Author: Martino Milardi, Mariateresa Mandaglio
Affiliation: Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria
In recent years the issue of climate change has become increasingly developed and widespread, bringing with it a greater awareness of the impacts it causes. This is based on the current emergency highlighted by numerous studies regarding the impacts of construction on climate change. It is well known that the construction sector requires the development of methodologies and tools to limit the impact of climate change on the urban system and mitigate the phenomena arising from the dynamics of the built environment at small and large scales. The study of climate and its changes is, therefore, an emblematic example of the intellectual challenge posed by complex systems today and how technological innovation and experimentation are the ideal tools for grasping their behavior. In particular, the effects of climate change are becoming more evident on buildings that face the greatest risks of damage from pluvial flooding, heat waves as well as frequent episodes of tornadoes and water bombs. It therefore becomes essential to implement adaptation strategies to make cities and buildings more resilient by seizing the opportunity to increase their quality levels. The current theoretical and design research activities concern the study of innovative and dynamic solutions to limit those phenomena that being macro stress the city but especially the buildings in a very intense form. Through an adaptive design approach, the aim is to direct experimentation toward the realization of a dynamic building through the study of the new building-context relationship, that is, not the one resulting from the requirements-performance sequences, but the current ones of phenomenon-response and therefore, according to the fields of innovation concerning the new types of adaptive envelopes. This approach is also to be related to the needs for measurable control, because of the flow exchanges between different environments such as, precisely, that which is determined between the building and its context that interdependently influences the microclimate of the urban space.
