COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
RETROFITTED
BUILDING
Neha Khan - 1075462
Course Name: Sustainable Design
Course Code: ARC 540
Section: 66
Instructor: Apostolos Kyriazis
Semester: Fall 2023-2024
Project :
Retrofit of Residential Complex in Austria
Typology:
Multistorey housing block
Location:
Kapfenberg, Austria
WEST FACADE BEFORE RETROFIT
Year of Construction:
1960 - 1962
Renovation Timeline:
2011 - 2014
Total Floor Area:
2845 m2
WEST FACADE AFTER RETROFIT
Project
The Austrian case study is a renovation of a multi-story housing block in the city of
Kapfenberg. The existing building had four floors and 24 flats with a size of 20 m2 – 65
m2.
Description Due to the poor energetic, technical and architectural quality (overly small flats,
outdated equipment) the housing company was forced to do a major renovation. The
enormous energy demand caused very high heating and operating costs.
PROJECT GOALS
EXISTING PLAN 85% Reduction in energy consumption 80% reduction in CO2 emissions
of energy should be supplied by
80%
renewable resources
RETROFIT STATEMENT OF WORK
A high quality refurbishment of the building with a change in the layout of the
apartments should make the building more attractive to new residents and young
families.
COMPARISON CHART OF BUILDING ELEMENTS
FEATURES EXISTING BUILDING RENOVATED BUILDING DIAGRAMS
Pre-fabricated wooden facade elements:
Cement fiber panel
Air space
Sandwich concrete Cross laminated timber
WALLS elements without an Wood construction with mineral wool insulation
additional insulation Vapor barrier
Exterior plaster existing wall
Existing wall: sandwich concrete elements
Interior plaster RENOVATED WALL STRUCTURE
Pitched concrete roof The existing old pitched roof was removed and a new flat roof was installed
ROOF
with no insulation. with 35 – 40 cm of polystyrene.
Due to the low ceiling height, it was not possible to install more than 6 cm
Ceiling in concrete
insulation even though a higher insulation would have been desirable to
BASEMENT insulated with approx.
conserve energy. The existing thermal insulation was renewed during the
CEILING 60 mm polystyrene.
renovation but the energy performance of this component was not much
improved.
The new windows are already integrated in the prefabricated facade modules
and are triple glazed and of high thermal quality. An external shading device is
Double-glazed wooden
WINDOWS also installed and already integrated in the facade module too. This external
windows
shading device helps to reduce the solar gains and therefore to avoid
overheating of the rooms in the warm periods of the year.
Facade Retrofit
Fiber Cement. The Facade panels were made of Fiber Cement which is made of a
mix of water, cellulose fibers (often wood pulp), cement and fly ash or silica sand.
PV Panel
Solar Collector: A solar collector is a device that transforms the radiative energy
from the sun into heat in a useful temperature.
GAP Facade
Technology
PV Panel : A PV panel uses solar radiation and converts it into electricity. Solar
Collector
GAP Facade Technology: GAP³ Integral Façade Technology” is a low energy
refurbishment system which consists in the implementation of overlapping Fiber
Cement
applications and measures, which affords a transformation of an existing building Panels
in a passive house standard low energy, modern and upgraded building. The GAP
facade forms a unique building envelope which prevents any heat loss. A simple,
high-quality and ecological interaction of light, wood and air eliminates any
thermal bridges and significantly increases hygrothermal and acoustic comfort.
Planning Alternate apartments Staircase Corridor Balconies
EXISTING PLAN
RETROFIT PLAN
RETROFIT PROCESS
Remove Roof
Insulate new flat roof
Building service shaft
New access/ buffer space
Insulate East Facade
Window Replacement
Internal Reorganization
Staircase Elevator
shaft
Insulate Basement Ceiling
Existing Building Retrofit Step 1 Retrofit Step 2
PV Elements on flat roof Solar panels on
South Facade
Facade Elements with integrated
solar panels
Retrofit Step 3 Retrofit Step 4
HVAC RETROFITS
In the existing building a variety of different heating systems was installed: a central gas heating, electric furnaces, electric
night storage heaters, oil heaters, wood-burning stoves and coal furnaces. There is no active cooling system and the
lighting was mainly done with normal bulbs.
Heating System
The basic heat supply of the renovated building is accomplished by the local district heating.
In addition to the district heating, a solar thermal system with a collector surface of 144 m2 was installed. A scaffold on the south facade was mounted to increase
the area for the solar thermal panels and also to optimize the inclination of the panels (inclination of the solar thermal panels = 72°). An annual heat production
from the solar thermal system of 39.5 MWh/a was calculated. Both district heating and solar thermal system store the produced heat in a 7500 liter buffer
storage, which is located right below the solar thermal panels. From the buffer storage a two-pipe-system (flow and return) brings the heat to the 32 flats where
the heat for domestic hot water is stored in a small boiler Radiators emit the heat in the flats. This is also used for domestic hot water.
HVAC RETROFITS
Ventillation System
A new mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery is installed. The ventilation unit was positioned on the flat roof and the existing shafts of the building
are used for the ventilation ducts. An additional benefit of using these existing shafts are the short ventilation ducts they accommodate.
DESIGN COMPARISON
DESIGN COMPARISON
Corridor Windows
Balcony
Energy Consumption Energy Cost Savings Retrofit Cost
Existing Building District Heating Total
524,163 €4.8
KWH/year million
€25,734
/year
Expected
=AED 101,150
Non-Energy Related
80,590 €3.6
KWH/year Electricity
million
~ 85%
Retrofitted
Building €13,911 Energy Related
/year
148,267 =AED 54,700
€1.2
KWH/year
million
~ 72%
BENEFITS
RESIDENT IMPROVED OTHER
SATISFACTION AIR QUALITY BENEFITS
There was a high level of The air quality due to the newly Increased useful space.
satisfaction with the comfort, installed ventilation system is Reduced energy costs for tenants.
room heat and humidity in the perceived as very good. Environmental friendly
apartments, the additional In all flats indoor temperature is in construction.
balconies, accessibility and the the range of comfort Reduced maintenance.
current size of the apartment. requirements (Austrian
standards).
CO2 concentration of the rooms
decreased evidently.
Volume flow values
are based on hourly
CO2 average in
living rooms
Volume Flow (m3/h)
CO2 concentration of room air (PPM)
DRAWBACK
Financial Payback
From technical point of view, ambitious projects like
the Austrian case study Retrofit in Kapfenberg
demonstrate that a sustainable standard for multi-
story housing can be achieved. However, a look at the
financial aspect shows a different picture. A dynamic
amortization period of 26 years differs greatly from
common amortization periods (10 – 15 years) for
investments on the Austrian market. To overcome
these hurdles and to enable Deep Energy Retrofit,
innovative business models must be developed.
References
Nussmüller Architects. (2012). Renovation of Johann Boehmstrasse.
Weiss, T. (n.d.). Renovation concepts for residential buildings. Austria: AEE
– Institute for Sustainable Technologies.
Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme. (2017, October). Deep
Energy Retrofit – Case Studies. From
https://ieaebc.org/Data/publications/EBC_Annex%2061_Subtask_A_Case_
Studies.pdf
https://www.effibuilding.eu/gap%C2%B3-integral-facade-technology-
system/
