Creative Commons

This dissertation was written as a part of the MSc in Energy Systems at the Interna-tional Hellenic University. The aim of this paper is to assess the facade building tech-nologies from the available literature, in order to investigate the possibility of designing a retrofit smart facade system, to be installed on existing buildings, with the ability of achieving "near zero energy building" status for any building it is installed upon. The assessment should focus on literature involving "smart" facade retrofits for energy per-formance upgrades on existing buildings and the benefits and challenges therein. It should also investigate the available technologies that can increase energy performance efficiency, taking into consideration advanced materials, hybrid system technologies, hi-end glazing as well as enhanced cooling technologies and other smart systems that can be mounted onto facades. There is a great amount of complexity in the field of modern building facade technologies and although they have been increasingly used by architects over the past few decades there are still many hurdles that have to be over-come in being able to fully predict their performance. The knowledge acquired from the literature review will assist in the design of a pre-fabricated facade module to be used as a possible retrofit for implementation on existing office buildings. The scope of this retrofit scheme is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions produced by building use, in correlation with environmental goals of many countries worldwide and the European Union. There are many design challenges in achieving this goal, including the difficulties of passive design in the hot Mediterranean climate and the increased difficulty of designing a retrofit facade with the ability to be compatible with multiple buildings of different shapes and sizes. I would like to thank professor A.M. Papadopoulos for his valuable guidance during the writing of this dissertation and professor M. Vogiatzaki for her assistance in the se-lection of literature for Double Skin Facades. I would also like to thank the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (I.K.Y.) and Siemens AG for funding my studies through the I.K.Y. - Siemens scholarship program.