The Ministry of Justice, through the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), requested interventions for extraordinary maintenance and energy efficiency works for the Juvenile Court building, located at via Dante no. 1 in Cagliari. The intervention involved an investment program funded by Next Generation EU resources as a tool to respond to the pandemic crisis caused by Covid-19.
On March 23, 2021, with formal note no. PRRM 10874, the Ministry of Justice authorized the competent Superintendency to initiate all technical-administrative procedures necessary for the drafting of the project.
The project’s objective was to “Do No Significant Harm” (DNSH) to the environment, as required by the legislative framework to promote sustainable investment through the definition of a classification system (Taxonomy).
The project provided for:
- achieving primary energy savings of at least 20% compared to the NZEB (Nearly Zero-Energy Building) requirement under national directives;
- ensuring at least 70% of demolition waste is prepared for reuse, recycling, or the recovery of other materials.
Project Description
The objective of the project was to ensure high energy efficiency of the technical systems and low thermal dispersion of the building envelope, thereby reducing management costs; an Energy Audit of the building was conducted, based on which actions were identified to achieve energy efficiency. These objectives were achieved through the application of strategies consistent with the following themes:
- use of environmental sustainability criteria through the adoption of innovative technologies, with particular reference to solutions aimed at limiting energy consumption, rationalizing and optimizing natural light availability, and adopting integrated plant technologies that promote energy savings;
- technical-economic feasibility of the proposed solutions in relation to the total cost of the intervention and the impact of the works and the construction site during the execution phase;
- construction systems that prioritized the use of fully or partially recycled, natural, and/or renewable materials, including those of local origin to reduce transport costs;
- use of maximum maintainability and durability criteria for materials and components, with particular reference to solutions aimed at achieving cost-effective management and maintenance;
- improvement of acoustic comfort in internal environments (corridors on all floors and offices on the third and fourth floors) through the use of sound-absorbing plasterboard and the replacement of windows and doors in the office areas on the third and fourth floors, in addition to the replacement of air conditioning systems (summer and winter), mitigating external noise sources and ensuring the functionality of the building in compliance with current regulations regarding systems and, above all, internal livability quality;
- brightness and occupancy control within every environment to allow for savings in management and maintenance costs, through the use of automatic control systems and local management of technological systems. on the internal side of the third floor, for the most exposed glass surfaces accessing the terrace, the installation of external louvered screens with adequate mechanical resistance characteristics and kinematic mechanisms for varying their inclination is planned; during the summer, these will minimize direct solar radiation while maximizing indirect lighting (natural light), with the possibility of their replacement;
- upgrading/renovation of electrical systems by replacing electrical panels, main backbone lines, and secondary distribution for lighting lines;
- existing lighting fixtures are replaced with low-consumption, high-efficiency elements to limit electricity consumption (LED fixtures or similar);
- introduction of motion detection systems in restrooms, as well as occupancy detection and daylight regulation in offices, replacing simple switches to economize consumption;
- renovation of the plumbing and sanitary system and renovation of the restrooms, including new flooring and wall coverings;
furthermore, the integration of a solar protection system for the third and fourth-floor windows was planned, using pre-tensioned micro-perforated filtering fabric with front or ceiling mounting, with the following technical characteristics: Soltis Harmony 88 type fabric, fire reaction class: 1 (UNI 9177-87), Euroclass B-s2, d0 (EN13501-1); air quality: R+3 guaranteed by Greenguard Gold certification and the A+ health label;
The design for the comprehensive renovation and upgrading of the portion of the building complex involved was aimed at a general redevelopment and functional repurposing of the property, respecting:
- current environmental and energy sustainability criteria;
- building regulations and requirements, as well as current urban planning instruments;
- the maintainability and cleanliness of the proposed solutions for the systems serving the building, within a strategic framework oriented toward greater durability of materials and components, easy replaceability of elements, and monitorability of performance over time, ensuring management economies throughout the entire life cycle of the building complex.
