Office Buildings under Zero Energy guidelines in temperate climates

Abstract

Energy consumption in office buildings is one of the highest compared to other building typologies. Zero Energy Buildings aims to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions generated by the building sector. Environmental quality inside workspaces contributes to improving user comfort, productivity, and avoiding illnesses related to Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). The climatic characteristics of the city of Mendoza have great advantages to face the mentioned issues through bioclimatism. In developed countries there are clear policies towards post- carbon cities, considering ZEBs for the renovation of the building sector. In this work the state of the art of the subject and the considerations to be taken into account in the research, together with the need of determine a support methodology for the transformation of office buildings in the Metropolitan Area of Mendoza are presented.