Collaborative active roof design

Roofs play an essential role in buildings. Their value and impact often significantly surpass the cost
ratio they represent in the total investment cost of the building. Traditionally, roofs have a protecting
function and their basic design has changed little over hundreds of years. Nowadays however, they are
increasingly used as preferred location for mounting additional functions such as photovoltaic
systems, roof lights, ventilation devices, insulation and safety devices. The roof will contain more and
more aspects which are strongly related with the comfort of the building as a whole. Looking in a
wider context, the build environment is dominated by the circumstances related to energy use. A wide
variety of new products, such as photovoltaic (PV) systems and solar collectors, roof lights,
ventilation devices and insulation are introduced as adaptable elements related to the roof. Many
problems arouse in implementing these products or combinations of products into the total roof, the
roofing industry and the integration into the building design. Introduction of a broader variety of
products causes a more complex process of designing and engineering, to be organized and developed
with more participants with different backgrounds. These recent developments lead in practice up to a
number of sticking points:
- The new products have been seldom developed on the roof to be applied. For this reason there are no
uniform standards and building specific performance assess. For this reason frequently own solutions
are developed, which have to be adapted on the site itself.
- Good products are installed by not-qualified people. This leads to leakage caused by rain or snow,
but also to wind damage and condensation problems.