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Framework of the thematic seminar

The Department of Architecture’s research group at the University of Florence, will launch a thematic seminar including training workshops and a design competition, for architecture students, in order to identify the best architectural energy retrofit solutions for the pilot building of Med-EcoSuRe, Santa Verdiana.

A jury is put in place for the evaluation of the proposals which includes, in addition to the academic staff, the following stakeholders:

• TheTechnical Office of University of Florence;
• The Municipality of Florence;
• The Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the metropolitan city of Florence;
• The provinces of Pistoia and Prato, as a body responsible for the protection of the architectural heritage.

The winning project of the design competition will be developed further and integrated into the technological mix for the efficiency improvement interventions of the Med-EcoSuRe pilot. Besides, thanks to the monitoring system already installed in the pilot building, it will be possible to observe, evaluate and quantify the improvement of indoor environmental quality, in terms of comfort and environmental well-being, as well as the energy savings resulting from the retrofit interventions.

 Educational Objectives

The main objective of the seminar is to give students the opportunity to deal with a "real" energy retrofit projects of existing building, aimed at experimenting with innovative envelope solutions through the evaluation of different technological mixes in architectural integration scenarios.

Through the lessons to be provided, the students will have the opportunity to acquire specific knowledge related to energy and environmental assessment of the existing building in view of a retrofit project, starting from the analysis of the cognitive framework already conducted, as well as to expand the knowledge related to the main strategies and technologies for energy retrofit in the Mediterranean area.

For the workshop / design competition phase, the BIM (Building information modeling) model of the pilot building will be provided, for which the same design experimentation in a BIM environment represents a training objective of the seminar thematic. The design competition formula also represents an enrichment of personal skills of the student, called to deal with the tool of the competition, increasingly focal in life professional.

Instructions for registration

To participate in the thematic seminar, and in the design competition, it is required to send an email to gisella.calcagno@unifi.it no later than the  3rd of June 2021. Students are requested to attach a request for participation,  a short CV and a portfolio illustrating the projects/ works  performed during academic studies or during the participation in competitions of design.

To learn more about the thematic seminar, check the following link:

Thematic seminar programme (in Italian)