José Dinis Silvestre

University of Lisbon | UL · Instituto Superior Técnico

Roof plays an important protective role in a building, and claddings are the first element to collaborate in that function. In Portuguese architecture, ceramic roof tiles are the most common claddings in pitched roofs. Concrete roof tiles are a good alternative because of their technical performance and visual similarity to ceramic ones. Both have...

One of the main issues with applying Circular Economy (CE) principles to the construction sector sits at the End-of-Life (EoL) of buildings. How to recover the materials and then how to reintroduce them into the economy are fundamental problems that lack immediate solutions. The status quo in the EoL of buildings has always been demolition followed...

Livro de atas do Congresso ptBIM 2024, onde se promove a discussão técnico-científica em língua Portuguesa da metodologia ‘Building Information Modelling’ (BIM), envolvendo a participação ativa das comunidades profissional e académica das áreas de Arquitetura, Engenharia e Construção. Pretende-se enfatizar os problemas e esforços de implementação B...

Devido à necessidade de minimizar o consumo energético e aumentar o conforto térmico, os sistemas compósitos de isolamento térmico pelo exterior com revestimento, do tipo ETICS, são uma solução cada vez mais frequente na construção e reabilitação de fachadas de edifícios em Portugal. O estudo do seu desempenho e durabilidade contribui não só para a...

Purpose In the last decade, efforts have multiplied to develop and refine a framework for converting human-readable to machine-readable Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). Still, the fast growth of the topic created several issues. These are mostly due to changing policy landscape, numerous parallel initiatives, and the difficulty of providi...

Using aggregates from alternative sources has been considerably encouraged in recent decades. Reducing the consumption of natural aggregates from quarries (which have a substantial economic, visual, and environmental impact) is increasingly a concern. These needs have led to the broader use of more sustainable aggregates, increasing the incorporati...

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) represents a high environmental impact. This is strongly related to the chosen alternatives for the disposal of these waste. In this paper, different strategies are analysed in order to achieve the most eco-friendly path for the treatment of the CDW, in order to promote both the reduction of environmental imp...

In this work, aerogel renders were enhanced with fibres for use in new building walls, emphasising a Mediterranean climate. The main novelty of the study relies on an integrated evaluation of the aerogel-based fibre-enhanced thermal renders from environmental, energy and economic approaches. Therefore, optimum insulation thicknesses, life cycle sav...

Background: This paper addresses the lack of research that compares the toxicity of commonly used construction materials. The toxicity of construction materials has received less attention, despite its importance within the Life Cycle Assessment methodology. All aspects, including toxicity, need to be analysed throughout the life cycle of the mater...

The current climate change context raises the demand for reducing energy and environmental impacts while keeping an economic balance and building users’ comfort. Thermal insulation solutions are potential allies in ensuring the adequacy of existing buildings for challenging sustainability requirements. In this scenario, silica-aerogel-fibre-based t...

In the European Union, when sawn timber has a structural use, it must be classified in strength classes according to the standard EN 14081-1. Strength classes classify each sawn timber element according to its strength, stiffness and density properties. The environmental impacts of sawn timber for structural use have been calculated in several life...

Aerogel-based renders have been the subject of research in the last few years due to their high thermal insulation characteristics and the need for buildings to become more energy-efficient. This study compares the hygrothermal behaviour of an aerogel-based render (reference) with the same base formulation, replacing the powder with three different...

The lack of standard practices and platforms for assessing refurbishment strategies towards Circular Economy (CE) and their impact in global warming constitutes a challenge for the decarbonization of existing building stock. Incorporating data and feedback from designers and practitioners since early design stages is important to feed a multi-crite...

The construction industry is responsible for 40 % of the energy consumption and 36 % of the CO2 emissions, and buildings are responsible for a significant part of energy consumption in Europe.Thus, a growing concern regarding environmental impacts in the construction sector is in place. Reducing these impacts and optimise the design process is a ma...

Este estudo apresenta uma comparação entre sistemas de ETICS (Sistema compósito de Isolamento Térmico pelo exterior) utilizando dois materiais de isolamento diferentes: Aglomerado de Cortiça Expandida (ICB) e Poliestireno Expandido (EPS), durante um perío-do de estudo de 50 anos. O balanço do impacto ambiental é dado por Estudos do ciclo de Vida (A...

The energy performance and thermal comfort of buildings are decisive factors for users. Thus, solutions such as the external thermal insulation systems (ETICS) that can be installed in either new buildings or buildings under thermal retrofitting, reducing the energy consumption while improving thermal comfort, tend to become mainstream. This paper...

Climate adaptivity can be introduced into building envelopes without processors or external power by technologies that operate on an intrinsic mode, enabling the usage of their reactions to environmental stimuli in a positive way. Thirteen of these technologies, i.e. auto-responsive technologies (ARTs), were studied for climatic suitability on opaq...

Este artigo apresenta soluções construtivas de paredes actualmente utilizadas na construção de edifícios e que incluem os materiais de absorção sonora mais utilizados a nível Europeu. Apresenta-se, assim, um total de 78 soluções construtivas de paredes, simples eduplas, estudadas ao nível do seu desempenho acústico, energético, bem como económico,...

Reducing the embodied emissions of materials for new construction and renovation of buildings is a key challenge for climate change mitigation around the world. However, as simply reducing emissions is not sufficient to meet the climate targets, using bio-based materials seems the only feasible choice as it permits carbon storage in buildings. Vari...

This study quantifies and compares the environmental impacts of production systems of biomass and roundwood from different wood species—maritime pine, eucalyptus, and cryptomeria. The results showed that roundwood and biomass from eucalyptus had the highest environmental impacts in most of the environmental categories. In contrast, cryptomeria prod...

Recycled aggregates (RAs) have been playing an important role in replacing natural aggregates (NAs) in concrete production, thereby contributing to a reduction in the extraction of natural resources and the promotion of a circular economy. However, it is important to assess the global impacts of this replacement, in both environmental and economic...

Purpose This research presents the development of a Building Passport for Sustainable Conservation (BPSC) as a questionnaire with a set of 23 core indicators, for a baseline assessment of heritage buildings. The aim of this tool is to identify priorities for future interventions, by recognising the contributions of heritage buildings to sustainabil...

Due to environmental concerns, the search for sustainable construction solutions has been increasing over the years. This global concern is creating a trend in the use of recycled aggregates resulting from construction and demolition wastes from different sources. In addition to their physical and mechanical properties, it is important to analyse t...

Livro de atas do Congresso ptBIM 2022, onde se promove um fórum de discussão técnico-científica em língua Portuguesa nas metodologias ‘Building Information Modelling’ (BIM), envolvendo a participação ativa das comunidades profissional e académica das áreas de Arquitetura e Engenharia. Pretende-se enfatizar os problemas e esforços de implementação n...

The purpose of this research was to develop a computational tool to ease the process of technical building inspections. Thus, a web-based application was created, supported by a well-structured expert inspection system for the building envelope. This application has a distributed architecture, which allows easy implementation using common technolog...

The production of concrete, the most used building material globally, is causing severe environmental damage. This is known to be primarily attributed to the production of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Hence, a vast effort is directed within the concrete industry to find alternatives that would yield a more sustainable concrete product. Concurren...

The presented research highlights different ways of collecting, systematising and using data in the field of building maintenance towards rational decisions. First, the harmonisation of the information collected during building inspections is presented. Such harmonisation was developed within a global inspection system for the building envelope, in...

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a scientific method for evaluating the environmental impact of products. Standards provide a general framework for conducting an LCA study and calculation rules specifically for buildings. The challenge is to design energy-efficient buildings that have a low environmental impact, reasonable costs, and high thermal com...

This paper outlines a methodology for structuring a generic database of environmental impacts on the end-of-life phase of buildings, which can be used at the national level, in accordance with European standards. A number of different options are also considered for managing construction and demolition waste (CDW), as well as for promoting the circ...

In recent years, in Europe, the use of wood-based products for structural solutions has increased, mainly because of the recent technological developments (e.g. development of products for high-rise buildings) and of the environmental benefits of wood-based products (e.g. carbon content of wood products). This study proposes a methodology based on...

The energy performance directive mandates that all new buildings in Europe shall be "nearly zero energy" buildings. New, innovative solutions have arisen both on the demand and on the supply side of the market that aim at much more ambitious energy and environmental performance levels than nearly zero at an affordable price. The basic principle of...

Uncertainty is intrinsic to the inspection and diagnosis process of building elements, even though it is seldom quantified. Uncertainty may derive from observation conditions, adopted methods and communication. The objective of this research is to raise awareness among surveyors about the weight of uncertainty on their activities. Thus, a quantific...

The incorporation of recycled aggregates in concrete not only reduces the extraction of natural resources, but also decreases landfill disposal of construction and demolition waste. Hence, environmental impacts and costs are reduced, promoting the use of recycled aggregates and circular economy. However, the impacts of transport depend on the dista...

In the field of building inspection and diagnosis, uncertainty is common and surveyors are aware of it, although it is not easily measured. This research proposes a model to quantify uncertainty based on the inspection of rendered façades. A Bayesian network is developed, considering three levels of variables: characteristics of the building, façad...

Despite the recognised importance of built heritage for sustainable development, and the multiple tools, recommendations, guidelines, and policies developed in recent years to support decision-making, good sustainable conservation practices often fail to be implemented. Challenges faced by practitioners often relate to external factors, and there i...

O desenvolvimento de um sistema global de inspecção para a envolvente dos edifícios permite a detecção metódica das anomalias existentes. De modo a facilitar o seu uso em trabalho de campo durante as inspecções, foi desenvolvida uma aplicação informática. Esta aplicação foi desenvolvida usando as linguagens de programação Java e JavaScript, suporta...

Uma aplicação informática para a inspecção da envolvente dos edifícios deve focar-se nas funcionalidades oferecidas aos utilizadores, facilitando o seu trabalho. Apresenta-se neste artigo uma aplicação acessível através de qualquer dipositivo com ligação à internet. O utilizador acede ao seu perfil e cria uma nova ficha de inspecção agregando a car...

The in-depth research on efficient processes and alternative constituents for mortars production has a lack on the quantification of their environmental impacts. This work presents a critical review of life cycle assessment (LCA) studies performed in the construction sector, namely related to mortars. The gaps and barriers of these methods and fina...

The selection of the most suitable Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) databases, and corresponding elementary processes, to be used in the modelling of raw materials and related processes, is of paramount importance and decisively conditions LCA results. The NativeLCA methodology is based on the selection and/or adaptation of a coherent LCA dataset to pro...

Today's cities are ever-growing, especially in the Global South, inducing massive construction activity. To satisfy these needs we need feasible and environmentally sustainable construction materials, the use of local solutions and, if possible, to enable synergies between sectors for maximum environmental benefit. In South Africa and beyond, invas...

This research applies the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to measure the gap between designers’ intentions towards heritage conservation and the actual design decisions. It aims at contributing to identify which psychological constructs (attitude, norm, perception of control) are hindering the implementation of sustainable conservation approaches...

This study compares the environmental impacts of various durability scenarios of a case-study wood structure, including variations on wood species, preservative products and treatment methods. The method applied in this study compared the environmental impacts of various durability scenarios exposed to use class 3.1 during 30 years. Durability scen...

This paper presents and discusses the selection of a set of core indicators for the sustainable conservation of built heritage. This core set of indicators was selected by following a two-step methodology: 1) first, a comparative analysis of indicators of two building sustainability assessment (BSA) tools with different approaches was performed by...

Building thermal retrofit plays a key role to limit global warming. However, the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban-scale renovation are not well understood. We propose a new methodology that is based on a bottom-up building stock model and links dynamic Material Flow Analysis with dynamic Life Cycle Assessment to include the temporal dynamics...

The inclusion of Heritage in the global agenda for sustainable development has contributed to a broader discussion around the interconnection between heritage and sustainability. However, the definitions of both concepts lack consensus. In the last decade, hundreds of definitions of sustainability can be identified in the scientific literature. Oft...

Introduction: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a scientific method for evaluating the environmental impact of products. Standards provide a general framework for conducting an LCA study and calculation rules specifically for buildings. A challenge is to design energy-efficient buildings that have a low environmental impact, reasonable costs, and prov...

Building inspection systems must rely on dependable information. Correlation matrices establish expert knowledge-based relationships to swift associations of defects with causes, diagnosis methods, repair techniques, and other defects. A methodology of developing correlation matrices in a global inspection system based on existing element-specific...

Background In the last years, Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) have been integrated to support the pursuit of sustainability in the built environment. However, the integration of environmental information with different specificity and reliability requirements on distinct Levels of Development (LOD) of BIM object...

Action is needed to mitigate climate change. As the building sector is one of the main contributors to energy consumption, renovation of existing buildings is a key strategy. However, for a drastic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction, sensible material solutions are required. Bio-based products seem to be a promising alternative thanks to carb...

Clinker production represents a high percentage of global CO 2 emissions and a significant decrease by 2030 is mandatory. Therefore, there is a permanent search for innovative and sustainable cement-based construction materials (CBM) around the world. The increased development and demand of sustainable construction solutions pushed the incorporatio...

This study reviews the EPDs of structural solid wood (SW) products produced in Europe, using the NativeLCA methodology, and proposes a method to determine the strength classes of these products based on the visual grading procedure given by European standards. The EPDs’ search was performed in the ECO Platform database, and a total of 18 datasets w...

This research addresses the performance gap between intentions towards a sustainable conservation of built heritage and its actual implementation. Socio-psychological models of human behaviour, such as the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), have been studying this dissonance between intention and behaviour, and allow to recognise latent critical fa...

Um sistema global de inspecção de edifícios agrega informação dispersa sobre a degradação em vários elementos construtivos numa ferramenta que normaliza o processo de inspecção. Tal sistema inclui matrizes de correlação entre anomalias e causas, métodos de diagnóstico, e técnicas de reparação, e inter-anomalias. Propõe-se uma metodologia para homog...

This work is within the scope of thermal retrofitting, applied to old buildings’ façades (built between 1700 and 1960) located in Mediterranean climates, such as Portugal. The aim is to increase the sustainability of existing buildings, by reducing their energy consumption needs, for heating and cooling, and the corresponding gaseous emissions, whi...

Building inspection systems are a useful tool for surveyors, standardising the collection of information. This research is framed within the development of a global inspection system based on twelve expert inspection systems for twelve types of building elements used in the envelope of current buildings. Homogenised classification lists replace the...

This research arises in the context of establishing a global inspection system based on previously developed individual expert systems for 12 types of elements used in the envelope of current buildings. It focuses on the rational homogenization of repair techniques in a global classification list. Twelve individual lists of repair techniques were t...

The objective of this paper is to quantify and compare the environmental and economic Life Cycle impacts of two alternative types of composite sandwich panels for the rehabilitation of degraded wooden floors of old buildings: (i) a second-generation composite sandwich panel made of glass-FRP (GFRP) skins (or blades) and a polyurethane (PUR) foam co...

A global inspection, diagnosis and repair system for buildings intends to aggregate disperse information on degradation mechanisms of several building elements and materials in a single tool, standardising the surveyor's inspection process. Such a system includes classification lists, which define the relevant defects, causes, diagnosis methods and...

Building inspection systems are essential to optimise building maintenance. In the context of developing a global building inspection system, the lack of an expeditious tool to identify defects and their urgency of repair was detected. This study intends to propose an atlas of defects applicable to several types of building elements/materials, simp...

Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) provide quantified information based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method, and other relevant information, related to the environmental aspects of products and services. The main advantage of EPDs is the possibility of comparison of the environmental performance of various products. The balanced compar...

The aim of this study is to quantify and compare the environmental impact from cradle-to-gate of different systems for building floor rehabilitation. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method was used for the evaluation of the potential environmental impact of the production of each floor system in eight categories and a monetisation method was used f...

This research results from the development of a global inspection system based on previous studies about individual expert inspection systems for 12 types of elements/materials of the envelopes of current buildings. The research focuses on the rational harmonisation of the causes of defects in a global classification list, established from 12 indiv...

Within building inspection, determining the urgency of repair depends on varying factors (e.g. risk, progression conditions and façade importance). This study analyses the urgency of repair of defects in rendered façades based on the inspection of 52 surfaces where 94 defects were detected, defining a methodology to predict the repair urgency of de...

In the context of developing a global inspection system based on previously developed expert inspection systems for specific building elements/materials, this research highlights the importance of a coherent harmonisation of the diagnosis methods in a global classification list. This global inspection system refers to twelve elements/materials (roo...