Author
Listed:
- Belén Onecha
(Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), 08028 Barcelona, Spain)
- Eduardo Herrador
(Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), 08028 Barcelona, Spain)
- Rosnery Castillo
(Escola Politècnica Superior d’Edificació de Barcelona (EPSEB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), 08028 Barcelona, Spain)
- Montserrat Bosch
(Escola Politècnica Superior d’Edificació de Barcelona (EPSEB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), 08028 Barcelona, Spain)
Abstract
In the current context of a necessary reduction in environmental impact, the reuse of heritage buildings is key. Although architectural rehabilitation already significantly reduces this impact, thermal comfort facilities present several challenges, both due to the huge visual impact they entail, compromising buildings’ historical values, as well as the environmental impact due to machines and ducts and the operating energy consumption. This paper demonstrates, through the case study of the Rocafort de Queralt Wine Cellar, that it is possible to reduce to nearly zero the thermal comfort facilities of converted heritage buildings for public cultural use. This historic building, considered one of the “Wine Cathedrals” in Spain, was built in 1918 and is characterized by its architectural style typical of Catalan modernism. The method applied was in situ monitoring, combined with dynamic simulation with DesignBuilder v7 software and NECADA software v2024, considering four different scenarios of the building: (1) the current state; (2) after passive improvements; (3) after architectural rehabilitation; and (4) subject to the climatic conditions expected for 2050 according to IPCC AR4 A2. The conclusions are surprising. In Scenario 2, 87% thermal comfort is reached with zero facilities, and 100% thermal comfort is reached when the location of cultural activities within the building is changed according to geographical orientation and the season of the year.
Suggested Citation
Belén Onecha & Eduardo Herrador & Rosnery Castillo & Montserrat Bosch, 2025.
"Reaching Near-Zero Environmental Impact in Heritage Buildings: The Case of the Wine Cellar of Rocafort de Queralt,"
Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-24, January.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:577-:d:1566110
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:2:p:577-:d:1566110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.