GEMINI: Test Cells for the Acoustic, Visual and Thermal Performances Evaluation of Double-Skin Facades

The improvement of the energetic performances of the building envelope represents a crucial aspect to increase the buildings energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. In recent years, one of the most appreciated design solutions in the worldwide architecture panorama is the Double-Skin Façade. A lot of different technologies and innovative materials have been proposed lately to improve or modify Double-Skin Façade appearance and energy efficiency. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of numerical models able to reproduce coherently and comprehensively the behaviour of complex Double-Skin Façades, let alone the cases in which innovative materials or geometries are used. Therefore, two identical test-cells (called GEMINI) for on-site acoustic, visual and thermal characterization of different full-scale modules for Double-Skin Façades have been designed and are currently under construction at University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”. In this paper, their structure, equipment and measurements layouts are presented and described in detail.