Residencia para la Tercera Edad | Lisa GANNA

This project is a residence and center for elderly people in Mequinenza, a village 2.5 hours from the city of Barcelona.
Continental climate with Mediterranean influence, dry and arid in summer and wet in autumn and winter. Average temperatures ranging between 14°C-16°C and oscillation ranging between 35°C in summer to 3°C in winter. The rainfall is low and irregular.

This Master Degree Core Project is an environmental adaptation for an already designed building that didn't include the environmental concepts at the preliminary stages. Our work accepts and respects as far as possible the conceptual, programmatic, functional, occupation, location and orientation decisions that were taken previously. Working on the rest of issues that remain open to the redesign, the energy and social strategies are incorporated in order to optimize the holistic performance of the building: maximum energy efficiency, reduce the CO2 emissions and minimal environmental impact.

LOW DEMAND AND ZERO ENERGY CONSUMPTION TO KEEP AND MAINTAIN THE COMFORT CONDITIONS:
We get the efficient use of energy resources trough optimal combination of passive and active design and home automation. The building it takes full advantage of the natural resources to achieve thermal comfort levels and the energy demand requirement under 15kW/m2Year. It is reduced the dependence on outside contracted and polluting services, up to the maintenance of comfort conditions only with the building facilities that use clean energy.
The first reached step is the traditional Passive Systems and the 'zero energy use' methods. The best thermal insulation with sustainable materials. Automatic glass sun shading protects from radiation in summer and in winter lets to get in. The air is pretreated through canadian pipes and heat exchanger machine to transmit some calories from the extracted air. Depending on weather conditions, the natural ventilation is allowed. The Light wells bring the daylight into the corridor and dark areas, taking advantage of available space designed for installations. So, less electricity is used at the end of the year.
The second reached step is the Active Systems for 'clean energy use'. Underfloor radiant heating, based on geothermal reversible pump to heat/cool the water and supported by the solar panels making the system more efficient. Photovoltaic panels to support the electricity consumption. Optical fiber cables to transport daylight till difficult points like bathrooms and common dark areas on the ground floor, so, again, it isn't needed to use artificial light for many hours a day.
The Home Automation, the last reached step, necessary system to succeed in the consumption optimization, user safety and improvement of the living conditions of the elderly people.

Innovation and transferability - Progress:
It should be an obligation to use the latest software for energetic behavior analysis and consumption estimation. Under this principle we have used the Ecotect and DesignBuilder for shadows analysis, lighting, radiation levels on facades and interior rooms, gains and losses by transmittance, demands and all the consumption balance.
We used the official software Lider to check the Spanish Technical Code requirements for materials, compactness and envelope insulation, getting the good result of 17% for heating consumption and 48.4% for cooling, respect the standard.
We used the official software Calener GT to verify the A category, in case the energetic certify is needed.
Also the Domotics transform the whole building, on one hand, to a small weather station and, on the other, an energy manager. The obtained monitoring about weather and consumption is given to the community, so we can help to the study and future sustainable building construction.

Ethical standards and social equity - People:
All the exercice is a complex ecosystem of elements interfering with each other. There are two possible ecosystematic relations among the external sources, earth and natural sources, central installations in the building, particular room services, and final consumers:
- MONODIRECTIONAL relation, where only one side serves and the other receives (symbolized in the diagram by a node on the receiving side)
- BIDIRECTIONAL relation, where both sides serve the other and both sides receive from the other.
Notice that the home automation management is characterized by bidirectional relation, involved with most of the components in the ecosystem: receiving and ordered from everywhere and giving or acting to everywhere. As opposed the consumers, only receiving from the other elements (no service to another), represent the end of a producing elements chain.
The exercises aim is to finally increase the use of clean energy and reduce the energy use from paid and polluting energy-deficient sources.

Environmental quality and resource efficiency - Planet:
Low material transmittance with low embodied energy and closed life cycle of materials. Small window surfaces to avoid losses. Rainwater retained in roof and tanks to later use in toilet cisterns and watering the garden. Low CO2 emissions, because the use of renewable energy for confort mantainance. For the heat production we use two systems integrated into the conventional boilers. Reversible geothermal pump has a COP of 4.5 and the solar panels installation has 1888kWh/m2year power capacity.

Economic performance and compatibility - Prosperity:
The low building consumption amortizes the investment in less than 5 years. The gains by transmittance are 24% respect a traditional constructed building, and the losses are 22%. 3 times more winter radiation gains and 4 times less in summer. With the intelligent management the appliances and lights gains are lowered to 68%. With the heat exchange in the air renewal, the gains are decreased to 34% and the losses are 36% over the standard.
The final power saving: 83% heating and 51% cooling.

Contextual and aesthetic impact - Proficiency:
This project is restricted to the design decisions taken in origin and respected as far as possible. Aesthetically the building is relaxed, simple and colorful by the sunshades. The aspiration focuses on the real beauty that the project can get by optimal work and happy users. The incorporation of environmental strategies has the role of social education and consciousness from a humble center for elderly that will work for the village, with an ambitious program related to area development.