Traditional massive building or “passivhaus”? Contradictions between Traditional Architecture and International Standards

The aim of the research is to study the behaviour of buildings with various kinds of outer envelopes for different temperate climates in the Mediterranean regions during the summer, the winter and in the intermediate seasons. In particular that studies are aimed at deducing the performance of the various envelopes in term of both energy consumption and internal comfort. In order to study that problems we carried out various monitoring activities and parametric analysis of 5 different cases-study. The results from these studies enabled us to work out early proposals for: a summer energy certification strictly connected to climatic and usage conditions; as well as guidelines for carrying out a designing activity in temperate climates that considers both the summer and the winter issues. In particular we tested the inadequacy of the completely glazed buildings and we demonstrated that the “passivhauses”, slightly better from the energetic point of view, turn out to be unsuitable from the comfort point of view because in temperate climates the mass plays a fundamental role especially during the middle seasons.