Abstract
Liner tray, steel gauge, or cassette construction is a lightweight steel frame system (LSF) especially suited for low-rise buildings, which offers celerity and quality. It is a viable option for constructing affordable residential Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) in those areas where ‘craft-based’ house-building industries have proven unsustainable, as occurs in some countries of Southern Europe. From an environmental point of view, the continuous disposition of liner trays allows excellent adaptability to the microclimatic context and the particularities of the local site as well as the thermal homogeneity of the envelope. However, its lightweight can entail large thermal variations and overheating problems, especially in constructions with high thermal resistance. A careful design adapted to each location can help avoid these problems, but accurate energy calculations are not always feasible in detached house design. This paper studies the Proyectopía system's passive strategies, an innovative liner tray system made of extruded aluminum for sustainable, low-cost detached houses in Spain. Environmental design guidelines can be a powerful and suitable tool for addressing various house projects that share the same construction system. Several parameters with a substantial impact on the house energy demand, such as insulation thickness, window glazing type, window-to-wall ratio, solar shading, and thermal inertia, are analyzed in a house prototype. Designers can use these parametric study results to perform environmental assessments from the early stages of the design process.
Highlights
Modular architecture is an exciting alternative to on-site construction, offering higher quality standards, reduced construction time, control of the costs, and potential for lower energy consumption, as explained in the scientific literature of recent years [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
Recent updates of national energy regulations seek to improve commitment to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in Spain (Basic Document outlining Energy Saving in the Technical Building Code, CTE-DBHE-2019) by compelling new constructions to reach Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) standards in 2020, a term to be fully defined by the Member States, with the Passivhaus standard as a reference [14]
The results are of use as a design guideline for lightweight steel frame system (LSF) NZEB detached houses in Spain, and they may serve as a basis for comparison with on-site monitoring of the Proyectopía built prototype
Summary
Modular architecture is an exciting alternative to on-site construction, offering higher quality standards, reduced construction time, control of the costs, and potential for lower energy consumption, as explained in the scientific literature of recent years [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] It is a booming field, with more presence in developed countries (Sweden 90%, Netherlands 50% and Japan 12–16%), being determinant causes the size of the housing industry, the consumer preference for new housing over renovations, and the public support [9]. Sustainability refers to environmental aspects and to economic and social aspects, with the second category being the most determinant regarding the choice of construction method, especially indicators “Design and construction time” and “Design and construction costs” [17]
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