Search results for "Architectural engineering"
showing 10 items of 158 documents
SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE: THE ECO-EFFICIENCY EARTH CONSTRUCTION
2017
The appropriate choice of building materials can contribute decisively to reduce the energy consumption of the building sector. The increasing worries for the environmental impact of construction materials is witnessed by a lot of studies The mentioned worries has brought again the attention towards natural materials. The use of more sustainable construction materials and construction techniques represent a major contribution to the eco-efficiency of the construction industry and thus to a more sustainable development. Within this frame the renewed interest for a natural material such as the rammed earth is included; the interest has been in continuous growth from the 80s till today. The ra…
INVESTIGATION OF THE UNDERGROUND BUILDING HERITAGE AND THE MECHANISM OF WATER FLOWING IN QANĀTS IN PALERMO THROUGH INNOVATIVE SURVEYING TECHNIQUES
2021
Abstract. The valorisation, protection and preservation policies for the underground building heritage are often difficult to implement due to an inadequate knowledge of hypogeal constructions. The complex and widespread underground structures of the vast “Cavo” Heritage (“horizontal wells”, “shelf wells” or “well tunnels”), so called qanāts, hidden underground and built over the centuries in Palermo, representing an evocative testimony to the history of water culture in the ancient city. Through the historical and constructive analyses and the implementation and development of measurement and 3D representation and visualization, first actions have been carried out. The paper will present t…
The Technologies of Architectural Survey: A New Comparison Based on the Tower of Sotillo de la Ribera, Burgos
2017
The paper offers an original research about the analysis and the comparison of different techniques of survey concerning the architectural field – image-based and range-based – throughout the development of the theory of errors in order to evaluate reliability and precision of the results. In particular, this analysis will be focused on the tower of the parochial Church of Santa Águeda, a building located in the small village of Sotillo de la Ribera, within the province of Burgos (Spain). The first part of this work, therefore, has been submitted to the implementation of different methodologies, from the direct survey used as a basis, to the procedure to represent graphically the results (e…
Structural Uses of Stone and Timber in The European Historical Construction
2018
This paper investigates the stone masonry with timber reinforcement through Europe. It is a remarkable practice, either historical and contemporary, consisting of combining different materials to build up a masonry. This technology shows a wide variety of typological, formal, and technological types of buildings across Europe as it is strongly influenced by the nature and availability of local materials, the cultural aspects of the various communities, and the soils geological nature. As a consequence, the same constructive typology is based on different premises and leads to many interesting results. In this paper the various uses of such a mixed stone-timber masonry are shown in relation …
When is Architecture Not Design?
2019
If there’s nothing more to architecture than design, and to its attendant thinking processes than design thinking, then core dimensions of the enterprise from production and use angles have no special character over and above their counterparts in general design. Yet that does not appear to be true by the lights of architects or design specialists or the public at large. So what is it, at the core or periphery of the discipline or its objects, that makes architecture not design? The ways in which architecture and design constitute artistic enterprises, drawing on and promoting aesthetic interest, differ such that architecture is not, or at least not only, a branch of or variation on desi…
Assessment of Energy and Economic Effectiveness of Photovoltaic Systems Operating in a Dense Urban Context
2013
A methodology that permits testing the level of integration of the photovoltaic technology in urban areas is presented. The percentage of coverage of the electricity demand of grid-connected photovoltaic systems installed on the roofs of buildings were investigated in a district of the city of Palermo (Sicily). After classifying roofs according to their shape, orientation and pitch by means of satellite images provided by Google Earth, the ratio of the productivity of the PV systems and the consumption of electricity of the households was analysed. The results of the energy assessment have been screened considering the economic feasibility of grid-connected photovoltaic systems: the energy …
Comparing indoor performances of a building equipped with four different roof configurations in 65 Italian sites
2020
Abstract—Despite the increasing concern of institutions and technical organizations toward the improvement of the building energy (and, therefore, environmental) efficiency, the main goal of technicians should be also devoted toward the levels of internal thermal comfort that buildings are able to realize. As that, the relationships between energy performances and comfort conditions provided by the enclosures are of paramount importance in guiding designers in their work. In this paper, the influence of diverse roof construction typologies on energy and indoor performance of buildings has been investigated, in different Italian sites during heating and cooling seasons. In addition, it must …
Preservation of the artistic heritage within the seat of the Chancellorship of the University of Palermo
2006
The correct maintenance of artworks of historical and artistic value requires a wide and detailed analysis of all the information relevant for preserving them, such as identification of the main deterioration factors, knowledge of the climatic history of the object, set-up of measuring methods and statistics of the guide parameters, and definition of a set of recommended environmental aspects to be controlled within a stable climate condition linked to the particular kind of object or its surface. In Italy, the basic laws UNI 10829 and UNI 10969 impose a reference methodology for the in-field measurement and data analysis. This paper reports the first results of a measuring campaign, carrie…
Experiments on the Virtual City: Three-Dimensional Reconfigurations of Missing, Never Realized or Destroyed Urban Areas
2011
We present two works on the "Virtual City" held at Palermo. They are about the three-dimensional reconfiguration of urban places that show evidence of "invisible" architecture, this is because in one case there were ancient monuments now destroyed, or in another case projects designed for the urban void and never made. The aim is to involve new forms of communication for the development of cultural tourism.
Green Roofs as Effective Tools for Improving the Indoor Comfort Levels of Buildings—An Application to a Case Study in Sicily
2020
In the line of pursuing better energy efficiency in human activities that would result in a more sustainable utilization of resources, the building sector plays a relevant role, being responsible for almost 40% of both energy consumption and the release of pollutant substances in the atmosphere. For this purpose, techniques aimed at improving the energy performances of buildings&rsquo