Innovative skins and domotic systems: the technological design for residential buildings’ energetic efficiency

Lucia Melchiorre

Antonella Della Cioppa

ABSTRACT: Comfort and efficiency needs require the realisation of “smart architectures” with a supervised energetic and environmental operations, consisting of dynamic skins: complex systems made up of blocks and filters able to adjust heat, solar radiation, air and vapour flows and also to convert the radiations in energy (heat energy and electricity). The innovation works above all through the operations of management and control of the skins. Domotic systems, consisting of groups of sensors and computerized control unit, are able to adjust the orientation, the opening or the position of the elements of the façade to optimize the energetic efficiency of the building. Moreover, the technological integration and installation aims making building as a “living being”, able to self-regulate to grant the comfort of the users, using exclusively renewable energy.

Some kinds of innovative building skin façades are: parametrical and photovoltaic façades, photocatalytic covers, self-cleaning systems treatments and façades with micro-algae. This contribute shows the results of a research about the technological systems of façades adjusted by domotic systems, able to comply with more and more ambitious performing targets and more and more restrictive normative requirements, and it suggests a classification that joins traditional functions and innovative performances.

In particular, it is a technological project of a multilevel building placed in the mediterranean area, where the domotic system adjusts the air flows according to the external environmental conditions, reducing energetic consumptions and in the meanwhile contributing to satisfy the indoor comfort performances.

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