Sustainable design

The built environment in China is required to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 against the 1980 design standard. A particular challenge is how to maintain acceptable comfort conditions through the hot humid summers and cold desiccating winters of its continental climate regions. Fully air-conditioned sealed envelopes, often fully glazed, are becoming increasingly common in these regions.

The paper concerns the definition of guidelines in the design of a new urban settlement, based on system energy utilization and building environmental impacts and sustainability improvement. The study refers to a 160000 m2 area sited on the outskirts of Carmagnola, a city close to Torino, where the municipality decided to locate about 1260000 m3 of commercial buildings: offices, shopping centres, a trade fair area, a cattle market, a multi-hall cinema, hotels, restaurants, industrial sheds.