Cost-Effective Refurbishment of Italian Historic Buildings

This chapter investigates strategies for approaching the energy refurbishment of historic buildings, by proposing, beyond a general methodology aimed at guaranteeing feasibility of the design, its application to two cases studies in the context of South Italy, in a typical Mediterranean climate according to the Köppen classification.According to the latest international guidelines in matter of building energy efficiency and future trends, by 2020, a great effort should be applied to both new constructions and building refurbishments, to achieve goals of nearly zero-energy impacts or very low energy demand. Of course, the energy refurbishment of architectures characterized by historical or artistic values should not determine damage of the valuable peculiarities. In this study, by means of the proposed case studies, and thus an admirable Italian building, examples of an approach toward cost-effective and architecturally compatible actions are proposed, according to the European methodology of cost optimality. Moreover, by comparison with the feasible refurbishment of an existing building, the difference in energy retrofit designs of historical or modern edifices is evidenced. The proposed case studies are an educational ancient palace built beginning in the 12th century and, as an existing building, a railway station located in the same city. In both cases, replacement of components of thermal envelope and active energy systems will be applied, by evidencing that, based on the building peculiarities, technologies, architectural values, and kinds of loads, different boundary conditions imply different cost-optimal energy conservation measures.