270 World Conference on Timber Engineering Auckland New Zealand 15 - 19 July 2012 A BUILDING SYSTEM FOR CONNECTED SUSTAINABILITY Sotirios D Kotsopoulos 1 , Carla Farina 1 , Federico Casalegno 1 Andrea Briani 2 , Paolo Simeone 2 , Raffaele Bindinelli 2 , Gaia Pasetto 2 ABSTRACT: An innovative building approach for the envelope of a prototype connected house, as a modular, transportable structure of sustainable components, incorporating X-lam panels and wood, is presented. This demonstration shows that it is possible to use wood, for contemporary prefabricated connected, sustainable buildings. KEYWORDS: Modularity, transportability, connectivity, X-lam, CLT. 1 INTRODUCTION 123 The use of a high thermal capacity building envelope, back to back with programmable materials and intelligent control methods, can have significant contribution in optimizing energy performance. This paper presents an innovative building system for a connected sustainable home, a prototype of which is at the final stage of construction, in Trento, (Trentino, N. Italy). In this prototype, the traditional features of a house are revisited with a view to integrate current advances in wood engineering, in electrically activated materials research, and in AI building control. A high thermal mass envelope made of prefabricated X-lam panels, is combined with a programmable façade, using electrochromic technology. Improving the energy efficiency of residential buildings is critical in addressing the global energy challenge. In 2008, residential buildings consumed 21.54 quadrillion Btu of energy in the U.S., which accounted for 21.52% of total energy usage in the country of that year. Artificial heating and cooling accounted for the largest portion of the residential energy consumption: 7.99 quadrillion Btu or 38.2% of the energy consumption in the residential sector. The connected sustainable home uses technological innovation to supply comfortable living conditions, while minimizing energy consumption. It is a lightweight modular, transportable, residential unit that elegantly blends passive and active energy conservation features, and provides a unique test-bed for exploring the future of sustainable ecosystems at a residential scale. 1 Mobile Experience Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Email: skots@mit.edu, cfarina@mit.edu 2 Cnr-Ivalsa, Trees and Timber Institute-National Research Council of Italy, via Biasi 75 38010 S. Michele all’Adige (Tn), Italy. Email: andreabriani@alice.it, simeone@ivalsa.cnr.it This paper presents the building system of the house, its relationship to the other house systems and its contribution in maximizing the house performance. Traditional Western architecture had met the need for constructing durable shelters by making them massive. Thick and weighty structures are less easily overthrown by weather, or earthquake, and less maimed by fire. They offer better sound and thermal insulation and better heat storage capacity. While these features became customary in three millennia of European architecture, they were found to be conspicuously absent from light- weight modern buildings, which were promoted out of enthusiasm for the "machine age". Today, material engineering research and AI control methods, promise to add new dynamic features to buildings, including the adaptation of their visual presence and performance, based on given conditions. For example, by selecting the thermal transmittance value of windows, it is possible to regulate the amount of heat and light that gets admitted into a building's interior. Combined with efficient thermal conservation components, this apparatus can result to the drastic reduction of energy consumption from artificial cooling and heating. Further, polymer dispersed liquid crystal films (PDLC) and suspended particle displays, can eliminate the need for mechanical blinds and shutters and revolutionize building aesthetics. Buildings equipped with such capacities, optimally managed, will transform the ways of inhabiting built environments. The advantages in exploiting these new technologies at residential scale are discussed next in detail. More specifically, the prototype connected sustainable home (Figure 1) integrates uniquely 5 diverse systems: i) a passive high thermal mass envelope, ii) a programmable façade, iii) a high thermal mass base with heating and cooling capability, iv) a solar-powered cogeneration plant provides electricity, hot water and heated /cooled air and v) a control system, optimizing the performance of all of the above. SESSION 38, ARCHITECTURAL TECHNICAL ISSUES 2