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Purpose Decarbonizing cities is one of today’s biggest challenges. In this regard, particular attention has been paid on improving the environmental performance of buildings. In this framework, this work consists in assessing the environmental impact of an innovative building envelope component derived from urban agriculture (UA) wastes. In fact, rooftop UA seems to be a possible solution to the rising food demand due to increasing urban demographic growth. Consequently, rooftop UA wastes need to be treated in sustainable ways. Methods This study aims to determine the carbon footprint and embodied energy of a new infill wall material, derived from UA wastes produced by a building rooftop greenhouse tomato crop, and evaluate the potential biogenic carbon that such by-product could fix temporally until its end of life. After an initial description of the manufacturing process of the new material, its carbon footprint and embodied energy have been calculated by means of the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology according to the ISO 14044 and the ISO 14067 guidelines adapted to the analyzed context. In particular, the inventory analysis is based on data collected from the production of samples of the new material at the laboratory scale. Results and discussion The results of the LCA indicate that, when the biogenic carbon fixed in the UA wastes is considered, a negative carbon footprint of − 0.2 kg CO2 eq. per kg of material can be obtained. Hence, it can be assumed that from a life cycle perspective the material is able to fix carbon emissions instead of emitting them. Specifically, for the considered scenario, approximately 0.42 kg CO2 eq./m2 per year could be sequestered. However, the crop area required to produce enough waste to manufacture a unit of material is quite high. Therefore, future studies should focus on individuate solutions to reduce the density of the new component, and also different urban crops with higher waste production rates. Conclusions The outcomes of the study put in evidence the potential of the new proposed infill wall component in fixing carbon emissions from UA, allowing to also compensate those relating to the production and transportation stages of the component life cycle. Moreover, producing by-products with UA wastes, hence temporally storing the carbon fixed by crops, may contribute to reduce the carbon cycles speed conversely to traditional waste management solutions, other than lower new raw materials depletion.

The management of municipal solid waste is a crucial issue to address as we move toward the decarbonization of urban contexts. Not by chance, this sector plays a relevant role in the Covenant of Mayors program, whereby municipalities are called to design their own Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SECAPs). However, despite new regulations strongly pushing the recycling and reuse of materials contained in municipal waste, many cities still use large landfills. As part of the overall environmental pressure exerted by these urban systems, the transport of waste from collection points to landfills or treatment facilities must be considered in order to correctly assess the full environmental burden of waste management. To this aim, in this paper, the Ecological Footprint method is applied to the municipal solid waste management system of the city of Palermo (Sicily). The results show that the impacts produced by the means of transport used, both in the status quo and in the assumed enhanced scenario (with less municipal waste disposed to landfills in favor of recycling), are significant compared to those caused by the other segments of the waste management system. The concept of a “saved footprint” is also introduced here, in order to properly compare the two scenarios.

Green roofs are widely used in hot or cold climates mainly because they are capable to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and, when implemented at a large scale, reducing air pollution and the urban heat island effect (UHI) in urban contexts. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) black-box algorithms are a valid alternative to studying complex systems. However, the literature highlights - quite surprisingly – none of the available research refers to coupling ANNs and green roofs in the Mediterranean area, where green roofs are instead considered one of the most suitable technologies to reduce the high cooling demand. Therefore, the objective of this research work is to create and validate an ANN for the prediction of the monthly green roof’s internal and external surface temperatures and the monthly internal air temperature, starting from different green roof parameters and climatic variables. Specifically, the ANN was created with reference to a Mediterranean climate considering an existing green roof on a building of the University of Palermo characterized by a cooling demand predominance; 180 green roof configurations, obtained by varying the characteristic parameters of vegetation (plant height, leaf area index and leaf reflectivity) and the substrate thickness and thermophysical properties (lightweight and heavyweight), were dynamically simulated on an hourly basis to build the training dataset. In addition, other 72 green roof configurations were simulated to generate the dataset for the validation purpose of the ANN accuracy. The optimal ANN-related architecture consists of 90 neurons with one hidden layer and guarantees very high accuracy predictions. The outcomes of this research represent a useful tool to determine the thermal response of green roofs and their impact on the building energy demand and indoor thermal comfort and UHI mitigation.

Recent regulations, and related incentives, concerning urban sustainability issued at European and national level place particular attention on improving the energy and environmental performance of buildings. In this sense, a particular focus has been placed on public buildings (offices, schools, hospitals, etc..), being these centers of gravitation of social life. Among the EU strategies on this matter is an initiative called Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP), through which local administrators, based on the knowledge of their territory, are called to establish appropriate energy strategies and commit to achieving their targets within the timeframe set by the EU. The present paper contribute to this specific topic by means of a case study concerning the retrofit of a Sicilian office building, for which a comparison between the actual energy consumption and CO2 emissions, based on bill reading, and those consequent to the implementation of some SECAP selected energy improvement intervention, estimated through building dynamic simulation, was performed, taking into account also the economic aspects.

L’esperienza del Progetto Mentore (PM) nasce nel 2013 dalla percezione, da parte di diversi docenti dell’Ateneo di Palermo, che l’Accademia italiana stesse abbandonando a sé stessa la funzione didattica, confidando di fatto nelle capacità di ognuno di organizzarsi, aggiornarsi e valutarsi (Felisatti, Scialdone, Cannarozzo, & Pennisi, 2019; Caradonna, Morale, Pace, Scargiali, Scialdone, & Auteri, 2020). Tale impressione era tra le altre cose basata sul fatto che nessuno dei sistemi di valutazione dei docenti universitari (il processo di abilitazione scientifica nazionale, ma anche la stessa valutazione della qualità dei corsi di studio) mettesse enfasi sulla necessità da parte del docente di essere anche un efficace insegnante, oltre che un bravo ricercatore. Da qui l’idea di organizzarsi autonomamente, con l’obiettivo iniziale di creare gruppi di colleghi che lavorassero insieme al miglioramento della qualità della didattica, su base volontaria.

Green infrastructure in urban environments provides a wide range of ecological, social, aesthetic, and health co-benefits. Urban plant covers in particular contribute to improved outdoor environmental conditions that, in turn, influence the energy behavior of buildings and their indoor thermo-hygrometric comfort performance. Within this context, this study illustrates a methodology aimed at verifying the economic feasibility of alternative types of green areas for public and private stakeholders, which are analyzed as passive energy measures. Therefore, our methodology integrates approaches from different disciplines and consists of a microclimatic analysis of different vegetation scenarios and of the outdoor comfort level, an evaluation of the energy needs of a sample of houses, and an economic feasibility estimation considering different scenarios and public and private investors. The methodology is illustrated through its application to a suburban district of the Sicilian city of Trapani in the South of Italy, considered representative of Mediterranean climate conditions. Results showed significant differences between the scenario outcomes depending on the type of vegetation used in the green areas and put in evidence how economic feasibility for some stakeholders may be achieved in the management phase if adequate incentives equal to the planting cost are assumed.

Reducing energy consumption in the building tertiary sector, which accounts for a big share of the total energy use (and related CO 2 emissions) at European and Italian level, represent a strong element of safety for the EU-28. On the other hand, it is important to improve the, often overlooked, indoor comfort conditions of Italian schools since they have a significant impact on the well-being, productivity, health and safety of their occupants. Thus, it is appropriate to take into account the combination of both needs, also in light of the climate change scenario, in order to identify adequate improvement measures and justify such economic investment. This paper brings a contribution to the matter by means of a case study concerning a Sicilian school belonging to the 1930s period, representing an emblematic case of the Italian school construction panorama.

Human activities are severe sources of greenhouse gases and, particularly, of CO 2 . This trend, according with the highly demanding criteria released by the international institutions, must be suitably cut, in order of turning the pollutant emissions within limits that will guarantee a sustainable and environmentally safe development of the human species. Apart the measures that are since long time usually implemented in the technological systems, other interventions should be properly adopted in supporting the sustainability of the anthropic activities. These actions mainly apply to the so-called bioclimatic and passive measures and, particularly, could usefully refer to the plantation of proper surfaces of trees that, thanks to their metabolic mechanisms, are able to sequester relevant amounts of greenhouse gases. In this paper, after a description of a simple method for evaluating the quantities of CO 2 sequestered by trees, the availability of the main parameters on which the sequestration of CO 2 by urban trees is based will be discussed.

The effects of climate change on the built environment represents an important research challenge. Today, green roofs (GRs) represent a viable solution for enhancing energy and urban resilience in the face of climate change, as they can have a positive impact on the building's indoor thermal comfort and energy demand, as well as inducing various environmental benefits (easing urban heat island effects, improving the management of runoff water, reducing air pollution, etc.). Thus, it is important to be able to assess their effectiveness, both today and under future climate conditions, in order to evaluate whether they can also provide a valid long-term solution. In this paper, a simulation approach is proposed to evaluate the energy and indoor-comfort efficacy of GRs installed on a cluster of buildings with respect to climate change and demographic growth. To illustrate the proposed methodology, it has been applied to two European urban environments characterized by very different climatic conditions (Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg and Palermo in Italy) considering their behaviour over a period of 60 years (2020, 2050, 2080). Results showed that, with respect to standard existing roofs (i.e., without the presence of green coverage), and considering the rising temperatures due to climate change, during cooling seasons GRs enabled significant energy savings (ranging from 20% to 50% for Esch-sur-Alzette and from 3% to 15% for Palermo), improvement of the indoor comfort (reduction of the average predicted mean votes − PMVs) and attenuation of the ceiling temperatures (2–5 °C for both contexts) of the buildings' top floors.

The rapid and widespread deployment of green roofs requires the need to address their disposal and to assess the environmental impact of this phase of their life cycle to understand whether their current large-scale application may pose a problem. A review of the literature on green roofs environmental performance (particularly Life Cycle Assessment studies) has highlighted the lack of a standardized, commonly adopted, procedure for determining the treatments, recovery and/or disposal, to be assigned to waste from the removal of green roofs. In this regard, it should be mentioned that there is a lack of ad hoc legislation on the disposal of this technology (to the best of the authors’ knowledge, even at the international level). In this paper, an attempt procedure is introduced to identify the end-of-life scenario of green roofs that does not conflict with the current regulations regarding wastes. Specifically, the procedure relies on an “attempt classification” of the waste from individual green roof elements and the priority criterion for intervention. This procedure might thus be used temporarily by technicians, pending the issuance of guidelines specifically dedicated to green roofs disposal, to model their end-of-life and thus assess the environmental impact of this phase of the life cycle. The feasibility of this proposal was verified through a field application. Besides the methodological proposal, the results of the work indicated the need to review the current waste legislation and update it -at least the Italian one - to also consider new materials used in green transition technologies.

Current policies addressing the energy efficiency of buildings aimed at the control of their overall primary energy demand, require not only that the edifice envelope has to be properly designed to optimize its thermal performances, but also that the eco-friendly properties of the involved building materials have to be properly taken into account, in order of assessing all the associated environmental costs. In fact, the design of envelope structures that are able to realize proper levels of thermal insulation and, in the same time, to employ materials characterized by low environmental impacts, are believed as the most effective strategies to be adopted in the aim of addressing the above-mentioned issues. In this regard natural materials, such as vegetal fibres or materials derived from the recycling of industrial/ agricultural waste, reveal very attractive characteristics. Indeed, recent studies on the use of natural materials in buildings concentrate on raw materials deriving from either agriculture, waste, or recycling processes. Such topics are the focuses of the present analysis. Specifically, this paper intends to provide a contribution in the field by identifying new types of environment-friendly composites, containing vegetal matters and ecological waste resulting from recycling activities. Outcomes of a series of performed laboratory analyses concerning the thermal conductivity of four different samples of assemblies, are quite promising and candidate these new composites – albeit further analyses are certainly recommended – as a practicable alternative to the mostly used traditional insulating materials.

—Despite the increasing concern of institutions and technical organizations toward the improvement of the building energy (and, therefore, environmental) efficiency, the main goal of technicians should be also devoted toward the levels of internal thermal comfort that buildings are able to realize. As that, the relationships between energy performances and comfort conditions provided by the enclosures are of paramount importance in guiding designers in their work. In this paper, the influence of diverse roof construction typologies on energy and indoor performance of buildings has been investigated, in different Italian sites during heating and cooling seasons. In addition, it must be properly considered that buildings operate in given climate and weather contexts that deeply affect their performances. Hence, for taking into account the different weather conditions of each site, a new parameter has been used, that is the “Climatic Severity Index” corresponding to a value of magnitude of a climatic vector less a constant value, recently released by an Italian technical standard. The actions for improving the energy efficiency sometimes lead to a reduction of indoor comfort, therefore, not always easily applicable.

Green roofs are building components that have become increasingly common in urban contexts because other than the general improvement of the aesthetics of the buildings equipped with them, they have demonstrated to positively improve the building energy performance. Consequently, it would be useful for technicians to have easy and reliable indicators to achieve a synthetic quantitative judgement about the effectiveness of green roofs by an energy perspective compared to others building envelope technologies, for different climates. In sight of the definition of such an indicator, or at least of its properties, some considerations aimed at this purpose, especially concerning the use of new climatic indicators instead of the commonly used ones (i.e. heating and cooling degree days), are presented here.

The purpose of Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems in museums is to properly control important microclimate parameters; such systems, in fact, apart from ensuring the visitors’ wellbeing, are requested to guarantee suitable indoor conditions for the proper conservation of the important cultural goods hosted by museums. Hence, in case of disservice, or interruption due to maintenance interventions, it is important to quantify the economic damage induced to exhibited and/or stored works of art (or even to the building museum itself). Accordingly, it is essential to guarantee the shortest possible period of disservice during which probable damages for the works of art could occur. Since curators are the most relevant subjects committed to properly run the museum, also for what concerns the indoor environmental conditions, the aim of this work is to propose two new comprehensive operative damage risk indicators to support curators in negotiating the stipulation of contracts with the external companies in charge of the management of the HVAC system, in order to preserve the works of art. Particularly, these indicators try to integrate, into the contracts, economic considerations related to the system's disservice period and/or planned interruptions. The feasibility of the proposed new indicators has been checked by means of an example application involving the “Museo Regionale” of Palermo (Italy).

The constant push toward higher energy and environmental quality buildings makes the acquisition of excellence marks for products and materials, of which the building envelope is constituted, increasingly urgent. The recent European (EU) Commission Decision 2021/476 is applicable to marble used in construction. It sets out criteria that companies producing marble have to accomplish to obtain the EU Ecolabel brand. Unfortunately, some criteria such as, for example, those that refer to the application of the Environmental Management System, ISO 14001 and EMAS certifications, or those that concern the ISO 14067 as well as the Product Environment Footprint procedure, are difficult to apply for companies in the marble extraction and processing sector. These companies, in fact, are usually family-run and find it difficult to adhere to such complex schemes. This difficulty obviously limits the number of companies and products that can aspire to an environmental excellence label. On the other hand, the new Decision seems inadequate to identify the environmental impact of the transport of material between the different workstations of the same company; aspect that would be important to consider to evaluate in a broader and more detailed way this impact in the framework of the attribution of an environmental excellence label. To provide a contribution to overcome these difficulties for the companies and to open a debate on the criteria that lead to the assignment of the EU Ecolabel brand, here an alternative simplified method for the indirect assessment of pollutant emissions from the work chain of marble companies, which also includes the contribution of the transport phase of the semi-finished material between the different workstations of the company, is proposed. The method simply starts with an evaluation of the type and quantity of energy sources used in the work cycle and the emission factors of the main pollutants emitted. In this way, a sort of material impact sheet is obtained that contains not only the embodied energy of the marble but also the “embodied pollution” associated to it. The method, besides being easy to use, could be adopted in the criteria that lead to the attribution of the EU Ecolabel brand to companies that work marble.

The Daylight factor is the reference parameter used in Energy Standard EN15193:2008 to assess daylight contribution in the energy performance of buildings. But its efficacy in putting in relation buildings energy performance, daylight availability and visual tasks is now a subject of discussion in literature. In fact, the daylight factor is a static indicator independent from building geometry and environmental parameters. From the energy point of view, it has still to be assessed if it can ensure when the switch of artificial light is needed, representing therefore the most disadvantageous outdoor illuminance conditions. The goal of this study is demonstrating if the daylight factor calculated in standard conditions (Overcast sky) is conservative respect to that calculated using the diffuse component of the horizontal illuminance under CIE Clear sky. If so, D might be applied, possibly with suitable corrections, to estimate the energy requirements for lighting, keeping the results on the safe side.

In the line of pursuing better energy efficiency in human activities that would result in a more sustainable utilization of resources, the building sector plays a relevant role, being responsible for almost 40% of both energy consumption and the release of pollutant substances in the atmosphere. For this purpose, techniques aimed at improving the energy performances of buildings&rsquo, envelopes are of paramount importance. Among them, green roofs are becoming increasingly popular due to their capability of reducing the (electric) energy needs for (summer) climatization of buildings, hence also positively affecting the indoor comfort levels for the occupants. Clearly, reliable tools for the modelling of these envelope components are needed, requiring the availability of suitable field data. Starting with the results of a case study designed to estimate how the adoption of green roofs on a Sicilian building could positively affect its energy performance, this paper shows the impact of this technology on indoor comfort and energy consumption, as well as on the reduction of direct and indirect CO2 emissions related to the climatization of the building. Specifically, the ceiling surface temperatures of some rooms located underneath six different types of green roofs were monitored. Subsequently, the obtained data were used as input for one of the most widely used simulation models, i.e., EnergyPlus, to evaluate the indoor comfort levels and the achievable energy demand savings of the building involved. From these field analyses, green roofs were shown to contribute to the mitigation of the indoor air temperatures, thus producing an improvement of the comfort conditions, especially in summer conditions, despite some worsening during transition periods seeming to arise.

Actions contemplated in Sustainable Energy (and Climate) Action Plans (SEAPs), which municipalities adhering to the EU initiative called “The Covenant of Mayors” are required to prepare, regard many sectors, among which are buildings. To implement such plans, it is necessary to make use of methods for predicting energy use in buildings. Technicians involved in this tend to adopt easy-touse simulation models because of the common mid-level expertise of the offices involved. However, such simplified methods could result in a less accurate evaluation of the energy demand of buildings. In this paper the suitability of the quasi-steady state and the dynamic approach, in the frame of these new urban energy planning tools, is assessed. Specifically, a comparison between the two methods reported in the EN ISO 52016-1 Standard (namely the quasi-steady state monthly method and the dynamic hourly method), used here as representative of the two cited classes of models, is drawn. Despite some limitations of the quasi-steady state model found in the analysis, the possibility to still use both modelling approaches to implement SEAPs is argued in the paper. Moreover, a tentative procedural scheme is proposed, which technicians working on SEAPs can usefully follow in order to choose the most appropriate modelling approach that can be used depending on the specific situation to address.

Microclimate for cultural heritage plays a fundamental role in the degradation process of artefacts exhibited in museums. Generally, the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring inside museums is based on conventional measurements of thermo-hygrometry parameters and longtime averaged measurements of atmospheric pollutants’ concentration. Unfortunately, all these approaches require electric supply and are usually characterized by a noticeable visual impact on the exhibition space, which clearly negatively affects the visitors’ experience. This paper intends to revisit and discuss a methodology (and its test application on field, to estimate the risk of damage of three artefacts displayed in an old museum of Palermo – Italy) perhaps prematurely underestimated that could usefully be re-proposed in particular contexts in which it is necessary to be careful to be as less invasive as possible, as in the case of museums housed in buildings of particular historical-cultural prestige. The discussed approach uses a non-destructive (or minimally invasive, at least) technique consisting in using two types of coupons, bi-metallic and marble ones, that allows an off-line monitoring of the indoor air aggressiveness inside museums, while avoiding consuming electricity and undesirable visual impacts on the site. Specifically, the estimated coupon damage is regarded as gauge to air aggressiveness, in order to provide an early warning of the risk of damage for the artefacts made of materials similar to those which the coupons are made of. Based on the considerations reported in the paper, the indirect evaluation of the air chemical aggressiveness through the assessment of the bi-metallic and marble coupons’ erosion seems to still candidates itself as a feasible method to be applied in complex exhibition scenes.

Cigarette smoke is the main source of indoor chemical and toxic elements. Cadmium (Cd), Thallium (Tl), Lead (Pb) and Antimony (Sb) are important contributors to smoke-related health risks. Data on the association between Rare Earth Elements (REE) Cerium (Ce) and Lanthanum (La) and domestic smoking are scanty. To evaluate the relationship between cigarette smoke, indoor levels of PM2.5 and heavy metals, 73 children were investigated by parental questionnaire and skin prick tests. The houses of residence of 41 "cases" and 32 "controls" (children with and without respiratory symptoms, respectively) were evaluated by 48-hours PM2.5 indoor/outdoor monitoring. PM2.5 mass concentration was determined by gravimetry; the extracted and mineralized fractions of elements (As, Cd, Ce, La, Mn, Pb, Sb, Sr, Tl) were evaluated by ICP-MS. PM2.5 and Ce, La, Cd, and Tl indoor concentrations were higher in smoker dwellings. When corrected for confounding factors, PM2.5, Ce, La, Cd, and Tl were associated with more likely presence of respiratory symptoms in adolescents. We found that: i) indoor smoking is associated with increased levels of PM2.5, Ce, La, Cd, and Tl and ii) the latter with increased presence of respiratory symptoms in children

Tourism represents an important economic driver in Italy, being responsible for approximately 13.2% of the total GDP (a value higher than the reference European average) and for nearly 10% of the regional GDP. Among the touristic sectors, the agritourist ones show a persistent growth, experiencing in 2019 a 6.7 point percentage improvement compared to the 2017 figures. Given this situation, the transition towards a low-carbon path, affecting the building sector for some time, should also involve agritourist buildings, through the release of EU directives, member state laws, and technical rules. On the other hand, agritourism sites could be awarded the Community EU Ecolabel. Unfortunately, awarding the EU environmental excellence brand implies the availability of several data on building energy behavior that should then be managed by complex evaluation tools. To overcome this issue, the use of the simplified ARERA (Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy Networks and Environment) technical datasheets, issued to assess environmental improvements consequent to energy efficiency interventions in the urban residential building stock, is proposed. The application of this tool totally avoids using building computer-based simulation models, thus facilitating the preparation of the EU Ecolabel request documentation by agritourism owners. Being awarded the Community EU Ecolabel also implies approaching a net zero energy condition because of a lower energy consumption and a minor recourse to fossil fuels. For this purpose, an application of an easy graphical method, previously developed for residential and commercial buildings, which visually represents improvements achievable by a given agritourism when implementing energy efficiency measures, is presented.

The United Nations as well as the European Union are strongly committed in promoting a transition towards more sustainable and resilient cities. Indeed, they are increasingly affected by different types of threats, among which the natural ones such as earthquakes, fires, and floods (shocks) and climate variability (stresses). Cities are quite often unable to cope with the adverse effects of such natural hazards. This circumstance leads to the need of introducing resilience-related criteria (besides commonly used sustainability indicators) in decision-making processes. This paper investigates at which extent the inclusion of such new indicators, within multi-criteria assessment tools for supporting the decision-making process by Public Administrations, modifies the prioritization processes of a given set of planned actions to be implemented in cities, which are based instead on the above-cited commonly used indicators. The outcomes of the analysis demonstrated that the introduction of resilience among the prioritization criteria significantly modifies the list of priorities established using only sustainability indicators.

The improvement of the energy efficiency of building stocks represents an important contribution for the reduction of the energy consumption in the European Union (EU), along with the decrease of greenhouse gases emissions. In this aim both the public administrations and the technical experts need reliable calculation methodology to assess buildings’ energy performance. In this framework, despite the recent publication of the Standard EN ISO 52016, that deeply modifies the approach to the energy building simulation by introducing a new hourly dynamic calculation model, the current normative framework (EN ISO 13790) will maintain its validity until the incorporation of the new Standard in the national Standards and Decrees (such as the Italian Standard UNI/TS 11300-1) will take place. The aim of this paper is comparing the suitability of the simulation approaches proposed by the above-cited Standards in relation to their different levels of complexity and to the levels of details of the results provided by them. On purpose, a case study in which the energy behaviour of a public building, sited in the Sicilian city of Trapani in the South of Italy, will be analysed and the results of the simulations conducted according to the aforementioned Standards will be compared considering the outcomes of the EnergyPlus software as reference values.

Resilience represents a new important feature that the anthropic systems, and cities among them, are called to cope with. In fact, the increasing negative stresses to which urban contexts are exposed, and mainly the climatic pressures, call for the capability of adapting to these modifications and, possibly, to restore the ex-ante situations. The role of the buildings and their envelope components is of crucial importance to this aim. This paper analyses the features of resilience of the roofs of buildings by means of proper quantitative indexes. On purpose, the performances of green and cool roofs are compared. The possibility of adopting nonstructural solutions, like the windows shading devices, is also considered.

The main aim of this work is to evaluate how the use of an active protection method, consisting in an improved forced longitudinal ventilation system, can determine a positive impact on heat extraction and people evacuation time in a tunnel fire scenario, by considering a case study which simulations are based on a real gallery.

Energy policy makers, architects and researchers, when designing new buildings or rehabilitating the existing ones, are engaged in the attempt of limiting the energy needs for climatization (NZEB buildings) and the environmental pressure exerted by buildings (EU Climate Action). The pursuit of this demanding assignment calls for innovative solutions in conceiving the building envelope and its energy systems. Recently, among the most effective tools for improving the energy and environmental performances of buildings, the technical interventions regarding the roofs are gaining a rising attention. Indeed, covers of buildings are responsible of a relevant part of their energy losses and, on the other hand, could contribute to increasing the UHI effect. In the paper, a simple methodology that compares the energy and environmental benefits of cool and green coverages with traditional ones is presented. The capability of limiting the UHI effect of these solutions is also analysed. The methodology is applied to four cities of the Sicilian Island, characterized by different building density and different microclimates. This in-field application shows the feasibility of the method to be used in different urban contexts, as a useful contribution to the design of new buildings or to the re-design of the existing ones.

This paper reports the strategy implemented by the Palermo University (Italy) aimed at fostering the energy performance of its campus, particularly towards financing energy saving measures. The basic idea is that the money saved through the energy efficiency actions, constitute the main flywheel to fund further savings and energy efficiency interventions. Results of this paper might bring a useful contribution to the energy planning of cities, since campuses may be regarded as emblematic case study of what can be done in cities because they reproduce, at a little scale, the functioning of wider urban contexts.

The general aim of this paper is that to further deepen and elaborate the results obtained in a previous study of the authors, in which the relationship between the characteristics of five different types of LED lamps and the humans non-image-forming reactions were investigated, by conducting a more detailed statistical analysis and by highlighting the neurological aspects.

Public Administrations are frequently entitled to intervene in building stocks with energy rehabilitation actions. Unfortunately, the monetary budget at their disposal is generally limited and, consequently, a prioritization criterion is needed to optimize its allocation. The classification of the building energy performance is increasingly used by Public Administrations for this purpose. Here we argue that a proper prioritization criterion should depend upon the potential subjects to which the rehabilitated buildings are given back. If the energy rehabilitation is conducted on buildings that will be assigned to new dwellers, it would be preferable to use the energy class – which is based on a standardized energy consumption – because a change of the building users will occur with a consequent plausible change of the building energy usage profile. Instead, if same dwellers will occupy the retrofitted building, a criterion based on a usage profile – that is actually the one established by these occupants – seems to be more appropriate. The priority orders of 23 buildings of the Sicilian stock, obtained using their energy class and real energy consumption, are presented and compared. Results show at which extent these two rankings differ, thus warning Public Administrations about prioritization criteria to adopt.

The energy retrofit of the existing building stocks is considered a preeminent strategy to lowering the energy consumption of the building sector. Other than the definition of the most successful combination of energy saving measures, the definition of a suitable ranking of all the buildings of the stock, on which implementing established energy retrofit measures, is quite a relevant issue. The most eligible criterion for prioritizing the buildings seems their energy consumption because it combines the building energy performance and their size. To investigate the role played by the building dimension in determining the order of priority of all the buildings of a given stock, this paper presents and compares different hierarchical orders of 25 existing buildings that were obtained with and without consideration of the size of the buildings. Results show that, when the size of buildings is covered in the calculations, the generated prioritized order differs significantly. In addition, it has found that the entity of the variations compared to the hierarchy that does not contemplate the size of buildings, is logarithmically correlated with the net surface. Additionally, some concerns have arisen regarding the role of the EP index for the building energy classification.

Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning systems in museums are called to properly control important microclimate parameters, not only for visitors’ wellbeing, but mostly for the preservation of works of art. Accordingly, in case of interruptions to Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning systems, due to maintenance interventions or drawbacks, it is essential to guarantee the acceptable break from service to which possible damages for the works of art are related. In this regard, the aim of this work is to introduce a simple indicator to support curators in regulating the stipulation of contracts with external companies, a more effective management and maintenance of the Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning systems will thus be achieved in order to preserve the works of art, by integrating into the contracts economic penalties related to the system’s service break period. The feasibility of this new procedure has been checked by means of a case study involving the “Museo Regionale” of Palermo (Italy).

Off-line methods for detecting the indoor physical parameters of museums are important tools in order of continuously monitoring the conditions at which works of art are exposed. These conditions, in fact, are mandatory established by several rules and technical standards aimed at preserving the specific artifacts. Moreover, indoor microclimate parameters must also take into account the comfort conditions for visiting people. Both the above-cited requirements suggest to perform the indoor monitoring with equipment visually low impacting. In this paper, some examples of visually low impacting off-line monitoring methods, applied to three artifacts displayed in the “Museo Regionale” of Palermo, are reported, finalized at detecting thermo-hygrometry and pollutant related parameters. Specifically, two different pollutants’ emissions measurement methods are applied: bi-metallic coupons (chemical degradation) and marble coupons (physical degradation). Given the ambiguity of the current regulation concerning measurement methods, it is not possible to determine precisely whether the ones here proposed comply with these standards or not.

Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems in museums are called to properly control important microclimate parameters, not only for visitors’ wellbeing, but mostly for works of art preservation. Accordingly, in case of interruptions occurring to HVAC systems, due to maintenance interventions or drawbacks, it is essential to guarantee the shortest possible period of disservice to which possible damages for the works of art are related. In this regard the aim of this work is to introduce a protocol to follow to support curators in regulate the stipulation of contracts with external companies for a more effective management and maintenance of the HVAC systems in order to preserve the works of art, by integrating into the contracts economic penalties related to the system’s disservice period. The feasibility of this new procedure has been checked by means of a case study involved the “Museo Regionale” of Palermo (Italy).

Several studies analyze the thermal performance of vegetated roofs, presenting either mathematical models or experimental quantifications of heat transfer process through them, also showing the effect of vegetation and soil parameters on the thermal and energy performance of this type of roofing system. However, presently the level of availability of these parameters, has not been enough considered. This work intends to investigate this underestimated issue of the green roofs’ thermal modeling, through the consideration of the availability of parameters pertinent to the shortwave radiation exchange, which are adopted by models based on leaf area index (LAI) and on the fractional vegetation coverage (σf). From the analysis of these models, the importance of a precise knowledge of such parameters arises, despite the availability of their values is still limited. In addition, the absence of a proper database including several green roof plant species and information on their stage of growth, to which a technician possibly will refer in the case of lack of field data, represents quite a worthwhile matter because it may lead to inaccurate estimations of the thermal loads for climatization of buildings equipped with green roofs. In this respect, the manuscript reports an estimation of the errors potentially occurring when not specific vegetation data are used. This evaluation is based on simulations, performed with the DesignBuilder© software, showing the energy effects produced by different assumptions in the green parameters (that is by adopting experimental data revealed by authors and a potential mix of the literature available parameters). Thus, the mission of the paper is to enlighten a difficulty that a technician possibly will encounter when performing an energy and thermal simulation of a green roof; therefore a strong call for making the current database more tailored on green roofs has also arisen.

In cities vegetated roofs are becoming more popular because they can mitigate Urban Heat Island phenomena by decreasing the outdoor air temperature in summer. This decrease reduces the electric energy demand for climatization of buildings, which, in front of a milder climate, will recur less to mechanical tools for guaranteeing thermal comfort conditions to occupants. Cities can registered another indirect positive effect: the reduced cooling energy demand, limits the heat released by the climatization systems’ external unities toward the urban open spaces, thus lowering the outdoor air temperature. Therefore, the outdoor surface temperature of green, as well as cool roofs, can be assumed as an important design parameter for guaranteeing the sustainability of buildings and their approach toward an nZEB path. Obviously, designers and city planners must have at their disposal simple and effective tools for evaluating the economic feasibility of these two choices. This paper proposes a simple method to assess the economic effectiveness of green or cool roofs. It relies on the appraisal of the number of hours during which a building requires a cooling mechanical support for maintaining the indoor comfort conditions. This duty period of the cooling system is then simply converted into the cost of the needed electric energy.

Exposure to outdoor air pollution has been shown to increase asthma symptoms. We assessed the potential role of particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter &lt, 2.5 μm (PM2.5) on respiratory condition in schoolchildren in the south Mediterranean area. A total of 2400 children aged 11–14 years were recruited, and data on their symptoms were collected through an ISAAC (International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood)-based questionnaire. Outdoor PM2.5 was collected for 48 consecutive hours in the schoolyards of their schools and selected residential outdoor areas. The levels of PM2.5 were measured, along with its elemental composition. The incidence of an acute respiratory illness within the first 2 years of life was higher amongst Sicilian children when compared to Maltese children (29.7% vs. 13.5% respectively, p &lt, 0.0001). Malta had a significantly higher prevalence of doctor‐diagnosed asthma, when compared to Sicily (18.0% Malta vs. 7.5% Sicily, p &lt, 0.0001). Similarly, current asthma (7.8% vs. 2.9%, p &lt, 0.0001) and use of asthma medication in the last 12 months (12.1% vs. 4.9%, p &lt, 0.0001) were more frequent amongst Maltese children. Total median PM2.5 was 12.9 μg/m3 in Sicily and 17.9 μg/m3 in Malta. PM2.5 levels were highest in the Maltese urban town of Hamrun (23.6 μg/m3), while lowest in the rural Sicilian town of Niscemi (10.9 μg/m3, p &lt, 0.0001). Hamrun also exhibited the highest levels of nickel, vanadium, lead, zinc, antimony, and manganese, whilst the Sicilian city of Gela had the highest levels of cadmium, and the highest level of PM2.5 when compared to rural Sicily. Elevated levels of PM2.5 were positively associated with the prevalence of doctor diagnosed asthma (odds ratio (OR) 1.05), current asthma (OR 1.06), and use of asthma medication (OR 1.06). All elements in PM2.5 showed increased OR for doctor diagnosed asthma, while higher concentrations of Cd and Mn were associated with higher prevalence of rhinitis.

Energy policy makers, architects and researchers, when designing new buildings or rehabilitating the existing ones, are engaged in the attempt of limiting the energy needs for climatization (NZEB buildings) and the environmental pressure exerted by buildings (EU Climate Action). The pursuit of this demanding assignment calls for innovative solutions in conceiving the building envelope and its energy systems. Recently, among the most effective tools for improving the energy and environmental performances of buildings, the technical interventions regarding the roofs are gaining a rising attention. Indeed, covers of buildings are responsible of a relevant part of their energy losses and, on the other hand, could contribute to increasing the UHI effect. In the paper, a simple methodology that compares the energy and environmental benefits of cool and green coverages with traditional ones is presented. The capability of limiting the UHI effect of these solutions is also analysed. The methodology is applied to four cities of the Sicilian Island, characterized by different building density and different microclimates. This in-field application shows the feasibility of the method to be used in different urban contexts, as a useful contribution to the design of new buildings or to the re-design of the existing ones.

The “Smart Cities & Communities Initiative” of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan is the strategic European response to lead cities and regions to a carbon free future. In this contest energy efficiency in buildings has a crucial role and must be considered in a holistic approach to the urban planning. In order to implement the minimum requirements stated by the European Directive about the Energy Performance of Buildings, and in order to consider different planning layers with the view to a smart city planning, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. This paper investigates the possibility to draft a basic structure of Municipal Building Regulations in order to guide local administrators and technicians and to limit discretionary power of bureaucracy. The paper is organized as follows. First, a review of the most common practices for building regulations in Europe is proposed, then the basic structure of a municipal building regulation for the city of Palermo (Southern Italy) accounting for sustainability is discussed.

The energy saving in building goes on as an important challenge in the policy of Developed Countries. While the issue of energy building efficiency in heating season has deeply been investigated for a long time, the issue of energy building efficiency in cooling season is relatively recent. Moreover, considering the increase of electric consumption for air-conditioning in summer, mainly due to the growing quality of life, the research of technologies for reducing energy building consumption during this season becomes essential. The green roof represents a technology useful to reduce the energy consumption during the cooling season. In this work the authors report the results of a monitoring campaign of temperature through a green roof that is installed in a building situ in a town close to Palermo, South of Italy.

In this paper, a dynamic simulation of a building located in the Campus University of Palermo, Italy, has been carried out. We considered two different scenarios; in the first one, the building as it is, with a conventional covering, while in the second one the roof was equipped with a green roof. The results of the two simulations have been compared, suggesting that such building component could contribute to the energy savings of the building. However, it has to be considered as part of other possible actions devoted to improve the energy efficiency of the whole building. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of the CENTRO CONGRESSI INTERNAZIONALE SRL In this paper, a dynamic simulation of a building located in the Campus University of Palermo, Italy, has been carried out. We considered two different scenarios; in the first one, the building as it is, with a conventional covering, while in the second one the roof was equipped with a green roof. The results of the two simulations have been compared, suggesting that such building component could contribute to the energy savings of the building. However, it has to be considered as part of other possible actions devoted to improve the energy efficiency of the whole building.

The “Smart Cities & Communities Initiative” of the Strategic Energy Technology Plan is the strategic European response to lead cities and regions to a carbon free future. In this contest energy efficiency in buildings has a crucial role and must be considered in a holistic approach to the urban planning. In order to implement the minimum requirements stated by the European Directive about the Energy Performance of Buildings, and in order to consider different planning layers with the view to a smart city planning, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. This paper investigates the possibility to draft a basic structure of Municipal Building Regulations in order to guide local administrators and technicians and to limit discretionary power of bureaucracy. The paper is organized as follows. First, a review of the most common practices for building regulations in Europe is proposed, then the basic structure of a municipal building regulation for the city of Palermo (Southern Italy) accounting for sustainability is discussed.