Abstract

The European Directive 2002/91/EC requires practitioners to provide buildings with design solutions that comply with minimum energy performance requirements, while safeguarding thermal comfort. As alternative sets of building components and systems are countless, the difficult task for practitioners is to find the most appropriate solutions that satisfy both energy efficiency and comfort requirements. Moreover, the Italian decree laws implementing the European directive, 192/2005 and 311/2006 (that updates the former), establish restrictions on energy demands, without going more in depth into the integration of comfort and design as well as certification processes. Good efficiency does not imply good comfort and bad comfort decreases efficiency. The argument that this paper puts forward is that both energy efficiency and comfort should be folded in the whole building design and certification processes. This assumption has to be consolidated in a methodology that guides designers into practice, bridging the gap between codes and practice. The paper demonstrates that sometimes working on a collection of additional technology according to codes is not useful enough for the issue at hand. For instance, in Mediterranean buildings insulation is not constantly good for both efficiency and comfort over seasons. Therefore, a design methodology based on relationships between building components can be pursued as an alternative strategy to the current ones. In conclusion, the paper presents the results of an energy analysis on three excellent buildings and on the alteration of their main design parameters, such as the geometric ones and energy control technology. This serves to understand how both energy performance and comfort change according to different configurations. The purpose of this paper is to find an energy related design methodology in a format that stimulates innovation and reinvention in design. The result is to prepare data for framing a methodology useful for providing practitioners with guidelines as the most appropriate solutions for both energy saving and comfort in Sicily are searched out.