Table of Contents

Abstract: People are estimated to spend 80–90% of their time in buildings—residences, offices, factories, schools, places of worship, public amenities, recreational facilities, etc. Thus buildings play a very important role in the lives of individuals and societies. However, they are often taken for granted, except for private residences which are dear to people for a variety of reasons. One of the consequences of this is that research into the development of buildings (science, design, materials, etc.) has not advanced at the same pace as other industry sectors. While the automobile and aerospace industries have considerably improved the efficiency of vehicles and aircraft, buildings have only recorded incremental improvements. However, the situation is beginning to change with several initiatives at industry, national and multi-national levels aimed at improving the efficiency of the construction industry and the quality of the buildings that it produces. In many cases, these initiatives and associated research efforts require interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle what is essentially a multi-facetted problem. There is scope to better disseminate the outcomes of these efforts in a coherent, inter-disciplinary journal.

Abstract: Much of the residential sector in Spain is obsolete, with inadequate conditions of comfort and high energy consumption. For this reason most of the potential for improving energy efficiency lies in the existing residential sector, which requires upgrading to meet the quantitative and qualitative changes required at present. This study of specific cases aimed at establishing general criteria for action has been prompted by the difficulty in proposing general intervention strategies. This paper presents a case study for the energy retrofit of 68 social housing units in Cordoba (Spain) evaluating their energy consumption, with a view to improving the building’s energy balance and indoor thermal comfort, on which user comfort depends.