Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
not meeting the air tightness requirement would reveal weak design and faulty
implementation.
Considering the complexity of school retrofits, it makes sense that the different
types of exemplarity that these cases show can be generalised to other types of
large building. In particular, the article documents how a school building can be
renovated and upgraded using the approach of the Passivhaus standard. The four
retrofits described here show the possibilities for achieving highly comfortable
learning arenas with particularly low heat demands below 15 kWh/(m
2
.y)
according to the Passivhaus standard for new buildings. This is also remarkable for
Passivhaus projects, where the requirement for retrofit is heat demand below
25 kWh/(m
2
.y). Considering that the climate in Austria can be particularly hard,
with cold winters and high altitudes, there are good reasons to believe that similar
energy efficiency results could be achieved in many similar locations of central
and northern Europe as well as in milder climates (Sartori and Wachenfeldt
2008
).
These results demonstrate that the Passivhaus approach to the renovation of
large buildings—in particular school buildings—is appropriate in meeting the
expectations of nearly zero energy buildings and thus presents a reliable approach
in achieving radical improvements of energy efficiency for large buildings. This
also indicates a possible methodological generalisation of the protocol used and
the typology of passive house to nearly zero energy buildings.
Energy efficiency is a concern that has become most evident in today's building
management, and also internationally with the ambition of nearly zero energy
buildings. In that context, the improvement of the existing building mass is critical
for achieving energy efficiency and for reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses
at the societal level. As shown here, the retrofit of a building can prompt a radical
energy efficiency upgrade when appropriate approaches are chosen. A move for-
ward would be to implement a measure-and-validation programme to reveal the
post-occupancy numbers that can validate the design and radical improvement in
energy efficiency.
Acknowledgments Special thanks to Günter Lang and Gerald Gaigg for their help in organising
the study tour in Austria and for their knowledgeable guidance. Irene Prieler, Robert Ehrlich and
Oliver Dornstädter, as project partners for the different schools, kindly showed their work during
the visits and generously provided added information in the course of this research project.
Without their valuable support, the data for this research would have remained unknown to me.
Karl Georg Høyer has been a good and close mentor for the scientific methodology and work
progression, and Karin Anton a friendly and competent colleague.
References
Abel E (1994) Low-energy buildings. Energy Build 21(3):169-174
Baker NV (2009) The handbook of sustainable refurbishment: non-domestic buildings. Earthscan
Ltd
Beedel C, Philips R, Hodgson G (2007) Promotion of European Passive House/Final Report WP
3.4 PassivHaus Certifications
