• Energy Research

Elderly people usually spend more than 80% of their daily lives in apartments that mostly belong to obsolete buildings with reduced spaces and inadequate indoor environmental quality, which may lead to tiredness and other adverse health symptoms. In an attempt to evaluate indoor environmental quality and identify the main influencing factors of social housing occupied by the elderly in the Mediterranean climate, this research develops a monitoring campaign covering different seasons to characterise temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide concentrations, which are directly associated with the presence of potential air pollutants, in multi-family apartments that only depend on natural ventilation, representing the social housing patterns in Spain. The results contribute a detailed diagnosis of the indoor environmental quality under diverse scenarios, and highlight that elderly occupants frequently suffer from unhealthy carbon dioxide concentrations, above the 900-ppm recommended average value in indoor air guidelines, and from temperature values outside the established comfort range. The discussion shows the advantageous character of ventilation patterns during sleeping periods, with a 2,000-ppm reduction between certain scenarios. Additionally, retrofit opportunities are identified by diagnosing the influence of the building typology, occupation, climate conditions, air infiltration rates, and occupant behaviour, and holistic implications are provided to promote efficient urban regeneration. The conclusions indicate that ventilation habits and future energy renovation strategies should deal with the sick building syndrome by avoiding high airtightness of insulation solutions through moving towards healthier housing stock and should provide policy implications that promote efficient renovation proposals for ageing in place.

Designing buildings to prevent indoor overheating requires the definition of accurate procedures to measure the passive survivability of buildings and support retrofitting. This research proposes innovative diagnostic methods to audit the heat resilience of buildings using long-term monitoring data of temperature and CO2 concentrations. The aim is to identify optimal passive cooling alternatives to retrofit the built environment through a speedy and less-disruptive assessment of the actual building performance. The approach focuses on three steps: (1) characterisation of the overheating situation of the indoor environment by a novel seasonal building overheating index (SBOI) ranging from 0 to 100%; (2) diagnosis of the indoor environment through a heat balance map that divides building performance into four thermal stages related to the positive or negative influence of total heat flux, and the ventilation and infiltration load; (3) and calculation of air change rates associated with ventilation and infiltration per thermal stage using the CO2-based decay method. The diagnostic analytics were developed in Python and tested on three homes. The results demonstrate how the proposed approach can efficiently characterise the overheating situation of buildings, with Home 2 showing the most vulnerable scenario (SBOI>35%). Moreover, the indicators identified the best available passive cooling opportunities concerning the reduction of solar and heat gains for Home 2, and the increase of ventilative cooling for Home 1. The research highlights the role of diagnostic analytics using real monitoring data to audit seasonal building performance beyond standard tests and simulations. The source code can be found at https://github.com/lizanafj/analytics-to-assess-the-heat-resilience-of-buildings.

The current effects of global warming and a growing obsolescence in the built environment are rendering out door areas of existing schools thermally vulnerable and uncomfortable, thereby causing unsuitably hot tem peratures during the academic year. This paper aims to diagnose and reveal the main weaknesses and design shortcomings in outdoor areas of schools. To this end, this research contributes with a normalised characteri sation procedure that provides quantified parameters that not only focuses on design patterns and wooded and shaded spaces (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index), but also on ground materials (Solar Reflectance Index) in order to reduce the impact of solar radiation and adjust future renovation strategies for southern European schools. With the novelty of using remote sensing tools and in situ measurements, an outdoor environmental assessment is made of a representative sample of 100 schools in Andalusia, a Mediterranean region in southern Spain. The results demonstrate that shade percentages are greatly limited, whereby 90% of schools contain between 0 and 10% of wooded area, mostly with a vegetation index in the range of 0–0.3, along with 70% of centres with more than 80% of their ground area covered with hard paving, thereby involving a higher ab sorption of solar energy. Conclusions not only identify weaknesses and design shortcomings and highlight key implications based on the promotion of heat mitigation strategies through bioclimatic renovation actions, but they also provide ranges of recommended values for the established indices, towards achieving more shaded and comfortable areas in schools

This article identifies and compares the passive cooling strategies used and their relationship to optimising sustainability and environmental ergonomics based on 47 case studies. The analysis of the schools has resulted in the identification of 20 passive strategies, eight parameters related to sustainability and six related to environmental ergonomics. The results show that the most used passive strategies are natural ventilation, green roofs, low thermal transmittance windows and solar shading. In contrast, the least used strategies are ventilated façades and evaporative cooling systems. In terms of sustainability, energy efficiency is present in most case studies; in contrast, the circular economy is hardly considered in schools. In terms of environmental ergonomics, thermal comfort is present in most case studies, while acoustic comfort is not assessed. Furthermore, the results show an absence of optimisation of acoustic and visual comfort, climate change adaptation measures and involvement of the educational community. This work provides a detailed understanding of the status quo for researchers, practitioners and policymakers and predicts the dynamic directions of the field. It highlights the need to incorporate passive design protocols explicitly applied to schools to achieve a sustainable and climate-resilient educational building stock within the principles of the circular economy. Eco-efficiency in educational centres: Innovation, Rehabilitation and regeneration" within ERDF US.20-06 Andalusian Government POST-DOC_21_00575 FEDER-US-15547 Spanish Ministry of Universities - European Union University of Granada

The optimization of energy consumption in response to global warming scenarios presents fundamental challenges in the built environment, particularly in Mediterranean climates, where comfort and energy efficiency require priority-based adaptation. This study examines the effectiveness of passive energy retrofit strategies applied to an educational building in Granada, Spain, accommodating both teaching and residential uses. The research uses advanced climatic data based on Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), incorporating precise projections of climate evolution. Using simulations conducted in DesignBuilder, it evaluates three intervention packages for the building envelope—window replacement, facade insulation, and roof insulation—across three temporal scenarios: 2024, 2050, and 2080. The results indicate that passive measures could reduce heating demand by up to 90% in future scenarios, while cooling demand is projected to increase by more than 80% by the end of the century. Additionally, climate projections under the SSP scenarios show up to an 83% increase in energy demand, emphasizing the need for integrated passive and active strategies. The research includes a sensitivity analysis of the interaction between passive strategies and advanced climate scenarios. It offers decision-making models for energy retrofitting and provides replicable key insights to support energy retrofitting policies and climate resilience in the Mediterranean region.

The construction sector plays a crucial role in urban development, offering an op-portunity to foster a cultural shift towards housing stock regeneration. This shift em-phasizes sustainable and resilient urban interventions that extend building lifespans, beginning at the design phase. In this context, Level(s), the European Union's framework for sustainability indicators, is particularly relevant to our research, as it emphasizes circular economy principles and building resilience. It provides a comprehensive set of indicators to guide resilient housing rehabilitation methodologies. Indicator 2.3 supports the design and renovation of obsolete housing, focusing on maximizing resilience to climatic, functional, and socio-economic impacts. Indicator 4.2 assesses the comfort of building occupants regarding indoor thermal conditions throughout the year. Our research aims to develop a resilient housing rehabilitation methodology based on Level(s), which includes (i) assessing the current resilience of a pilot case, (ii) designing new resilient housing configurations, (iii) evaluating thermal comfort duration for older adults; and (iv) analyzing cost amortization. The research findings will contribute to a comprehensive, flexible, and accessible refurbishment model that is adaptable to diverse tenant needs while addressing thermal comfort and cost efficiency. Additionally, analyzing the metabolic energy index in older adults will inform better adaptations and revisions of comfort standards for vulnerable populations.

The parametric design applied to the built environment is critical to creating sustainable and resilient spaces. However, this research field involves a vast and complex amount of disconnected information. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse research trends in applying parametric design to optimise sustainability and environmental ergonomics parameters in built environments. The following specific objectives are identified to meet this objective: (i) a quantitative analysis based on a systematic literature review; (ii) a qualitative review based on a performance analysis and scientific mapping; and (iii) a comparative analysis of case studies applying parametric language for the optimisation of sustainability and environmental ergonomics parameters. The 1045 research records covering 1974 to 2021 illustrate a field in development that evolves from early digital advances to climate change adaptations, the circular economy and resilience. It highlights the importance of applying bioclimatic techniques in the built environment, identifying the most optimised measures and encouraging the creation of guidelines to serve as a protocol for future studies, contributing to the existing body of knowledge by highlighting trends, establishing research themes, outlining research networks and suggesting areas for further studies.