Bioclimatic architecture seeks to design (or renovate) buildings so that they integrate with the natural environment and thus take advantage of local conditions with the purpose of optimizing thermal comfort and limiting energy consumption. This smart way of building uses the resources at your disposal, such as location, sun, wind and vegetation to create healthy and efficient spaces. Passive bioclimatic architecture can reduce energy consumption by up to 90%. Jade Serra, partner at Slow Studio, clarifies what factors are taken into account before designing a home of this type: «Sustainability marks the reduction of energy demand , carbon and environmental impact, and the choice of materials. The tools are provided by nature, indicates the architect: “Solar orientation, air renewal or cross ventilation allow us to minimize consumption, because we benefit from the energy that natural environments provide us.” “The materials used must be of local origin, healthy, do not incorporate toxins and are focused on the bioclimatic strategy,” he adds.MillenarioThese components have been around for millions of years in the history of humanity, he states: “Earth, lime, wood, ceramic or baked brick, vegetable fibers, cork, wool, wood fiber… Innovation aims to recover traditional techniques and improve them. “The most innovative thing we are focusing on in the study,” he explains, “are compacted earth blocks, manufactured in the same factory where industrialized concrete blocks are made, but instead of using cement as a binder, it is made with lime.” Related News standard Yes The journey of renewable reinvention builds bridges to leave no one behind María José Pérez-Barco The Just Transition Agreements begin to activate activity alternatives for fifteen territories affected by the dismantling of mining, thermal and nuclear infrastructuresThis technique is being developed in Germany in large format. The first facility that makes earth blocks is located in Lérida. In Mallorca, this method has been used for public housing (four- and five-story buildings), they even make blocks with the ruins of buildings that have had to be demolished. In recent years, the Slow Studio has been favoring a housing community model in a self-promotion format: «Currently, we have two projects underway, in Girona and in Vallés. I think it is going to be a paradigm shift because environmental sustainability is combined with social and economic sustainability. Quality of life is the objective of architects specialized in bioclimatism, says Serra: «The comfort and well-being that drives construction “Sustainability is closely linked to health, because when thermal comfort is achieved through natural means, if I avoid activating air conditioning or heating, we achieve environmental health naturally.” “It is worth highlighting the emotional or mental health that is also generated,” he points out. Future savings But are bioclimatic homes more expensive than ‘normal’ ones? Gorka Álvarez, partner at Ruiz-Larrea Arquitectura and director of Design, estimates that a passive design ends up causing “savings in production and consumption of facilities and mechanical means.” As a specialist in bioclimatic building design, he considers that “the Technical Building Code in Spain and another series of regulations are already requiring the construction of a building with low energy demand.” The path to achieving the standards has two paths, according to Álvarez: ” Through high-cost materials, such as windows or facade solutions with greater insulation, or it can be done based on a previous design in which orientations, protections, elements that favor the control conditions of the building itself are optimized. “The product star of bioclimatic architecture, for the partner of Ruiz-Larrea Arquitectura, is wood. «The impact at a transversal level – he comments – is infinitely lower than concrete or steel. As for the rest of the materials used in the building, we tend, especially in thermal insulation, to avoid those that come from petroleum derivatives, and we want them to be natural and the traceability of their origin to be very clear.” A Slow home Studio in Sierra Ordal, in Alto Penedés, which manages to maintain a comfortable temperature without active heating and air conditioning systems. Of the studio’s projects, Carabanchel 34 stands out, homes of the Municipal Housing Company (EMV), for rent with official protection. They were the first passivhaus collective homes in Madrid. “Building houses for disadvantaged people, with minimal heating and cooling costs, without energy expenditure to air-condition them, seems very important to us,” he says. “Carabanchel 34 is an example of a public housing building, for rent, well built in a process of careful design and very precise material application and execution control,” he adds. About the latest research on the bioclimatic homes, Álvarez leans towards envelopes, “façades that are capable of transforming their configuration to modify their performance; That is, the envelope of the building stops being a static element and becomes a dynamic one. “That your façade, when it really needs to be very isolated, is, but at the same time, when seasonal change requires changes, that it has the capacity to adapt and mutate,” he says. The concept of biomimicry is inspired by the possibilities of nature to solve challenges that we humans face. «My research focuses on how strategies and mechanisms of living beings can be applied in the natural environment, especially adaptations to their specific habitat. From this knowledge, buildings and cities can be designed that more closely resemble the way nature works; urban centers would develop as healthy ecosystems for people and the planet.” This is explained by Marlén López, doctor of architecture and co-founder of the Biomimetic Laboratory (located in Ladines, in the Redes natural park, in Asturias), where she deals with the education and scientific dissemination. López’s doctoral thesis at the University of Oviedo describes how the leaves of trees can adapt efficiently to the climatic conditions of each place: «We can design the envelopes of buildings as similar as possible to how those leaves work. A project focused on a cushioned growth plant that has the ability to manage drops in temperature and creates an indoor microclimate was prototyped and validated. The Giconsime group, from the University of Oviedo, continues investigating it. “This can be transferred to a system for facades and passively take advantage of the sunlight conditions to create heat bubbles and that heat is transferred during the night,” he argues. Another example. The sponge city constitutes a possible solution for the devastating effects of a DANA such as the one that has devastated different towns in the Valencian Community and Castilla la Mancha. It consists of implementing porous surfaces to absorb water, in the manner of flood-prone parks or green facades. In this way, floods and droughts could be prevented by storing water and acting as a purifier. In China, cities such as Xiamen, Baicheng or Jiang have already adapted it. Shanghai has adapted part of its infrastructure to the model. In Europe, Berlin is also exploring in this direction. «This design is ideal for cities that are at very low elevations, almost at sea level, and that suffer the negative impact of intense rains, because they receive an accumulation of water at certain times. The proposal is based on creating wetland-type areas, without so much asphalt, without so much hard soil, without buildings,” says the expert. In addition, the Laboratory has a line of research into organic biomaterials to use the product in interior design. Manuel Persa is in charge of this work.
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