The current computer technology facilitates the processing of large volumes of information in architectural design teams, in parallel with recent advances in-flight automation in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) along with lower costs, facilitates their use to capture aerial photographs and obtain orthophotographs and 3D models of relief and terrain textures. With these technologies, 3D models can be produced that allow different geometric configurations of the distribution of construction elements on the ground to be analyzed. This article presents the process of implementation in a terrain integrated into the early stages of architectural design. A methodology is proposed that covers the detailed capture of terrain, the relationship with the architectural design environment, and its implementation on the plot. As a novelty, an inverse perspective to the remaining disciplines is presented, from the inside of the object to the outside. The proposed methodology for the use of UAVs integrates terrain capture, generation of the 3D mesh, superimposition of environmental realities and architectural design using building information modeling (BIM) technologies. In addition, it represents the beginning of a line of research on the implementation of the plot and the layout of foundations using UAVs. The results obtained in the study carried out in three different projects comparing traditional technologies with the integration of UAVs + BIM show a clear improvement in the second option. The use of new technologies applied to the execution and control of work not only improves accuracy but also reduces errors and saves time, which undoubtedly indicates significant savings in costs and deviations in the project.

The dry Mediterranean climate (BShs) is the European region with the highest number of hours of sunshine per year. The high annual solar radiation makes sun shading devices necessary to comply with current energy efficiency standards. However, these standards do not sufficiently consider their effect on the indoor lighting comfort of buildings. The objective is to qualitatively and quantitatively determine how movable sun shading devices jointly influence the energy efficiency, thermal comfort and lighting comfort of buildings in BShs climate. The scientific novelty of the work consists of demonstrating the limitations of the sun shading systems commonly used in southeastern Spain and determining the optimal technical solution in this climate to simultaneously improve thermal and lighting comfort. This research comparatively studies the influence of various movable sun shading systems on the daylighting and thermal performance of an educational building. This study conducted on-site measurements, user surveys and computer simulations to study how to improve the thermal and lighting performances of the building. This work demonstrates that interior solar shading provides little improvement in thermal comfort and reduces the cooling demand by only 25%. External movable sun shading improves thermal comfort and reduces the cooling demand by more than 60%, but only adjustable blinds or awnings achieve adequate and homogeneous illuminance values as they diffuse daylight. The paper concludes that energy efficiency standards should be modified to ensure adequate lighting comfort in buildings.

This research explores the energy behaviour of a traditional house on the Mediterranean coast of south-eastern Spain. The objective of the work is to determine the optimal passive strategies for rehabilitating a traditional house, improving its energy savings and comfort, considering the characteristics of the warm semi-arid Mediterranean climate. The main novelty of this article is that it demonstrates that the limits imposed by current regulations, based on globalised climate strategy approaches, undermine the energy efficiency capacity that passive solutions in vernacular architecture already employed. The methodology used consists of a systematised multi-objective study of various energy rehabilitation strategies. Four strategies were studied: raising the thermal insulation of enclosures, improving thermal insulation and solar control glazing with movable shading devices, increasing the size of windows and introducing the use of natural ventilation enhanced by ceiling fans. The results show that simultaneous improvement of these parameters reduces cooling and heating requirements by up to 87%, reducing the energy consumption of air conditioning systems. Indoor temperatures are also maintained within the comfort limits set by regulations for 91% of hours per year without the need for air conditioning systems. This results in a passive energy-efficient and comfortable house almost all year round. This work offers an alternative solution to the comfort standards of current Spanish regulations and demonstrates the need to adapt Fanger’s analytical method for comfort estimation. The research concludes that the comfort criteria of current energy regulations should be modified to better adapt the design criteria to the dry Mediterranean climate.

The restoration of historical buildings often implies a change in the main use of the building so that it can once again become a part of people’s lives. Among the interventions needed to adapt the buildings to their new purpose, improving the energy performance is always a challenge due to their particular construction solutions and the influence that these improvements can have on their protected elements. The regulations in force in European Union (EU) member states leave a gap in how the energy performance evaluations in these types of buildings can be defined, and even exclude them from the process. However, rehabilitation of buildings is always seen as an opportunity, because it allows the building to once again be useful to society and play an important role in people’s lives. At the same time, it can also improve their performance and allow benefits to be gained from their use through a reduction in maintenance costs. In the rehabilitation process, the economic viability of the renovation plays a fundamental role which must be compared, in the case of protected buildings, to its impact on the architecture of the building. Since 2002, the EU has issued directives with the aim that countries should define objective methods to improve the energy performance of buildings and, in recent times, methods that demonstrate the amortization of such improvements. Within the process of implementing the new methodologies adapted to the EPBD, Spain was one of the last EU countries to define a process for the energy assessment of existing buildings, introducing an analysis of the economic viability of the construction improvements suggested in the process. The objective of this research was to describe the decision-making process during the evaluation of the feasibility of introducing construction improvements to the energy performance of two catalogued historic buildings located in a warm climate. The estimated energy consumption was evaluated, the net present value (NPV) and the payback period of the investment calculated, and the results obtained were compared with the real energy consumption. At the end of the process, it can be said that the methodologies adopted in Spain offer results that can lead designers to make wrong decisions that may affect the protected heritage values of these buildings.

The increasing regulatory requirements for energy efficiency in Europe imply a significant increase in insulation and solar control of buildings, especially in hot and semi-arid climates with high annual insolation such as the Spanish Mediterranean southeast. The consequences in architectural design to optimize compliance with the new technical and regulatory requirements of nearly zero-energy buildings are high. This paper analyzes the energy performance of a modern single-family house on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. The objective is to determine which design parameters most influence the energy improvement of this case study in order to establish design strategies that can be generalized to other new construction or energy retrofit projects, taking into account the specific characteristics of the warm and semi-arid Mediterranean climate. The scientific novelty of the work is to demonstrate that the design criteria of most modern single-family houses built or rehabilitated in the Spanish Mediterranean in the last decade comply with the energy efficiency requirements of Directive 2010/31/EU but are not specifically adapted and optimized for the special characteristics of the dry Mediterranean climate. This is the case of the house studied in this paper. The methodology used consisted of a systematized study of the main construction and geometric parameters that most influence the thermal calculation of this project: the thermal insulation thickness, thermal transmittance of the glazing, solar control of the glazing, total solar energy transmittance of the glazing with the movable shading device activated, size of glazing and the size of façade overhangs. The results obtained show that the use of mobile solar protection devices in summer, such as awnings or blinds, reduces the cooling need in summer up to 44% and the overall annual energy need (Cooling + Heating) up to 20%. This implementation is more efficient than increasing the thermal insulation of facades and glazing, reducing the size of windows or increasing overhangs. The most optimal solution is the simultaneous modification of several parameters. This reduces both heating need in winter and cooling need in summer, achieving an overall reduction in an annual need of 48%. This multiple solution improves the annual energy performance of the house much more than any solution consisting of modifying a single individual parameter. The results determine trends, explanations and deductions that can be extrapolated to other projects.

This paper analyses, as a case study, various balcony glazing arrangements in a typical tourist apartment building on the Mediterranean coast of south-eastern Spain, and their effects on the energy performance. The glazing of terraces has been very common in this type of flat over the last 40 years. The objective is to determine qualitatively and quantitatively how the glazing of terraces in such buildings influences their energy efficiency and indoor thermal comfort, considering the specific characteristics of the dry Mediterranean climate (BShs) within a warm semi-arid climate (BSh). The scientific novelty of the work consists of demonstrating that the installation of glazed enclosures on terraces allows the houses to be heated for free in winter, taking advantage of the greenhouse effect, and allows excess heat to be dissipated in summer by using natural ventilation. The results of the work enable the determination of appropriate terrace glazing solutions to improve the energy efficiency and thermal comfort of the dwelling, obtaining a reduction of more than 58% in annual energy demand and annual energy consumption. The work demonstrates the advantages that glazing systems for terraces can have in improving the energy efficiency of houses by using systems like glass curtains.