A Review of Smart and Responsive Building Technologies and their Classifications

The high impact of the building sector on global greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, has focused the attention on the energetic behaviour of the built environment. Starting from the second half of 20th century an increasing attention on the insulation of building envelopes has been paid trying to maximize the indoor-outdoor disconnection. Nowadays, one of the main deficiencies of traditional buildings lies in the rivalry between their static behaviour and the dynamic external environment. The increasing awareness that responsive buildings can provide significant improvements in energy efficiency and internal comfort has recently led to a quick spread of innovative technologies, tools, and research topics. The aim of this review is to provide a broad overview of the available and most promising responsive technologies applied to highly performant buildings with a particular focus on building envelopes. Firstly, an introduction of the energy context and of the spread of adaptive technology is presented. Then, an analysis of the existing nomenclature and classification systems is provided to introduce the detailed review of the technologies.