English

During a field campaign 13 classrooms at 4 different high-schools of the Provincia di Torino and 4 typical medium sized university classrooms of the Politecnico di Torino were monitored during winter and spring season to analyse the environmental quality. Measurements along with subjective surveys concerning indoor air quality, thermal, acoustical, and visual aspects were performed during class time.
The comparison of those results from the subjective and the objective approach is presented.

In this paper, different types of local housings have been classified (housing with two facades, housing with two facades in angle or in corner, housing with facade and interior patios, housing with an only facade, embedded housings, in several heights) with the aim of defining the natural ventilation's parameters for them. Then simulations can be made with the selected types along with the validation of results.

Climate change is a long term battle that involves the whole international community. The need for better energy efficiency is obvious. The energy efficiency of the existing building stock must be improved. Thanks to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) a lot of possibilities for the development of new type applications and services are present. Internet will be the main platform for the development.

In this paper EIS (Energy Information System) is first defined, then 4 case studies are presented, one in detail because it is an example of high-end EIS and the other cases are summarized briefly. For all the cases operational practices, costs and benefits are presented.

This paper is a presentation of a concept for a new automated tool that uses the capabilities of Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS). Some parts of the commissioning process can be automatized and can generate benefits over the whole life of a building.

This paper proposes a new hybrid model for automatic diagnostics and optimal supervisory control. Detailed physical parameters represent half of the model and identified parameters describe another half. That hybrid model can be used to predict accurately the cooling and heating energy consumption of buildings in a wide range of operation conditions.

Standard 62.2. is the first and only recognized Indoor Air Quality standard for residential buildings in United States. It provides a variety of ways to improve at minimal cost the indoor air quality. This standard became official on October 2003. It may be applied to both new and existing houses.

In Norway and Sweden's schools, hybrid or natural ventilation with ground-coupled fresh air intake ducts (or culverts) is the popular way of conditioning air.The ground-coupled ducts are normally made of concrete and easily accessible for inspection and cleaning; they can be divided into two parts: the air-intake culvert and the air-distribution culvert. Measurements show that the use of ground-coupled ducts along with a suitable airflow regulation is a guarantee that the supply air is colder than room air.

Capture hoods are the most common measuring method for volumetric air flows from exhaust. The hoods have been continuously improved in order to prevent some deviations from calibrated values. In most cases a satisfactory accuracy can be achieved by this measuring method.

Preliminary experiments with a novel glazing system developed at the Desert Architecture and Urban Planning Unit of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev indicated that it may provide improved visual and thermal performance in buildings with large glazed areas located in sunny regions (hot and cold). In winter, it allows solar space heating but reduces glare, local over-heating and damage to furnishings caused by exposure to direct solar radiation.