Semester 5 Renovation & Quantifying Thermal Loss

Photo of the north facade of the building

For my first post I thought it would be interesting to do a short history of the once office/ administrative building I used as the basis for my semester 5 project at VIA University. Within this building you can find multi-era building strategies with the oldest section seen on the left of the image above (half-timbered). The half-timbered building was built in the mid 1850's while the extension was added in the 1900's using a full brick construction for the walls. The building also features a partial basement, however the extension would simply use a ground slab instead. As part of the registration of the building, I both went on site to get pictures. With this we can better understand the condition of the building and the work that needs to be done. As part of the registration I would also get the unique opportunity to take a 3D scan of the building, then using that 3D scan to build the BIM model of the project.

The roof trusses are in good condition however there is evidence here of splicing in the past. We would end up keeping the majority of this structure, only needing to add splices to support the new loads

The floor joists were mostly in good condition with the exception of the main lobby where it is evident some additional work needs to be done. You can also see the steel beams added later on for support

What I quickly learned is that renovation is a game of trade-offs. The building currently exists in an equilibrium with its surroundings but it is very easy to tip it out of balance. One of the common challenges is insulating for example as introducing a dew point too close to vulnerable wood structures like the floor or metal brackets can cause critical structural damage, effectively nullifying the effort to restore a the building. This led to many tradeoffs being made like allowing thermal bridges, and using less (thinner) insulation that additionally allows the wall to breathe.

But this made me wonder, is there a way these solutions can be analyzed in a way that we can quantifiably deduce the best solution. This thought eventually led to me writing an article regarding managing costs with the balance, enabling the use of the software THERM. In this I would go through two simulations: foundation meeting the ground floor slab, and a wall in the partial basement where exterior insulation was deemed not feasible as it would necessitate digging under the existing building. You can view the article here:

SEM 5 - LPE - Roshan Daniel Mathew.pdf

Download PDF • 44.98MB