photovoltaic options could be used to eliminate seasonal energy mismatch for operational energy in a large scale for the neighborhood or for individual purposes with batteries.

The starting point of this research is the urgent need for reducing the current energy consumption and CO2 emissions, that is vital to mitigate climate change and the limitation of energy sources. This target can be achieved by creating more sustainable cities, since nowadays, the built environment, of which residential buildings occupy the largest part, consumes huge amounts of energy worldwide, and have a major impact on CO2 emissions.

Based on the vision of City-Zen project of creating fully sustainable and energy (carbon) neutral smart cities, and the European commission’s goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80-95% by 2050, the need for innovative solutions regarding energy efficient residential retrofitting is growing. At the same time, different and complex methods to define sustainable measures, actions and interventions are used. The current research, aims to contribute at the City-Zen project for creating a structured energy urban planning approach, by answering the following question:

Which is the methodology leading to the design of a roadmap that helps to define which energy systems and retrofit measures should be applied where and when, on residential neighbourhoods of Amsterdam Nieuw West until 2050, for achieving their energy transition and CO2 emissions reduction?

The answer to the research question is given by developing an energy urban planning 4-step methodology, and by formulating a catalogue of energy and retrofit measures for the building, neighbourhood and district scale. The four steps are defined as the 1) mapping the present, 2) the definition of the future energy targets, 3) the development of the strategy for selecting the suitable energy systems, and eventually 4) the design of the energy transition roadmap for selected neighbourhoods inside Amsterdam Nieuw West district.

This methodology is required to be followed step by step, applying the first three steps initially on the city scale for the sake of creating a smooth transition of the steps implementation process from city scale to neighbourhood scale. Furthermore, the same steps are applied on neighbourhood scale with minor changes, to get to the final step which is the roadmap design, comprised of 3 sub-steps. First of all, the roadmap suggests the selection of suitable energy systems for 2050 for each one of the selected neighbourhoods. The selections are based on several variables retrieved by literature review. These variables lead to solutions for smaller clusters of dwellings consisting the neighbourhoods, formulated by similar construction characteristics and ownership status. Secondly, description templates are provided, one for each energy system, listing the used energy retrofit measures in steps, and quantifying the changes in heat demand and in CO2 emissions according to each step. Finally, the collected retrofit solutions from the first two sub-steps are used in the final sub-step of defining the interventions on timeline. The changes in heat demand are visualised on 3-dimensional heat maps, showing the results of 5-year periods of retrofit actions, starting from today until reaching the final energy goal in 2050.

The thesis explores the necessity of change for the building stock of Amsterdam driven by the cities climate and densification targets, to develop a design of a retrofit for a building typology that maximizes the areas ability to reach these objectives. The area analysed for the retrofit design was a defined region in Amsterdam Nieuw-west, a current hotbed of developments that aim to regenerate the urban environment. The first demand explored is the need to reduce energy consumption in a building stock primarily made up of post-war buildings to achieve the drastic C02 reductions targets; a necessity which applies
to all existing pre-energy-regulation buildings. Secondly, the demand to densify the city, as the population of Amsterdam continues to grow at a constant rate, fuelling the demand for accommodation and leaving it unmet by supply. The thesis sought to organize and quantify both these needs to identify a building typology that provided the best opportunity for retrofitting for both energysaving and densification, which formulated the following research question:
How can the design of a retrofit measure offer integrated solutions to energy reduction and densification for a suitable residential building typology in the housing stock of Nieuw-West Amsterdam?
The first part of the research question required identifying the suitable building typology, which was done by collecting available data to categorize and quantify the characteristics of the building typologies present in the area, including their energy demand, the ownership status, type of roof, etc. Together with densification strategies and benchmark energy-saving measures for each building typology a suitable typology approach was developed which identified the 1950’s Portiekflat, owned by social housing corporations, as the typology to base the retrofit design on, using top-up as the main densification strategy and replace and wrap principles for the energy aspect of the retrofit. Moreover, the final results for the most suitable typology showed an estimated C02 emission reduction of 19200 tons and an added capacity of 31900m2, which represents a potential C02 emission reduction of 5.8% and 2.5% increase in densification of the whole existing building stock in the area.
The second part focuses on systematically formulating the design of the retrofit measure to understand the central design decisions for choosing different design solutions to form an overall design strategy. Together with the literature
results, the main design aspects of the retrofit measure are identified that serve as elements of the design strategy.
These include energy performance, accessibility, structure, and housing quality, to which individual approaches are developed for the widespread application of the building typology together with the packaged decision paths that lead to them. The resulting combinations of approaches provide the design strategy which integrates the design aspects of the retrofit measure together and provides the basis for the final retrofit design. At this stage, the design explores the technical solutions of the chosen design strategy for a case-study building, including the application of retrofit measures, construction, and the building services. However, the primary relevance and answer to the research question is provided by the design process, manifested by three final products, the retrofit for energy-reduction and topping up the toolbox, the design decision tool and design strategy brief, which provides the different integrations between design aspects given the design decisions. In conclusion, the final research at its core aims to offer a more significant incentive to social housing corporations by aligning Amsterdam’s need to densify with the need to energy-retrofit. In other words, densification can be used as fuel to power and accelerate an almost stagnant energy-retrofit rate which is missing the opportunity to tap into huge energy-saving potentials.