Mohsen Aboulnaga

Cities worldwide face many challenges, primarily climate change risks, urban population increase, and high resources use. The objective of this work is centered on revitalizing the abandoned factory of ex-Zanussi factory in the city of Conegliano, north of Venice Italy to be a city hub of sustainability. This paper present the attempt that was carried out to regenerate the old building to be green and sustainable site by utilizing urban farm technologies based on soilless solutions. Also, the retrofitted building and site aim at strengthening the capacity of the city of Conegliano economically, socially, and environmentally. The philosophy of planning and redesigning the site was centered on architectural and urban farming innovation. Many smart solutions were exploited onto the facades to turn this building and site into a live hub. The retrofitted building includes inspiring domes with revolving light wells to allow natural lighting of Conegliano and to reduce energy consumption, hence, mitigate CO2. Also, LED facades, ETFE cushions and rainwater harvesting as well as ZIP grow and recycled bricks. In addition, mobile application was used to enhance the learning experience, self-learning of urban farming, and what could be possibly done through the education facility. A business model, including the strategy, SWOT, operation cost, and a feasibility study were developed to best inform on the revenues from the project to reduce employment. Results indicate that by integrating agriculture with architecture using smart technologies could lead to economic growth, society integration, and achieve livability. Moreover, the diversity of users and mixed activities with nature are materialized. Finally, the project supports the city of Conegliano’s efforts in achieving successful interaction between technological and social innovation, and assists local governments in meeting Paris Agreement targets in Italy, yet attains SDGs, mainly SDG 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has catastrophic impacts worldwide between 2020 and 2021. Such a pandemic highlighted the importance of healthy spaces in all types of buildings, particularly: public, commercial, educational, and residential buildings during the lockdown periods in 2020 and 2021. In light of the urgent need for healthy spaces amid COVID-19, indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is significantly vital to provide healthy buildings and cities. Thus, it is imperative to ensure and guarantee thermal comfort, natural ventilation/cross ventilation, daylighting, and sunlight provision to ensure better IEQ and attain liveability. This book chapter presents a review on the impacts of COVID-19 on buildings in terms of IEQ and liveability in the age of COVID-19. It also highlights benefits of IEQ in providing healthy buildings including thermal comfort, natural ventilation, and daylighting and sunlight. This chapter addresses the benchmark for IEQ in the time of COVID-19. Additionally, global examples of best practices are highlighted to deduce the best lessons, standards, and practice models. This chapter also depicts selected contemporary buildings vs. traditional ones that include the main features to attain IEQ and draw the lessons learned from such traditional buildings. The chapter seeks to answer a main question – Can IEQ achieve liveability in the age of COVID-19? – and presents a comparative analysis of assessed buildings (case studies).