PhD thesis

Abstract:

Redefining the scope of architecture and urban planning in context of sustainable development during the last two decades, the building fond is now considered to be a man-made resource, that we leave as a legacy for the future generations. When buildings are seen as a resource, numerous questions rise regarding their rational exploitation: how can we use them, how can we adjust them to our contemporary needs, how to extend their lifespan. Housing has a major share in the building fund, thus adaptation of this sector holds huge potential for upgrading not just the dwelling units themselves, but our built environment in general. Energy performance is the key issue in ecological evaluation of buildings, so this work was focused on improving the energy efbiciency of multifamily housing. After the extensive analyses of Serbian building fond, the portion of housing stock constructed between 1960 and 1990 was singled-out as the most productive period, with unprecedented variety in architectural types and construction technologies that has practically vanished from building practice during the last decades. In order to provide for wider scope of individual improvement measures than the one presented in National Typology of Residential Buildings in Serbia, a critical analysis of key thermal envelope elements was carried out. The cases when generic, model improvements can be applied were identibied, while for certain case-specibic options, alternative solutions were proposed and analysed. The dissertation research has produced a method-procedure that enables decision-making process that leads to the most effective set of measures for improving energy performance of a building. The proposed procedure was simulated on five various apartment buildings in order to test the method as well as to explore various outcomes.