How to improve the energy performance of your project with Vasari by Marta Braconcini and Matteo Persanti

Our first approach with that program was simply to model our project, set up the mass floors, combine the mass zones and then launch the energy or solar analysis. When our professor put us on a energy performance competition it was obvious that we need to find new ways to improve our building capabilities. An important thing to do when you're getting started with a new project in Vasari it's to set the Energy Settings in the right way, so when you click it will compare a window with the default settings, then you click on the Conceptual Construction botton.. this is what we set to improve our project:

- mass exterior wall: lightweight construction- high insulation  (that's what we need)

- mass interior wall: lightweight construction-no insulation (our project is very cheap so we don't need to put insulation inside the houses)

- mass exterior wall underground: high mass construction- typical mild climate insulation

- mass roof: high insulation- dark roof (we have covered our roofs with thin solar film sheets)

- mass floor: lightweight construction - typical insulation

- mass glazing: double pane clear - lowE hot climate, low SHGC

Clicking OK it is possible to se how the view in the setting show mass surfaces switches from orange to green our walls.. it's just the different kind of wall who has a better behavior in thermic instances. We redefined the percentage of glazing (in the energy settings) from 45% to 35% 'cause it was too extended, so we need even to change our project but..... that's what requires improving the energy performance of your building!

That simple changes permitted our project to increase it's energy performance from a total of 571,4 KWh a year to a total of 459 KWh a year, and an improvement of the KWh at square meter from 236 to 213.... all that without changing the orientation or the volume of our project!