Advanced technologies for sustainable building in the protected areas: the pilot project of the Municipality of Rome

For some yaers now the General Directorate for the Protection of Nature of the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, and the Department of “Fisica Tecnica” of the “Sapienza” University of Rome have been collaborating on issues such as sustainable development in protected areas and new technologies concerning innovative low-impact materials to be used in areas of particularly high environmental sensitivity. Specifically in Protected Areas, the Department of “Fisica Tecnica” has been gathering information on technologies to be used in a pilot project in a suburban green area jointly individuated with the “Assessorato all’Ambiente” of the Municipality of Rome designed to evaluate low-impact building in contexts of environmental “excellency” such as parkland in urban areas, city outskirts, green areas and national parks. In line with the Strategic Environmental Evaluation, the reversibility of such buildings has been evaluated with particular care, although other considerations such as aspects related to the education towards sustainability in architecture were also looked into. In architecture, the existing literature on experimentation with the most suitable technologies offers studies and references that are complete, though not exhaustive in terms of “in situ” testing technologies. The decree law D. Lgs. 192/05 and 311/06 regarding high energy performances in buildings1, rule minimum standard values to the energy performance of building envelope and suggests at the same time prompted technical solutions in line with its specifications. Research has been oriented towards pinpointing ‘new’ envelope technologies in which to assembly components and technical solutions already known as “sustainable” and/or “energy efficient” (such as coat insulation, roof garden, ecologically compatible materials such as wood, etc.) but whose combined application has not yet been tested as a whole complex system.