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Methodological considerations for the environmental quality in historic commercial buildings: the case study of San Miguel Market.

Number: pap. POS-10

Author(s) : PIPERNO E.

Summary

In Europe, commercial buildings, such as market halls built from the end of the XIX century, contribute to the historic heritage of many countries. For example, Spain is rich in buildings that demonstrate the innovation of iron technology, initially developed in England (the pavilion of Crystal Palace is one case) and France (where there was a wide debate about the complex of Les Halles). Furthermore, in the XX century new modern architectural tendencies spread all over Europe, and interesting projects of markets which challenged the technology of concrete are nowadays still in use. Although these relatively recent buildings are not commonly considered worthy of conservation, they are often a manifesto of different movements of architectural Modernism such as Italian and Spanish 'Razionalismo'. To keep these kinds of buildings around, along with their original function, conditions such as requirements of safety and comfort, together with the preservation of cultural values, must be verified and treated in a systemic design approach. In this article, however, the theme of comfort is mainly considered, due to the evidence of a general lack of measures for acceptable thermal and humidity levels in market halls, which result in unsatisfactory microclimate and waste of energy resources. In a project of refurbishment, the consideration of sustainable strategies - respectful of the market's identity - for comfort and energy efficiency must begin from the initial phases. Otherwise, the process can cause the covering up of the historical aspects that concern the building, due to the addition, for example, of elements such as volumes or system-bearing structures (as in the Lanuza market, Zaragoza), or the difficulty of later realizations, generally more expensive
and less uniform (see the Concepiòn market in Barcelona). As said before, the search for thermal and humidity comfort plays an important role in the success of commercial structures refurbishment and the energy simulations are useful tools that should be employed from the inner design steps in order to build reliable scenarios of comfort. On the other hand, the historical features of several markets act as precise boundaries for the intervention. Those features can be made explicit through a set of qualitative values, thematically sorted. The methodology, here proposed, fosters the definition of those values, specific for each case of study, and correlates them with the energy simulation step. If the aspects underlined and the strategies proposed are strictly related to the specific building studied, the approach is transferable and a wide collection of case studies could constitute, in the future, the base for good practices of intervention. The municipal market of San Miguel in Madrid has recently been refurbished. The ex-post analysis conducted on it has the aim of evaluating the level of integration between comfort and identity aspects defined in absence of a previously adopted methodology. A methodological frame including historical values and energy simulations will be designed and an example of case study approach will be provided.

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Pages: 14 p.

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Details

  • Original title: Methodological considerations for the environmental quality in historic commercial buildings: the case study of San Miguel Market.
  • Record ID : 30012254
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Environment
  • Source: 49th AiCARR International Conference. Historical and existing buildings: designing the retrofit. An overview from energy performances to indoor air quality.
  • Publication date: 2014/02

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