As a society, we face a paradox. Temperatures are becoming more extreme and so-called thermal comfort is more difficult to regulate without the help of heat and cold machines. However, the increase in planetary temperatures is due, among other factors, to the increasingly extensive use of these facilities, which require high energy consumption and generate harmful emissions into the environment.
The solution to this incongruity is the so-called bioclimatic architecture, which Luca Volpi, an architect at Societat Orgànica specialized in sustainable buildings and energy efficiency, defines as “those buildings designed to make the most of local resources to generate indoor thermal well-being.” By local resources we understand, on the one hand, the local climate, and on the other, the use of native materials, adapted to the area and which offer the best results - and the most sustainable - traditionally used in vernacular architecture. .
Can we do without devices that consume energy to be thermally well in winter and summer in our buildings? “The answer is yes,” she says. “But I would like to introduce another term beyond the bioclimatic design of a home, which is its management by the user who uses it,” she continues.
This management refers to a series of small gestures that undoubtedly contribute to keeping the cold in summer and the heat in winter. The most significant and probably known throughout the world are, in summer, ventilating first and last thing in the day and lowering the blinds and closing the windows during the hours when the sun and heat are most intense to maintain pleasant climatic comfort. . The use of fans is also recommended to help air circulate, since their consumption is much lower.
And the issue of building insulation, a measure enacted among the most efficient and the object, for example, of the rehabilitations promoted by the Next Generation Funds? “In climates like Barcelona, if we place insulation on the walls of between six and eight centimeters, we are already complying with the regulations and will obtain positive results. But if we put more than ten centimeters we will be investing a lot to obtain a series of advantages that are not so tangible,” explains architect Valentina Li Puma, founding partner of Arquitectura y Entorno.
Excessively sealing the walls in Mediterranean climates can have the opposite effect, since it makes it difficult for the heat accumulated during the day to be released to the outside once the sun goes down. “A wall works like a battery. It is charged during the day and discharged at night. If it cannot produce this function, heat accumulates daily. The same thing happens with humidity and steam, which can condense on the walls and can cause fungi and other phenomena that are harmful to health,” he says.
The architect recommends opting for natural and breathable materials such as cotton, linen, coconut fiber or hemp in curtains, upholstery and fabrics. In addition to preventing air circulation, those of synthetic origin generate static electricity, while the former are inert and facilitate its circulation.
Li Puma explains that a very common mistake used as a sun protection measure is placing dark curtains inside. “They create the opposite effect, since once the direct radiation has entered inside, it changes frequency; It becomes infrared and generates a greenhouse effect between the curtain and the window glass,” he points out.
Volpi introduces a reflection on the concept of energy efficiency, an increasingly present term, which seems to have become a dogma: “We have known, for many years, that energy efficiency leads to consuming more resources, not less. It is the so-called 'rebound effect' or 'Jevons paradox' and the most paradigmatic case is LED light bulbs. These consume ten times less than halogen ones, okay, but in addition to containing more metals than the latter, they encourage, under the pretext of their savings, that we always leave them on. “Efficiency for efficiency’s sake gets us nowhere,” he says.
In addition to managing our homes with bioclimatic strategies, Volpi recommends, both in new construction and in a renovation, going to a specialist who knows how to thermodynamically simulate the space before starting construction or intervention.
“All the elements of the building or home are defined, such as its physical composition, the climate of the environment, how users will use the spaces, budgetary adjustment, etc. From this information, elements, solar protection or natural ventilation can be modified to obtain a design that allows a climate system to be dispensed with or used as little as possible,” he details.
The architect explains that Societat Orgànica has participated in many projects, including public housing, that do not have any type of heating or cooling system, and that they are working very well. He cites as an example of an intervention carried out with the architects DATAAE for IMPSOL, the public housing promoter of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, on Carolina Catasús street, 7 in Sant Just Desvern.
