Timber buildings with enhanced energy and seismic performance for the Mediterranean region

Timber buildings are characterized by a thermal inertia lower than other technological solutions in construction. For this reason, some configurations may lead to higher cooling demand and poorer energy performance in hot climates, such as the Mediterranean ones. Possible improvement interventions often regard additional thermal mass but, if not accurately designed, they can worse significantly structural and seismic performance of timber buildings - which is of primary importance in many Italian regions. In this framework, the TimBEESt project studied some technological solutions for timber buildings in Light Timber Frame and Cross-Laminated Timber, able to improve the dynamic behaviour of the opaque components without worsening their seismic performance. First, the Italian territory was analysed in order to find classes of climate and seismic solicitations and energy and structural performances of reference LTF and CLT building models were simulated. Then, for each Italian province, specific interventions and improvements were defined and evaluated.