Is it possible to obtain good energy results using simple materials in construction, reactivating the centuries-old knowledge of architecture and making our design with an eye on the consequences of our decisions for the energy consumption, since the early design process?
Architectural design and building energy optimization meet halfway in this work, defining together some parts of the architectural proposal: a University Campus on the island of Poveglia, in the middle of the Venice Lagoon.
Temperate spaces is about the redefinition of an abandoned island through the reuse of its ruined settlement and of its completion through new facilities: three different nucleus with different measures of space, different formal approaches and different atmospheres.
Temperate spaces is also about a very specific Net Zero Energy optimization study which takes the cue from an existing proof of reliability (2226 building, Austria) and, through in-depth thermo-physical studies and dynamic energy simulations, is able to design a building with an indoor temperature fluctuating all over the year between 21 and 26 Celsius degrees, without any additional cooling or heating systems.
The architectural proposal comes from an historical approach to the origins of the Venetian urban occupation and combines the existing settlements of Poveglia with the new buildings.
Time is, according to William S. Burroughs, the most important resource of our century. But which is, today, the best suitable unit to measure time? Our lives have speeded up to such short times, to days or maybe to hours, and also architecture passed from living a long long time to now, where things are made to last some decades, and always do not. The unit of the time in architecture has to be century. Time and permanence are the core of the concept of this project.
Today we are assisting to an increasing development of technologies related to the “passive house” concept, which became a central point also for ordinary buildings. This phenomenon, pushed by the construction industry and facilitated by regulatory authorities, is consisting of technologically advanced materials and machines which have to receive all form of certifications, but are careless of durability. Devices has to be maintained, filters changed and materials get “old” after few decades. First the project is made and then all those technologies are placed.
Is it the right direction to follow? Isn’t possible to obtain good energy results using simple materials in construction, reactivating the centuries-old knowledge of architecture and making our design with an eye on the consequences of our decisions for the energy consumption?
The real fact is that there is no real energy saving unless the volumetric spatial qualities of the building and the behavior of users are taken into account.
The Board:
