Strategies and Techniques for a “New” Energy Efficiency Based on Envelope Performance

Over the past few years, in relation to climate change, am- environmental issues and the evolution of legislation on energy conservation and resource consumption have led many practitioners in the “environment-energy climate and construction” sector to identify the building envelope as an essential design element for the purpose of reducing energy consumption and limiting the environmental impact of the same throughout its life cycle. In light of these considerations, the interest in architectural design related to issues of intelligent interaction with the environment has led to the conception of the envelope as a dynamic epidermal layer that changes and mutates with the seasons and adapts to different weather conditions. The need for such research starts from the analysis of the evolution of envelope performance from passive to active, investigating the technological processes of innovation that allowed the etymological and performance transition to develop from the concept of closure to that of façade and finally to that of dynamic and intelligent envelope. This work is intended to be part of the varied field of research conducted in the last decade on the energy performance of the envelope, understood as the totality of parts that define an indoor environment (characterized by stable “climatic/environmental” conditions) with respect to an outdoor environment (variable by nature). The envelope system has been the subject, in recent years, of multiple researches that have contributed to its evolution, through the experimentation of new components and materials characterized by high performance. The ever-increasing attention to the problem of reducing energy consumption has generated a moltiplication of the technical and functional elements that make up the envelope, which is transformed from a static closure into an adaptive dynamic stratification.