Investigation of design criteria for energy efficient office buildings in Italy

The building sector is forced to an important change imposed by the European Directive 2010/31/EU that addresses issues such as Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB). The Directive imposes to the Member States that all new constructions have to be NZEB since the 31st December 2020, anticipating the date at the 31st December 2018 for all buildings owned and occupied by public authorities. Hence, it seems necessary a research that studies design criteria for energy efficient office buildings since they will be the first typology to face with such regulation. The thesis identifies some design principles evaluating their influence on the energy demand of office buildings located in Italy. Specifically, the research looks at both the application of passive design strategies and the integration with renewable sources, maintaining good level of indoor comfort conditions. The aim is supporting designers during the pre-design phase through both qualitative and quantitative recommendations. This is made because, at the early stage of the design process, many choices have generally been based on both experience and intuition of the designer rather than energy performance indicators. The thesis follows these steps: - literature review to know definitions, architectural principles, energy design strategies, recurring technologies, regulations, etc.; - qualitative analysis of office buildings realized in Europe (some of them are located in Italy) as case studies, in order to make on evidence design criteria and strategies specific for the typology; - quantitative analysis to investigate the influence that some design choices have on the energy performance of the building. For five cities representative of the Italian climate, the research firstly analyzes the energy performance of three base cases; secondly, investigates some design parameters; thirdly, proposes some examples of energy efficient offices obtained applying the results of the parametric studies to one of the base cases. - conclusions where results are summarized. The thesis defines qualitative and quantitative recommendations for the design of energy efficient office buildings located in Italy and shows how with this accurate design, pursued during the pre-design phase, it is possible to reach the low-energy goal.