A cost-effective building in the Mediterranean area: Passivhaus design and energy modelling

Abstract

An actual cost-effective approach to high performances building in the Mediterranean area has been still missing: this project was carried out applying the Passivhaus approach to several building solutions using PHPP 9. Integrated design approach made possible a cost-effective building: all the designers involved were forced to work together and PHPP was used as a design tool, starting in the very first phases of the process. The initial concept was unfortunately far from a simple form and there were a lots of thermal bridges. The majority of those were completely solved, however, we decided not to design a thermal-bridge-free detail in some cases, but simply minimize the impact of the losses and verify internal surface temperatures. Triple-pane for windows would have certainly minimize the heating demand, but a low-e double-pane is cheaper and also maximize the solar heat gains. In summer, solar gains would be a real problem in this climatic zone and for this reason shading systems were optimized to offer protection in summer and large gains in winter. The whole design process was simultaneously followed by real time energy calculations with PHPP as a design tool. A compact unit for each apartment provides ventilation, heating, cooling and hot water production. Really low heating and cooling demands made possible to heat and cool only with a post treatment after the recovery on the airflow.