The Villa & Sustainability Lessons Learned from Ancient Rome
Maljetë HOXHALeandro GATTI
Ivan MANYONGAAnca SCAESTEANU
INEX.org │ Green. Building. Solutions. │ Vienna Summer University | August 13, 2011Revised January 4, 2012 – A. Scaesteanu
the vastthe vast ROMAN EMPIRE ROMAN EMPIRE in 3 short slides...in 3 short slides...
The Roman Empire was at its largest under Emperor Trajan in 117 CE with 6.5 million km² (2.5 million mi²). The imperial city of Rome was the largest urban center of its time, with a population of about one million people.
Roman societyRoman societyHierarchical: • slaves (servi) at the bottom,• freedmen (liberti) above them,• free-born citizens (cives) at the top.
Women had some basic rights (owning property) but were not allowed to vote or take part in politics.
The basic units of Roman society were households and families.
Economy & WelfareEconomy & Welfare
Income from war, trade in the new provinces, and tax farming created new economic opportunities for the wealthy, forming a new class of merchants, the equestrians.
Violent gangs of the urban unemployed, controlled by rival Senators, intimidated the electorate through violence. In trying to placate the growing unrest of the plebeian and equestrian classes, the Senate passed land reform legislation to redistribute major patrician landholdings among the plebeians.
Roman dominance over foreign areas led to internal strife. Senators became rich, but soldiers, who were mostly small-scale farmers, were away from home and could not keep up their land. The increased reliance on foreign slaves and the growth of large farms reduced the availability of paid work.
Environment & ClimateEnvironment & Climate
Rome currently has a “Mediterranean climate”: warm to hot long dry summers and mild to cool winters with long wet periods. Native vegetation is adapted to survive this climate, but much has been replaced by agriculture.
Environment & ClimateEnvironment & Climate
“In the north, houses should be entirely roofed over and sheltered as much as possible, not in the open, though having a warm exposure. But on the other hand, where the force of the sun is great in the southern countries that suffer from heat, houses must be built more in the open and with a northern or north-eastern exposure. Thus we may amend by art what nature, if left to herself, would mar.”
– Roman architect Vitruvius, De architectura, 15 BCE
Roman Climate Change?Roman Climate Change?
A recent study of the size variations of ancient tree rings provides data on historical climate (January 2011, Science journal), though not the reasons for the climate changes noticed. The study concluded that Europe experienced warm, wet summers ideal for agriculture during times of social stability and prosperity, coinciding with the rise of the Roman Empire (300 BCE to 200 CE) and that during the 3rd century CE extended droughts occurred at the same time as barbarian invasions and political turmoil (the fall of the Roman Empire).
Climate & culture vs building typeClimate & culture vs building type
Building OrientationBuilding Orientation
Vitruvius, De architectura:
“We shall next explain how the special purposes of different rooms require different exposures, suited to convenience and to the quarters of the sky. Winter dining rooms and bathrooms should have a southwestern exposure, for the reason that they need the evening light, and also because the setting sun, facing them in all its splendor but with abated heat, lends a gentler warmth to that quarter in the evening. Bedrooms and libraries ought to have an eastern exposure, because their purposes require the morning light, and also because books in such libraries will not decay. In libraries with southern exposures the books are ruined by worms and dampness, because damp winds come up, which breed and nourish the worms, and destroy the books with mold, by spreading their damp breath over them.”
Building Orientation Building Orientation (continued)(continued)
Vitruvius, De architectura:
“Dining rooms for Spring and Autumn to the east; for when the windows face that quarter, the sun, as he goes on his career from over against them to the west, leaves such rooms at the proper temperature at the time when it is customary to use them. Summer dining rooms to the north, because that quarter is not, like the others, burning with heat during the solstice, for the reason that it is unexposed to the sun's course, and hence it always keeps cool, and makes the use of the rooms both healthy and agreeable. Similarly with picture galleries, embroiderers' work rooms, and painters' studios, in order that the fixed light may permit the colours used in their work to last with qualities unchanged.”
Urban Planning: LayoutUrban Planning: Layout
The town plan adopted by the Romans in the construction of cities in the Empire is characterized by perpendicular North-South and East-West streets (thistles and decumani), dividing a city into rectangular blocks.
Rome was an exception to this rule and had no planned pattern. Its urban layout was influenced by the shape of the land, streams, hills, and partially drained marshes.
Infrastructure: WaterInfrastructure: Water
When wells, local springs, and the Tiber River became polluted, Romans developed aqueduct technology (312 B.C.E.) to bring clean water from further away.
Once in or near Rome, the water poured into a large, covered catch-basin to deposit sediment. The water was then distributed through free-flowing canals, lead pipes, and terra-cotta pipes to storage reservoirs and then through lead pipes (fistulae) to users. The number of connections to private customers were limited; most Romans had to get their supply of domestic water from public fountains.
Having running water at home was so desirable that Romans were constantly bribing water officials to tap an aqueduct.
Infrastructure: WastewaterInfrastructure: Wastewater
The Cloaca Maxima (“Greatest Sewer”) drainage system, with a main outlet into the Tiber River, was built by Etruscan engineers around 600 BC under the orders of the king of Rome. It combined sewage and storm runoff together. It had few private connections, such as some of the wealthier homes. Parts of the system were built underground and others were probably initially an open drain with a cover added later. The waste stream was kept moving by the continuous flow of water leaving the public baths.
Infrastructure: RoadwaysInfrastructure: Roadways
Roads between cities were well-built for the transport of armies and economic trade. They were constructed with stones mixed with cement and sand, cement mixed with broken tiles, and curving stones to drain stormwater.A visitor to ancient Rome generally had trouble navigating the urban parts of Rome. Most of the residential streets were not named, and houses and apartments were not numbered. There were few sidewalks. Streets were narrow and crowded. Walking Rome’s street was frequently dangerous, since it was not unusual to dispose of trash by throwing it out of windows.
Renewable EnergyRenewable Energy
The Romans had water power, and watermills were common throughout the Empire, especially to the end of the first century AD. They were used for corn milling, sawing timber and crushing ore.Room heating was more efficient with charcoal braziers than hypocausts, but hypocausts allowed the use of poor-quality smoky fuels like straw, vine prunings, and small wood locally available.
Roman HomesRoman Homes
Roman villa urbana : a country seat that could easily be reached from an urban city in a night or two.
Roman villa rustica : the farm-house estate permanently occupied by the servants.
Domus : urban house owned by the wealthy.
Insulae : three-to-six story apartment buildings occupied by the middle and lower classes. The ground floor of the insulae frequently housed commercial shops.
Types of homes & floor plansTypes of homes & floor plans
Along with a domus in the city, many of the richest families of ancient Rome also owned a separate country house known as a villa. While many chose to live primarily in their villas, these homes were generally much grander in scale and on larger acres of land due to more space outside the walled city.
The elite classes of Roman society constructed their residences with elaborate marble decorations, inlaid marble paneling, door jambs and columns as well as expensive paintings and frescoes.
Many poor and lower middle class Romans lived in crowded, dirty and mostly rundown rental apartments, known as insulae. These multi-level apartment blocks were built as high and tightly together as possible and held far less status and convenience than the private homes of the prosperous.
The DOMUSThe DOMUS
In ancient Rome, the domus was the type of house occupied by the upper classes and some wealthy freedmen during the Republican and Imperial eras. They could be found in almost all the major cities throughout the Roman territories.
The modern English word domestic comes from Latin domesticus, which is derived from the word domus. The word dom in modern Slavic languages means "home".
Impluvium – here comes the rainImpluvium – here comes the rain
The impluvium is the sunken part of the atrium in the domus. Designed to carry away the rainwater coming through the compluvium (opening) of the roof, it was usually made of marble and placed about 30 cm below the floor of the atrium.
It was constructed to allow for a certain amount of standing water and also water would flow down under the impluvium and through a gravel and sand filter into a holding chamber (cistern) underground, accessible via a bucket through a small well on the edge of the impluvium.
Passive CoolingPassive Cooling
In hot weather, water could be drawn from the cistern chamber (or fetched by slaves from supplies outside the domus) and cast into the shallow pool (impluvium) to evaporate and provide a cooling effect to the entire atrium. As the water evaporated, the surrounding air was cooled and became heavier, flowed into the living spaces, and was replaced by air drawn through the compluvium.
The combination of the compluvium and impluvium formed an ingenious, effective, and attractive manner of collecting, filtering, and cooling rainwater and making it available for household use as well as providing cooling of the living spaces.
Building materials & constructionBuilding materials & construction
The elite roman society constructed with elaborate marble decorations, inlaid marble paneling, door jambs and columns, and expensive paintings and frescoes.
Radiant Floor Central Heating: HypocaustRadiant Floor Central Heating: Hypocaust
The hypocaust (hypocaustum) was the system of central heating for public baths and private homes. The floor was raised above the ground by pillars so that hot air would flow from the furnace, through the underfloor space, up through spaces in the walls, and out through roof openings.
The furnace was fueled by wood, which was expensive, and required constant attention, which is why this was a feature only of the baths and villas.
Hypocaust Energy EfficiencyHypocaust Energy Efficiency
In De architectura, Vitruvius gives explicit instructions on how to design buildings which use hypocausts so that fuel efficiency is maximized. For example, at the public baths, placing the hot room next to the heat source, then the warm room, followed by the cold room. He also advises on using a type of regulator to control the heat in the hot rooms.
WHAT DO WE LEARN?WHAT DO WE LEARN?
As the Roman Empire spread over many regions, Romans were forced to think of a dwelling structure which would be suitable for those climatic zones.
And moreover, the challenge was designing a structure which would be also suitable for all seasons. Based on archeological evidence reaching from modern-day England to the Balkans, it has been demonstrated that the Roman Villa was built in many different climate zones and some of them still stand after 20 centuries.
During the Roman Empire the practices of design and construction which can be considered sustainable and noteworthy are:
- hydro-power
- daylight-based orientation
- passive cooling system
- advanced heating system
- rainwater collection
THE ENDthanks for reading/listening
