Novel Architectural Strategies to Support an nZEB Mediterranean School

The Educational Department of Catalan Government has designed a new public school located at the center of Catalonia, in the town of Solsona. For this new construction model, they have set a main goal to minimize the energy demands, which are a key factor in reducing carbon dioxide emissions over the whole life of the building. Specifically, the objective is to increase the envelope performance, permitting to reduce, as much as possible, the implementation and use of active heating and cooling systems. The most representative strategy to do so is the use of brick curtain wall, designed in analogy with glass curtain walls as a facade. It allows the use of thermal mass to cool the building passively during the night in summer time and it helps to ensure airtightness in the envelope to minimize air leaks. This facade is complemented with an architectonical element that produces electricity based on photovoltaic panels. Based on the energy simulation results and waiting for the actual building's construction, some relevant conclusions can be made. The role of the architecture has been crucial to ensure an optimal result, especially contributing on the reduction of the overheating hours, resulting to the minimization of the cooling energy demand. The building does not require any installation of mechanical cooling systems, even being located in the Mediterranean climate. In south orientations, the use of doubled glazing seems to be efficient enough to achieve a low energy demand, while it optimizes at the same time the total economic construction cost. Photovoltaic production in schools must be combined with some other actions. The energy exportation to the grid, as well as the use of the energy for the electric vehicle charging, are feasible options for the future.