SEED LAB is part of the Department of Architecture, Built environment and Construction engineering (ABC) of Politecnico di Milano. We are involved in investigating problems linked to the control of building envelope quality, its design and production:
- In its relationship with outdoor environment, with the aim of controlling interactions between the microclimate and building;
- in its relationship with the indoor environment, with the aim of controlling the conditions of comfort and optimising energy and environmental costs in general;
- over time, in its relationship with both natural and pathological phenomena of deterioration that may affect it.
OUR LAB
SURFACELAB
SURFLab is a Laboratory for the radiative characterization of building skin.
The objective of this laboratory is to provide measures of the optical and energy-related behaviour of materials, products and components of Building Envelopes, and an understanding of the impact of choices on indoor and outdoor comfort.
The activities of this lab comprise:
- Outdoor measurement with albedometer of Solar Reflectance of flat and curved large (ASTM E 1918) and small samples (LBNL ASTM E 1918A) at solar noon and depending on solar zenith angle
- Laboratory measurement of:
Solar spectral reflectance in the spectral range 250-2500 nm with a Perkin Elmer Lamda 950 UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer equipped with a 150 mm diameter integrating sphere (ASTM E903 or ISO 9050) or of regular samples in transmission mode in the spectral range 200-3300 nm with a 2-D module.
Solar reflectance of large and variegated samples with a secondary standard Kipp & Zonen CMA11 albedometer (ASTM E 1980)
METEOLAB is a meteorological station for the measurement of the main climate parameters and its significance is strictly related to its location.
The quantities measured by METEOLAB include:
- Air temperature, relative humidity, and pressure, wind velocity and direction, precipitation (Vaisala WXT 520);
- Global horizontal (Kipp Zonen CM21, secondary standard pyranometer) and diffuse horizontal solar radiation, under a shadow band (Kipp Zonen CM6);
- Global horizontal and diffuse luminance.
Recently, also a calibration station has been installed, with a Kipp Zonen CM22 secondary standard pyranometer (ventilated), used as a reference.
METEOLAB is managed in collaboration with Osservatorio Meteo Milano Duomo.
GREENLAB is an experimental facility for monitoring the hygrothermal performance of green roof systems. It’s active since Sept 2011, and currently 8 green roof types are beeing monitored. The monitored quantities include soil moisture, temperatures (underneath the vegetation, ceiling, and at the interface between layers), and heat fluxes (ceiling and underneath the vegetation).
SIMULATIONLAB