Sustainable Urban Development and Ecobuilding. Topics
Ecological Urban Planning
Ecobuilding and Energy Efficiency
These themes were also developed in some lectures and visits of the Advanced Training Program on Sustainable Development and Environmental Management.
. EU policy for urban areas - the 2004 Urban Environment Thematic Strategy: identification of four priority themes for action such as sustainable urban management, urban transport, construction and urban design. Italian policy - the 2002 Environmental Action Strategy for Sustainable Development. EU Policy and Italian Policy linked to the Local Agenda 21, the strategic process of encouraging and controlling sustainable development on a local level; city as a key factor for sustainable development and as a parasite ecosystem towards natural and managed ecosystems, because of the unbalanced ratio between resources consumption and regeneration. A better understanding of the key principles of urban sustainability.
Ecological Urban Planning
Lectures and visits
. Analysis of the experience gained on the Italian and European level in the design and implementation of policies for shaping a sustainable energy system; help of tools such as the creation of an energy-environmental planning framework and the set up of a local energy agency with a promotion, direct implementation and monitoring mandate.
. Sustainable architecture: European Union and Italian policies and initiatives, existing and forthcoming, in particular the principles for sustainable architecture used by interregional working groups, the current barriers and problems for a wide diffusion of sustainable building and an overview of some of the present international projects like SHE-Sustainable Housing in Europe, SIEEB-Sino Italian Ecological & Energy Efficient Building.
Ecobuilding and Energy Efficiency
Lectures and visits
. Ecological planning. Sustainable plan: four units of measure (social, economic, biological and spatial); strategy to minimize the impact on natural resources, maximize equity and improve creative project; importance of the building-plant system design in order to reduce energy demand; modern software codes and formidable tools for building design; optimization of the building characteristics and better interaction with the plants. Peculiar problems in designing technological systems for the historical heritage, typically different from the case of new buildings; particular attention paid to energy saving, as for hospital plant systems; the importance of maintenance, its important impact on costs and benefits of infrastructure, in particular on energy efficiency. Energy problems about radiant systems: how they can reduce fossil energy and the recently discovered TABS (Thermally Activated Building Systems). All this in the framework of the Energy Performance Building Directive, which requires several different measures to achieve prudent and rational use of energy sources and to reduce the environmental impact of the energy use for buildings.