Modifying monumental solid brick facades
With monumental buildings, it is often difficult to estimate the building physics of the building envelope. While modifications to for example monumental solid brick facades of residential buildings can yield the desired energy savings. Researchers from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment received €400.000,- to develop the necessary knowledge about the facades.
Many owner-occupiers of monumental houses are willing to invest in optimizing the facade. A lot of energy is often lost because of the historic building envelope. This makes it one of the first building components to be considered for interventions.
However, it turns out to be difficult to properly assess the building physics of these historic building envelopes. As a result, the final building physics behaviour of the building envelope after intervention is also difficult to predict. Various international studies, measurements, trial calculations, models and material studies show that the behaviour of massive, historic brick façades is different from that which can be determined or predicted with current methods for new building constructions.
This research project focuses on the parameters - deviating from new construction - that influence the building physics behaviour of monumental solid brick (residential) facades. When these parameters and their dependencies are better understood, intervention can be more targeted and with less risk for preservation of the cultural-historical values. In order to gain insight into the building's physical behaviour, measurements in practical situations will be combined with material research in the laboratory, computer simulation and verification.
The results of the research will be presented in such a way that they provide insight for (private) monument owners. In this way, the knowledge can be applied by architectural advisors without a specific building physics background. In this way, understanding the existing leads to the right considerations for making interventions in the facade.
This four-year project falls under the umbrella of MonumentenKennis and is subsidised by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in the Heritage and Sustainability Programme of the Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE). The Monument Knowledge programme stands for the preservation, development and transfer of knowledge for the preservation of built heritage by combining expertise and research capacity of the parties involved. Within this framework, researchers from Heritage & Architecture and Environmental & Computational Design from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment collaborate with colleagues from Building Physics at KU Leuven, RCE and TNO.