Murillo Camacho, Krisangella Sofia; (2023) Energy Efficiency and Heritage Conservation in the World Heritage Site of Mexico City. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Preview

Text Thesis_KSMC.pdf - Accepted Version Download (6MB) | Preview

Abstract

Although listed buildings are exempted from minimum energy efficiency requirements, intrusive energy-related interventions have an irreversible impact on the heritage value of historic buildings. The European Union (EU) has made progress towards achieving savings in its stock of heritage buildings by encouraging building sectors to reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change. The solutions aim to balance the need for heritage conservation and energy efficiency. In the United Kingdom, Historic England advocates a ‘whole house retrofit approach’ that considers a building’s materials and performance alongside its values. However, a values assessment is more complex because a pre-established set of values may easily neglect the significance that users attach to their buildings. Due to the unique nature of each heritage building, a holistic solution is required to make historic buildings, or buildings with cultural significance, more energy-efficient and sustainable. In view of this, this thesis explores the systemic and dynamic interrelationship between heritage values assigned to residential historic buildings and decision-making processes concerning energy efficiency in these buildings. This interrelationship intends to improve thermal comfort and reduce energy consumption while preserving the heritage value of a building. The results illustrate some of the barriers as they are experienced and perceived by users in the historical Centre of Mexico City. By doing so, it augments past research endeavours with a non-European perspective. The study involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews with users of heritage buildings and thematic analysis. This method is complemented by monitoring internal environmental conditions such as temperature and relative humidity. The qualitative analysis, combined with the systems dynamics method, unveiled the dynamic interrelationships of the parameters that contributed to user’s decision-making process and presented the different needs for conservation, the performance of efficient building elements, and user’s values concerning the buildings. 3 The historic Centre of Mexico City was chosen as the subject of the in-depth case study. It provides an ideal opportunity to examine how the owners and tenants of historic houses in a World Heritage city negotiate their heritage conservation goals and energy-efficiency decisions. The World Heritage status restricts users regarding what they can and cannot change about a protected site. Therefore, it is interesting to examine how residents negotiate in this specific context in which management plans have been made without much progress. The dynamic interrelationship between values, users and energy makes the management plans for heritage areas more sustainable. In the same way, the research informs policy about retrofitting existing buildings that offer a significant opportunity for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Archive Staff Only

View Item