Vittorino Belpoliti

• Architect, PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Sharjah

The study described here analyzed natural ventilation techniques, operated in a real building in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to assist passive cooling. The assessment has been conducted by comparing digital simulation results and field measurements. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to retrospectively understand and quantify the monit...

This paper presents the energy performance simulation and monitoring of a solar powered house designed, built, and operated under Dubai's hot and humid climate, stressing the balance between the electricity consumption and the production of the roof PV system. The study shows a summary of the design process aimed at optimizing the house's energy pe...

The United Arab Emirates Vision 2071 expects the country to become one of the best in the world in several sectors, including education and infrastructure. Highlighting today’s global tendency towards a knowledge-based economy, it drives the need to bridge the academic gap in UAE’s educational system to enhance the nation’s innovation. This gap is...

In the last half-century, the world has witnessed a fast-paced technological development where cities have been changing tremendously in terms of infrastructure, public health, and quality of life. Looking into the Middle East and specifically in the Gulf states, the rapid urban growth started in the late 20 th century has made the status of herita...

The United Arab Emirates’ economy is transitioning to a knowledge-based economy by promoting innovation and research development. Supporting the UAE’s Vision at becoming among the best and most innovative nation in the world by 2071, the Government has developed frameworks that recognize the importance of innovation to an economy’s growth and devel...

Buildings' energy efficiency must be tackled at the early design stage. In the UAE, the lack of attention for local typologies and techniques, makes buildings heavily depending on air conditioning. Especially high-rise constructions that, far from traditional typologies, are often designed with the sole purpose of being iconic. Although Dubai has f...

The paper presents a summary of the KNOW HOWse project, a prototype house’s designed and built to participate to the international competition Solar Decathlon Middle East 2018 in Dubai. The study compares the building simulated energy performance with the real monitored consumptions, with the objective of assessing the energy calculation assumption...

The KNOW HOWse project, coordinated by the University of Sharjah in cooperation with the Research Centre Architettura>Energia of the University of Ferrara – Italy, participated to the Solar Decathlon Middle East 2018 in Dubai, an international competition where academic teams design, build, and operate energy-efficient solar-powered houses. The par...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) federal government has recently endorsed new regulations aimed at ensuring a sustainable development path for the country. More specifically, the UAE Vision 2021 national agenda focuses on improving the quality of air, preserving energy resources, and minimizing the energy consumption caused by the built environment b...

Due to poor building conditions, most of UAE’s existing public schools do not meet the latest educational governmental requirements. For this reason, the government elaborated a new generation of public schools that soon will replace half the existing buildings. While some schools are already fully abandoned because of typological unsuitability, ma...

Sustainability and energy efficiency are among the priorities of UAE Government to limit energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission. The UAE construction sector is rapidly implementing green-building standards in the market by introducing energy efficient materials and techniques. However, the subsidized cost of electricity causes unfeasible pa...

The UAE has made significant strides since 2006 to drive the green building agenda. While the UAE continues its advancements in regulating and promoting sustainable design and construction practices, it is crucial to exert effort on public governmental building in particular. The aim of this comparative analysis of new construction versus retrofitt...

As part of its 2021 Vision, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planning to enhance its school sector with the aim of reforming the educational system, but also of improving its buildings quality and energy performance. To achieve this goal, the UAE Government announced, in October 2016, the need for new public-school facilities, and launched an open...

Cool roof is the technology that delivers higher solar reflectance and higher thermal emittance than standard roofing products. In addition, It is one of the technologies that is developing in the resent years, and its fastest developing applications is in the built environment with various benefits, such as reducing the UHI effect and minimizing t...

Cool roof is the technique that delivers higher solar reflectance and higher thermal emittance than standard roofing products. Its fastest developing applications in the built environment comes with various benefits, such as reducing the urban heat island effect by decreasing surface temperatures, which reduces the flow of heat into the atmosphere,...

Retrofit strategies at urban scale may play a strategic role in promoting the regeneration of existing towns and revitalizing the local building market, particularly in case of historical urban settlements where economic/societal changes have been amplified by natural calamities, accelerating depopulationand depletion of the local productive networ...

Due to the rapid growth of the construction industry in the UAE in the last few decades, according to Tadweer (Abu Dhabi Center of Waste Management) around 44.6% of the total solid waste consists of Construction and Demolishing waste (C&D). Through a literature review of waste management strategies and interviews with environmental specialists from...

Sustainability and energy efficiency are among the priorities of UAE Government to limit energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission. The UAE trend confirms that the residential sector plays a relevant role in the overall energy consumption; therefore building energy and environmental improvement need to be implemented. However, it is verified t...

The persisting economic crisis and the necessity for more sustainable construction processes imply the need for innovative strategies to reuse the existing building stock. Retrofit and recycling plans are already active for whole city districts, adopting the urban densification strategy to reduce the consumption of resources, promoting the function...

Today Italy is facing relevant challenges related, on one side, to revamping the economy and improving the competitiveness, on the other, to the alignment to European policies concerning greenhouse gas reduction. In this timeframe, a retrofit vision operating onto individual buildings does not represent an efficient and systemic strategy. Given the...

Three correlated researches try to give operative answers to the problem of defining procedures and tools for a correct survey and retrofit actions for the existing building stock. Starting from a first research on social housing energy retrofit, a fast audit protocol and different intervention scenarios have been defined, with the ultimate purpose...

The recovery and retrofit of Regions damaged by earthquake can be an opportunity to encourage the revitalization, valorisation and partial repurposing of smaller towns. This paper presents the results of two studies that Architettura>Energia Research Centre of the Department of Architecture of Ferrara accomplished for Public Administrations as inst...

Photovoltaic systems are now widely used technologies that are utilised to enhance a building's energy performance. Among the photovoltaic cell types, semitransparent devices have recently found a broader field of application thanks to legislative actions that promote building integrated photovoltaic systems (BIPV).This paper presents a review of s...

Enhancing buildings’ energy performance is one of the key actions that should be pursued to achieve the Kyoto target. In Italy, energy requirements of the residential sector, in fact, represent about forty percent of the overall energy balance. The majority of this consumption could be avoided by simply providing strict building-design guidelines a...

L’articolo presenta i risultati di un’analisi LCA (Life Assesment Cycle) ottenuti simulando l’operare di un sistema fotovoltaico integrato (BIPV) installato in un sito con modesto irraggiamento solare. Dopo aver costruito un esteso database dei sistemi fotovoltaici disponibili al 2005, di cui si conoscevano o potevano essere stimati anche i dati su...