Revitalization of under-utilized industrial buildings in Macau. Building envelope optimization and energetic performance analysis of a case study

MACAU SAR (China)’s Population reached 649,335 people at present April 2020. The control of the Macau Territory has always been the main instrument of the Government to structure the urban form and the economy of the colony. Cities are the incubators for the urban development. The rapid urbanisation and migration of people into the cities are making the cities denser, thereby increasing the need to accommodate more functions in the available spaces. Nowadays 50% of the income is generated through the Casinos. In these way the private companies have the right to fully control the land, managing the development with the purpose Roget the maximum return on investment without takin in consideration the energy consumption. Nevertheless, this increased by 54%. Designing buildings with a high-energy efficiency rate becomes much more urgent. The agreement doesn’t impose mandatory action, each country can develop its own national objectives to meet the world target. Starting from China’s national goals, Macau has set its own. The Revitalizing Industrial Building Policy has been worked out to accelerate urban revitalisation of industrial areas and optimise land use. In contrast with the other buildings typologies, industrial buildings have architectural and structural feature that allow to develop similar solutions on multiple buildings. Considering the relatively high demolition and reconstruction cost, transforming existing industrial buildings for other uses seems to be a more suitable way to solve the problem. Therefore, the aim of this study is to find out several to find the guidelines for revitalization that can be applied also to all the other industrial buildings. The renewal process is divided into 2 parts: The architectural design and the energetic project design. The former has the aim to transform a building in a way that will make a positive contribution to the urban level. The second part instead, has the purpose to empathise the energetic benefits that can be obtained following the Macau climate change policy.